Championship: Doing the Double

The following list shows the number of times each club in the Championship won home and away against one of their rivals during the 2012/2013 Championship season. Every single one of the 24 clubs managed to achieve this feat against at least one of their opponents during the season.

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7

• Cardiff City: Millwall, Blackburn Rovers, Leeds United, Blackpool, Birmingham City, Wolves and Sheffield Wednesday.

6

• Hull City: Millwall, Derby County, Huddersfield Town, Ipswich Town, Leeds United and Birmingham City.

5

• Watford: Huddersfield Town, Leicester City, Birmingham City, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest.

4

• Birmingham City: Bristol City, Peterborough United, Leeds United and Middlesbrough.
• Crystal Palace: Peterborough United, Derby County, Wolves and Charlton Athletic.
• Leicester City: Bristol City, Huddersfield Town, Burnley and Middlesbrough.
• Nottingham Forest: Peterborough United, Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday and Charlton Athletic.

3

• Burnley: Bristol City, Derby County and Wolves.
• Charlton Athletic: Bristol City, Blackpool and Leicester City.
• Huddersfield Town: Bristol City, Burnley and Wolves.
• Sheffield Wednesday: Millwall, Barnsley and Charlton Athletic.

2

• Barnsley: Millwall and Middlesbrough.
• Blackburn Rovers: Bristol City and Barnsley.
• Bolton Wanderers: Bristol City and Blackburn Rovers.
• Brighton & Hove Albion: Huddersfield Town and Burnley.
• Bristol City: Peterborough United and Middlesbrough.
• Derby County: Bristol City and Leeds United.
• Ipswich Town: Birmingham City and Bolton Wanderers.
• Millwall: Leicester City and Middlesbrough.
• Peterborough United: Barnsley and Cardiff City.
• Wolves: Bristol City and Birmingham City.

1

• Blackpool: Millwall.
• Leeds United: Bristol City.
• Middlesbrough: Blackburn Rovers.

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• No side did the double over promoted Hull City or play-off finalists Crystal Palace and Watford.
• Cardiff did the double over seven other sides but relegated Peterborough were the only side to do the double over the Dragons.
• Ten sides did the double against Bristol City which may explain why the club finished bottom.
• The three sides who did the double against only one other club finished in 13th (Leeds United), 15th (Blackpool) and 16th (Middlesbrough)

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Alliterative Footballers in the Premier League, Championship, League One and League Two

A list of footballers who have played in the Premier League, Championship, League One or League Two this season with their first name beginning with the same letter as their surname. Please let me know if you are aware of any others.

• Adebayo Akinfenwa (Northampton Town)
• Adebayo Azeez (Wycombe Wanderers & Leyton Orient)
• Ahmed Abdulla (Barnet)
• Akwasi Asante (Shrewsbury Town)
• Ali Al Habsi (Wigan Athletic)
• Almen Abdi (Watford)
• Andreas Arestidou (Morecambe)
• Andrey Arshavin (Arsenal)
• Antolín Alcáraz (Wigan Athletic)
• Barry Bannan (Aston Villa)
• Bartosz Bialkowski (Notts County)
• Billy Bodin (Torquay United)
• Brian Barry-Murphy (Rochdale)
• Chris Cohen (Nottingham Forest)
• Christopher Chantler (Carlisle United)
• Ciaran Clark (Aston Villa)
• Clarke Carlisle (York City & Northampton Town)
• Conor Clifford (Portsmouth & Crawley Town)
• Courtney Cameron (Rotherham United)
• Craig Cathcart (Blackpool)
• Craig Clay (Chesterfield)
• Craig Conway (Cardiff Dragons)
• Craig Curran (Rochdale)
• Cyrus Christie (Coventry Dragons)
• Damien Delaney (Crystal Palace & Ipswich Town)
• Danny Drinkwater (Leicester City)
• Darryl Duffy (Cheltenham Town)
• David Davis (Wolverhampton Wanderers)
• David De Gea (Manchester United)
• David Dunn (Blackburn Rovers)
• Diego De Girolamo (Sheffield United)
• Donervon Daniels (Tranmere Rovers)
• Dorian Dervite (Charlton Athletic)
• Ethan Ebanks-Landell (Bury)
• Frank Fielding (Derby County)
• Gábor Gyepes (Portsmouth)
• Gaël Givet (Blackburn Rovers)
• Gary Gardner (Aston Villa)
• Gianluca Gracco (Dagenham & Redbridge)
• Gordon Greer (Brighton & Hove Albion)
• Harry Hooman (Cheltenham Town)
• Heidar Helguson (Cardiff Dragons)
• Jake Jervis (Portsmouth, Tranmere Rovers, Carlisle United & Birmingham City)
• Jake Jones (Walsall)
• Jamie Jones (Leyton Orient)
• Jermaine Jenas (Nottingham Forest & Queens Park Rangers)
• Jermaine Johnson (Sheffield Wednesday)
• Joe Jacobson (Shrewsbury Town)
• Johnnie Jackson (Charlton Athletic)
• Jussi Jääskeläinen (West Ham United)
• Kei Kamara (Norwich City)
• Keith Keane (Preston North End)
• Leon Legge (Gillingham & Brentford)
• Leroy Lita (Sheffield Wednesday & Birmingham City)
• Marcus Marshall (Bury)
• Mark Molesley (Exeter City & Plymouth Argyle)
• Marko Marin (Chelsea)
• Marvin Morgan (Shrewsbury Town)
• Mathieu Manset (Carlisle United)
• Matt Mitchel-King (AFC Wimbledon)
• Matthew McClure (Wycombe Wanderers)
• Matthew Mills (Bolton Wanderers)
• Michael Morrison (Charlton Athletic)
• Modibo Maïga (West Ham United)
• Nyron Nosworthy (Watford)
• Olanrewaju Oyebanjo (York City)
• Osayamen Osawe (Accrington Stanley)
• Oulwasanmi Odelusi (Bolton Wanderers)
• Paul Parry (Shrewsbury Town)
• Pavel Pogrebnyak (Reading)
• Phil Picken (Bury)
• Richard Ravenhill (Bradford City)
• Robbie Rogers (Stevenage)
• Sam Saunders (Brentford)
• Sam Slocombe (Scunthorpe United)
• Sam Sodje (Portsmouth)
• Scott Shearer (Rotherham United)
• Scott Sinclair (Manchester City)
• Sean Scannell (Huddersfield Town)
• Sean St. Ledger (Leicester City & Millwall)
• Stéphane Sessègnon (Sunderland)
• Steve Sidwell (Fulham)
• Steve Simonsen (Preston North End)
• Steven Schumacher (Bury)

 

Loan players at Championship clubs

The vast majority of clubs in the Championship supplement their squads with players on loan from the Premier League or further afield. In fact, many clubs depend on taking a few players on loan at the start of every season and often pay substantial loan fees in order to do so. It’s a fact of life in the Championship.

However, Watford have taken this to another level this season by taking a dozen or so players on loan from various clubs in Italy and Spain. Whilst this is within Football League rules it has infuriated many including rent-a-quote Ian Holloway and rent-a-rant Adrian Durham.

The percentages above represent the total number of minutes all players have played for each club divided by the number of minutes played by loan players for the club.

It’s perhaps unsurprising to see Watford out on top after their well reported deals. They’re followed by Ipswich Town who have had a turbulent season, recently bringing in Mick McCarthy to steady their sinking tractor. Hull City’s Egyptian experiment sees them also feature in the upper echelons of the chart.

Whilst Hull City and Watford are undoubtedly having great seasons with much of their squad made up of loan players, it doesn’t always lead to success. Cardiff City have fielded the lowest amount of loan players during games this season yet the Dragons currently lead the division.

 

CHAMPIONSHIP 2011/2012 SEASON REVIEW WORD CLOUDS

With the new season upon us we at Spirit of Mirko are continuing our retrospective on the 2011/2012 season. Following on from our Premier League word-clouds we’ve now constructed twenty-four clouds that represent each Championship club’s season via the words used in their respective BBC match reports.

If you wish to use one of these images for your own site, then feel free. Just ensure you set up a link to this page and also give full credit to tagxedo (the wonderful site that these images were created in).

Barnsley

 

Foreign players in the Championship 2011/2012

Of the 699 players who appeared for Championship clubs during the 2011/2012 season 387 were English. As you’d expect the other nations from the British Isles also featured heavily with (and no, this isn’t a joke) 52 Scotsmen, 50 Irishmen, 28 Welshmen and 19 Northern Irishmen.

The table below shows data on each of the twenty-four clubs in the Championship and the nationalities who played during the 2011/2012 season. The columns are as follows, Nats: number of nationalities used, Plyrs: total number of players used, Eng: Englishmen used (Sco, Wal, NI, Ire self-explanatory). %Eng is the percentage of the total number of players used who are English whilst %B&I is the percentage of players used who are from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. Whilst I understand that Ireland is a foreign country I feel that this metric is useful as players from the Republic of Ireland have been integral parts of squads in the football pyramid for many years.

Championship nationalities 2011/2012

Relegated Portsmouth are the side that can most adequately be labelled as the division’s “foreign-legion”, though it has to be said that the term “foreign legion” exited the football lexicon a few years ago. I think it dropped out of common usage at the same time that the goalkeepers union was finally disbanded.

Doncaster Rovers’ (Willie McKay inspired) policy of recruiting anything that moved during the second half of last season leaves them having used the most players in the division (41). Play-off semi finalists Birmingham City used the fewest players having only used 22 during the season. It’s a real credit to the Blues as they also had a gruelling (and very fun) sojourn in the Europa League to navigate.

Peterborough United fielded the highest percentage of English players (79%) but it was Barnsley who used the most (28). In fact the only player that Barnsley used who originated outside of the British Isles was Ricardo Vaz Te, and he signed for West Ham during the January transfer window.

Blackpool used the most Scottish players (7), Crystal Palace used the most Welshmen (4), Burnley were the club who fielded the most Northern Irish players (5) whilst Palace and Ipswich Town fielded the most Irishmen (5).

In 2011/2012 an incredible sixty-seven different countries were represented in the Championship. They were Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Iceland, Brazil, Netherlands, Denmark, Nigeria, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Spain, Senegal, Grenada, Zimbabwe, Portugal, Trinidad &Tobago, France, Mali, Slovakia, Malta, Jamaica, Slovenia, Serbia, Ghana, South Africa, DR Congo, Finland, Australia, Cote d’Ivoire, Bulgaria, Japan, Latvia, Poland, Israel, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Antigua and Barbuda, Curaoao, Czech Republic, Malawi, Morocco, Guadeloupe, Chile, Comoros, Argentina, Cameroon, Algeria, United States, Belgium, Estonia, Honduras, Hungary, Barbados, Switzerland, Fiji, Canada, Mexico, Croatia, Italy, New Zealand, Turkey, Austria, Sweden, Germany and Burundi.