Less than One - points don't always mean prizes

When playing Championship Manager - the classic 01/02 version obviously - when your team gets promoted the target for the first season at the higher level is, in my experience, to make sure you have at least the number of points equal to the number of games you've played. If you end up like that at the end of the season you'll generally avoid relegation. In the Premier League, with 20 teams each playing 38 games, you'll mostly be safe when you get to 38 points.

As with all the best simulation games, this reflects real life. In only 4 of the last 18 seasons has that not been enough. In 2002/2003 West Ham were relegated with 42 points so you need to be cautious about applying this 'rule'. Maybe they eased off when they got to 38, or perhaps they were  playing too much Championship Manager. Anyway, I thought I'd check out how this revelation affects teams in the top 4 English divisions at the moment.

In the Premier League there are actually seven teams - all the way up to Brentford in 14th place - with fewer points than games played. Seven struggling teams; I know because I watched some of them this weekend. This should definitely give encouragement to those in the bottom three places.

In the Championship, four teams seem to be battling it out on this basis. It's affected by the fact that Derby County were deducted 21 points, and Reading 6 points, for various breaches of financial rules, meaning their positions are probably not true reflections of their performances. You'd guess this means the bottom two, Peterborough and Barnsley, are near certainties for relegation, even at this stage.

League One (I know, for those of you baffled by almost everything about the noble sport of Association Football, these are prime examples of the weirdness of our national game) has four clubs within the points < games rule but plenty of teams immediately above them who could get sucked into the relegation battle. This league also features four relegation places so maybe this means you need points > games, I'm not sure about that.

League Two has only two clubs relegated at the end of the season (often a relief to CM 0102 players) so I'd guess you could be safe with fewer points than games. There are currently three within the recommended margin but another four very much in the mix. Although this seems like the easiest league in which to avoid relegation - and heart attacks when playing the game - there is going to be a rare old battle in real life this year.

Good luck to all these teams - I'll be following your progress.

With whom are we most angry?

Maybe contemptuous of, rather than angry with ...

Novax Djokovic?

The Serbian Government?

Boris and Carrie?

His Royal Humbug who marched his troops up to the top of the hill?

The inventor of the Platinum Pudding idea?

I'm going for Martin Reynolds, the principal private secretary to the Prime Minister. His crime? Being stingy. "Bring your own booze"? What kind of party host does that? A mean one, that's who.

And no, that's not a misprint, Novax.

Apologise for this?

Quinton de Kock is a South African cricketer. He is in the country's squad for the T20 World Cup, currently being held in that great cricketing country the United Arab Emirates. Due to play the West Indies on Tuesday, he withdrew from the team because of an instruction from Cricket South Africa that the whole team must Take A Knee before the match.

De Kock explained "I am not a racist and I do not feel the need to prove that with a gesture. When you are told what to do with no discussion, I felt like it takes away the meaning. I come from a mixed-race family. My half-sisters are coloured and my stepmom is black. For me, black lives have mattered since I was born. Not just because there was a movement."

I have always felt uncomfortable about this aspect of Taking A Knee. If it becomes - or has become - a mere gesture, and individual players are culturally coerced into conforming, the action itself comes close to being a racist one. I understand South Africa's recent history and its special sensitivities about any suggestion of racism but they should understand that forcing a player to doing something which he is not comfortable with is no different to some regrettable aspects of the nation's recent past.

De Kock continued "I am deeply sorry for all the hurt, confusion and anger that I have caused [really? HE has caused?]. I was quiet on this very important issue until now." He has decided he will now conform to the team's wishes and Take The Knee before matches.

I don't believe you have anything to apologise for, Quinton de Kock.

Norrie un-personed by the media

Remember all the hype about Emma Raducanu? Won the US Open tennis as a qualifier and spent the next few weeks doing PR, glamour shots for the front pages and generally swanning around and luxuriating in her astonishing victory. Sacked her coach. First match back on court, a bad first round defeat at Indian Wells to a lower ranked player. Currently ranked 24th in the world.

Cameron Norrie: British male tennis player, won the Men's Singles in that same Indian Wells event. The first British man to win a Masters 1,000 singles title since Andy Murray in 2016. No need for qualification for Norrie - he has reached six tournament finals this year and is now ranked 15th in the world. No swanning around for him, he is studying for a sociology degree in his off-court time. No PR, no glamour shots, no front pages, just working hard preparing  for the next tournament.

Just saying.

The World's Most Complicated Sport

I've blogged before about my experiences as a rugby teacher.

That's actually a bit of a stretch since, as a rookie music teacher at a private school, I and the rest of the staff had to take rugby on a Saturday afternoon. Very much the blind leading the blind. As I said at https://usedtobecroquetman.blogspot.com/2020/06/why-are-arsenal-so-toothless-football.html "Each autumn, the whole staff would gather just before the start of term to be addressed by the head of PE, who told us the latest changes to rugby's offside laws". I never understood the old laws, let alone the new ones. Even today, watching rugby is an impenetrable experience for me. I invite any lover of sport to explain the myriad laws on rucks, mauls and scrums (also previously blogged).,

Not just offside laws, as I discovered yesterday that the perennial changes continue to this present day. These are the new laws this season.

50-22

If a player kicks the ball from their own half and it bounces into touch within the opposition's 22, then the attacking team will receive a lineout.

Goalline drop-out

In the in-goal area, if the ball is held up, or there is an attacking knock-on, or a kick from the attacking team is grounded by the defending side, then play restarts with a goalline drop-out.

Pre-bound pods of players

Outlawing the practice of pods of three or more players being pre-bound before receiving the ball. The one-player latch is still permitted but he must now stay on his feet and enter through the gate.

Sanctioning the lower limb clearout

Penalising players who target/drop their weight on to the lower limbs of a jackaler.

Pods? Latch? Gate? Jackaler?

See what I mean?

Rucks, mauls and scrums

For the last three Saturdays I have been watching rugby. It's a sport which I really don't enjoy or understand, for reasons which will become apparent. I've been entertaining my dear friend Tony, who is a rugby fan when it concerns England or the British and Irish Lions; club rugby, not so much. Unlike me and football, where the club game is everything and England a mere sideshow.

I should clarify: rugby union, as opposed to rugby league. The latter is a game played by Northerners with supporters in cloth caps

the former played by Southern Softies in front of cravat-wearing observers. More on rugby league in due course. For the moment, I shall mean rugby union when I discuss 'rugby'. Played with a strange shaped ball, just to annoy the players when it bounces.

There are some aspects of rugby which can be thrilling. The sight of the backs flinging the ball to each other in a fast sequence which ends up with the winger flying past his (or her; I'm told the fairer sex plays this brutal game) opponent is a sight to behold. However, only a couple of times in the latest three matches did that happen and most of the game is spent with the forwards pushing and shoving each other in a 16-person melee

which is variously described as a ruck, maul or scrum.Basically a war fought with swords, pikes and fists rather than the elegance of the fly half who uses drones and the swiftness of the wingers who use tanks. The scrum half, by the way, is a spy who uses intelligence, cunning and deception.

When the referee awards a scrum, as a result of some misdemeanour that is opaque to the average viewer, our eight forwards bend over and form a kind of fusion of a phalanx and a flying wedge (imagine a Christmas tree on its side),

the opposition does the same and the two groups, still bent over, huff and puff, grapple with and push against each other.

The ball is then inserted in the middle and the two armies compete to backheel it to their fleet-footed compatriots, who then attempt to play proper, running rugby.

The scrum is therefore a formal piece of action; when the two packs (as the forwards are often called) do their shoving against each other during a period of open play, the action is called a ruck. If the ball is one the floor. Or a maul. If the ball is held in one of the forward's hands. And if at least one of our mauling team is bound to at least one opposing mauler. Got it? Are you beginning to see why I find rugby baffling? In each of these three situations there are myriad laws, the breaking of which will lead to a penalty, free kick or another scrum. I told you it would get easier but I lied.

Rugby league solves the scrum problem by basically not having any. Except in rare circumstances, with which I shall not bore you. A situation which, in rugby union, would result in a scrum, results in a simple backheel without an opponent involved. It makes for a much more free-flowing game which is easier for the casual viewer - me - to comprehend.

One thing I do like about rugby is the refereeing. Firstly, they stand no nonsense from the players. In televised international games they have microphones, which means we can hear what they say to the players. Turns out they never stop talking

but it's apparently helpful for the players to know, for instance, that a maul has been formed. They are clear with the players about their reasons for making decisions. It's possible that football referees are too but we don't know because the referees are not miked up. Sadly.

The football season started yesterday. Ipswich Town

(check out the shirt sponsor) were first to earn the "same old, same old" tag as they couldn't keep a clean sheet and only drew at home.

Friday: the Premier League is back on TV; the long summer drought is over.

Cheers!

I fell out of love with the Olympic Games when Ben Johnson cheated his way to a Gold Medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics. Having read The Rodchenkov Affair recently, it's clear that, if you can't be certain the athletes competing have not been taking performance enhancing drugs, what's the point in watching? So I don't.

For the next Summer Olympics in 2024 in Paris, cheerleading may make its debut, having been granted full status as an Olympic "sport", along with lacrosse, kickboxing, muay thai and sambo. Ski mountaineering has been added to the 2026 Winter Olympic list. This year (actually last year because the current event is the postponed 2020 one) the new sports are baseball/softball (previously dropped from 2008), surfing, karate, skateboarding and sport climbing - wrestling was removed.

In case you don't know what muay thai is, it is sometimes called Thai boxing, a martial art characterized by the combined use of fists, elbows, knees and shins. I was once required, at school, to enter the boxing ring and attempt to pummel some equally inept pupil to death - or at least that was what it seemed like. We declined the invitation to hit each other which, as you can imagine, didn't go down well. I didn't care since I hated the school. So quite why an event dedicated to "friendship and respect ... with a view to building a better world" should promote violent activities is beyond me.

The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. [article 2 of the Fundamental Principles of Olympism in the Olympic Charter]

Sambo is another martial art, a form of wrestling which Wikipedia describes as a "Soviet martial art", so not only violent but also representing a decadent, obsolete nation. Like gladiator fighting - now there's a suggestion for the next Olympics.

Why do I report this if I don't care about the Olympics? I guess because I question the purpose/point of the Olympic Games. If I were the head of the IOC, I'd sub divide the Games. After all, the Winter Olympics (which take place during the Southern Hemisphere summer) are separate. You could have all the violent sports in one Games - the Savage Games (to include archery and the women's 10m air rifle) - and all the sports with endemic drug cheating, e.g. cycling, weightlifting, sprinting, into the Counterfeit Games. You would be left with all the harmless sports which promote genuine world values and encourage the youth of today to undertake healthy, pure, honest endeavour, such as sailing, crown green bowls and pasta making. The Universal Games. I might even watch.

The cheerleaders could be employed on the sidelines of all the events. That's what they do. The New Olympism.

Triple-doubles

Russell Westbrook is a basketball player. Clearly an outstanding one, as last month he beat a long-standing record of 181 triple-doubles, set by Oscar Robertson in 1974.

US sport is obsessed with statistics. In baseball, for instance, there are the following just for batting:

1B – Single: hits on which the batter reaches first base safely without the contribution of a fielding error

2B – Double: hits on which the batter reaches second base safely without the contribution of a fielding error

3B – Triple: hits on which the batter reaches third base safely without the contribution of a fielding error

AB – At bat: plate appearances, not including bases on balls, being hit by pitch, sacrifices, interference, or obstruction

AB/HR – At bats per home run: at bats divided by home runs

BA – Batting average (also abbreviated AVG): hits divided by at bats (H/AB)

BB – Base on balls (also called a "walk"): hitter not swinging at four pitches called out of the strike zone and awarded first base.

BABIP – Batting average on balls in play: frequency at which a batter reaches a base after putting the ball in the field of play. Also a pitching category.

BB/K – Walk-to-strikeout ratio: number of bases on balls divided by number of strikeouts

BsR – Base runs: Another run estimator, like runs created

EQA – Equivalent average: a player's batting average absent park and league factors

FC – Fielder's choice: times reaching base safely because a fielder chose to try for an out on another runner

GO/AO – Ground ball fly ball ratio: number of ground ball outs divided by number of fly ball outs

GDP or GIDP – Ground into double play: number of ground balls hit that became double plays

GPA – Gross production average: 1.8 times on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, divided by four

GS – Grand slam: a home run with the bases loaded, resulting in four runs scoring, and four RBIs credited to the batter

H – Hit: reaching base because of a batted, fair ball without error by the defense

HBP – Hit by pitch: times touched by a pitch and awarded first base as a result

HR – Home runs: hits on which the batter successfully touched all four bases, without the contribution of a fielding error

HR/H – Home runs per hit: home runs divided by total hits

ITPHR – Inside-the-park home run: hits on which the batter successfully touched all four bases, without the contribution of a fielding error or the ball going outside the ball park.

IBB – Intentional base on balls: times awarded first base on balls (see BB above) deliberately thrown by the pitcher. Also known as IW (intentional walk).

ISO – Isolated power: a hitter's ability to hit for extra bases, calculated by subtracting batting average from slugging percentage

K – Strike out (also abbreviated SO): number of times that a third strike is taken or swung at and missed, or bunted foul. Catcher must catch the third strike or batter may attempt to run to first base.

LOB – Left on base: number of runners neither out nor scored at the end of an inning

OBP – On-base percentage: times reached base (H + BB + HBP) divided by at bats plus walks plus hit by pitch plus sacrifice flies (AB + BB + HBP + SF)

OPS – On-base plus slugging: on-base percentage plus slugging average

PA – Plate appearance: number of completed batting appearances

PA/SO – Plate appearances per strikeout: number of times a batter strikes out to their plate appearance

R – Runs scored: number of times a player crosses home plate

RC – Runs created: an attempt to measure how many runs a player has contributed to their team

RP – Runs produced: an attempt to measure how many runs a player has contributed

RBI – Run batted in: number of runners who score due to a batter's action, except when the batter grounded into a double play or reached on an error

RISP – Runner in scoring position: a breakdown of a batter's batting average with runners in scoring position, which includes runners at second or third base

SF – Sacrifice fly: fly balls hit to the outfield which, although caught for an out, allow a baserunner to advance

SH – Sacrifice hit: number of sacrifice bunts which allow runners to advance on the basepaths

SLG – Slugging average: total bases achieved on hits divided by at-bats (TB/AB)

TA – Total average: total bases, plus walks, plus hit by pitch, plus steals, minus caught stealing divided by at bats, minus hits, plus caught stealing, plus grounded into double plays [(TB + BB + HBP + SB – CS)/(AB – H + CS + GIDP)]

TB – Total bases: one for each single, two for each double, three for each triple, and four for each home run [H + 2B + (2 × 3B) + (3 × HR)] or [1B + (2 × 2B) + (3 × 3B) + (4 × HR)]

TOB – Times on base: times reaching base as a result of hits, walks, and hit-by-pitches (H + BB + HBP)

XBH – Extra base hits: total hits greater than singles (2B + 3B + HR)

Some of these are traditional, such as batting average, others examples of Sabermetric stats, such as OBS, yet more are weirdly esoteric (EQA) or aggregates of other stats. You'll get different lists from different sources; the above are from Wikipedia.

I hope you're keeping up. In addition to the above for batting, there are stats for pitching, fielding and baserunning. Michael Lewis' book Moneyball is famous for describing how Billy Beane, the General Manager of Oakland Athletics, revolutionised player recruitment by an intense stats-based focus.

You'll be pleased to know, though, that this post is not about baseball [Ed: It's a bit late for that, Nigel]. It's about basketball.

In any game of basketball, a player's contribution can be assessed according to five measures: points scored, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots. By recording 10 or more in three of these categories in a game, a player achieves a triple-double. Most commonly it happens in the first three categories. For instance, three days ago Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets scored 47 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists against the Milwaukee Bucks. A triple-double.

Back to Oscar Robertson. In his career, he scored 181 triple-doubles and his record stood for 47 years and was thought of as one those that might never be broken. Until now. On 10 May, Russell Westbrook, playing for the Washington Wizards against the Chicago Hawks, scored 28 points, 13 rebounds and 21 assists to record his 182nd career triple-double. And he's still only 32.

BTW if you are wondering whether basketball is a team sport or an individual one, the Wizards lost the game!