John McCormick writes: news of a couple of surveys was e-mailed to the Salut! Sunderland team recently. The first e-mail was more or less a repeat of something we had a little while ago, from a website calling itself Dirtyplayers.co.uk. The second was new to me. We’re happy to share their findings but if I am honest, I’m not impressed by either survey and feel one, and only one, could have value.
The dirtyplayers.org wesbite originally reported, among other things, that Gareth Barry had accumulated the most ‘Dirty Points’ in the history of the Premier League and that Lee Cattermole was the dirtiest player based on number of appearances. The e-mail we got this week followed this up by telling us that Gareth Barry had picked up his 121st yellow card in the Spurs – West Brom game, and that he’d played 131 games for Everton, who had recently been branded the dirtiest team in Premier League history.
The second, from ticketgum via journalistic.org reported that (up to) 94 per cent of refs surveyed by ticketgum reported being abused during games …
statistics
McCormick’s Craic: more on lies and statistics – and Everton’s wisely spent £40,000
John McCormick again raises Salut! Sunderland to levels of erudition George Dixon and Monsier Salut’s other hapless teachers would have thought impossible. But it all boils down to Everton romping past us in the FA cup replay thanks not to one of those Leon Osman ‘fall over own feet and wait for Howard Webb to see the invisible foul’ routines but to crafty subsidisation of away support. Unless, of course, they were just miles better than us …