04/24/24
January 10, 2005
Simon Barnes' Magic Numbers for 2004: An annual look at the important numbers from the sporting year. "16 - Putative position in the medal table for Michael Phelps if he were a country." "169,998,000 - Difference in cost, in pounds, between Chelsea and Scarborough squads when they met in the FA Cup fourth round."
124 Months between penalties scored against Manchester United at Old Trafford. now that's more than 10 years. they must play more than 25 or 30 games at old trafford a season. is it that ManU does not get called for many penalties at home or that their keepers (who post-schmeichel have not been lauded as being superlative) had a good 10 year run going? or both? or neither? how many penalties would a team be facing in a premiership season anyway? a half dozen?
posted by gspm at 11:56 AM on January 10, 2005
Nobody gives penatlies against Man U at Old Trafford - it's against some unpublished FA rule. See also : Opposition shots that are three feet over the goal line, but not given as goals. Crystal Palace are the current leaders, for spot kicks awarded, this season, with six in 22 games. Middlesbrough and Charlton haven't yet been awarded a penalty in the 2004/05 season. Aston Villa and West Brom have both been awarded one and missed it. Everyone else has at least one goal from the spot.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 01:02 PM on January 10, 2005
Be curious to see the stat on the number of penalties actually given in that time, not just the number of scores...
posted by sashae at 01:53 PM on January 10, 2005
the EPL website statistics (which gives me some sort of invisible or white on white text in firefox, thumbs up EPL!) suggests that of the top 20 penalty takers in the EPL (from Johnson 5 for 7 - contradicting mr bismarks stat above, down to 9 players that are 1 for 1) are 35 for 39 this season. of course, since their stats only count for the top 20 kick takers it is not an exhaustive list. and since the top 20 includes three different players from Chelsea (each 1 for 1) and two each from Portsmouth, Man City and Southampton it means that either some teams are not represented on the list or some teams have not been awarded a penalty. or maybe it does work out. as noted above there are two teams without a penalty and two teams without a successful penalty. though i guess the top 20 includes 15 different teams and the four teams with 0 penalties scored would make 19 teams.
posted by gspm at 06:06 PM on January 10, 2005
My own favourite is probably the Phelps one, but the one that hurt the most: "1,298 - Minutes of play between goals for Northern Ireland before David Healy scored against Norway in February." That's almost 14 and a half games.