Least Useful Statistic?

[FredPuli43]

"When Andreas Weimann scored for Aston Villa against Arsenal on Saturday, it was the first time that Arsene Wenger had seen an opposition player with the same initials [as himself] score against his team in the league since Ashley Ward did so for Derby County in May 1997" [The Times,today] In the league, eh? So there may have someone in a cup game?

Is that the most useless and trivial stat you've ever heard or read? Have you any contender?

[Duncer]

For utter banality, that will be hard to beat.

[mightyWBA]

You'd have to go a long way to beat that one!
I wonder who even thought of looking it up...Very sad.

[Hopkirk]

Here's a good one.

The last two Chelsea managers have been sacked after losing to West Brom.

(AVB and Carlo Ancelotti)

Chelsea play West Brom on Saturday.

Be afraid Rafa, be very afraid.

[New Judge]

The utter drivel spouted by sports commentators in general (and football “pundits” in particular) never ceases to amaze me - although so commonplace is it that I think I am beyond amazement now. Having said that, this does indeed sound at the very top end of banality and I too am intrigued as to who would bother to do the research.

Moving away from sport and into fiction older readers may remember “The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin (the original with Leonard Rossiter, not the ghastly remake with Martin Clunes). Reggie was fond of quoting weather statistics during his daily diatribe as he arrived in the office. On one occasion he said “Yesterday was the first time since records began that no weather records were broken!”

[ichkeria]

A statistic which is not exactly bizarre but...
England 's male football team has never beaten a 'major' footballing nation (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain)
in the knockout stages of either European Champs or World Cup outside England

[FredPuli43]

I blame computers. The AW information could be found by asking the computer for a list of all goal scorers from the date of Wenger's appointment and then scanning it by computer or eye for all those with A W as upper case. But you'd have to have an eye for the trivial to ask.

The ones that get me are the number of passes completed by each player and the number of kilometres run by each. Are there blokes with clicker counters watching each player? And who has the time and means to measure such distances? That the goal is the first scored for Oldham by a left-footed, 20 year-old player, born in Mapperley, since 1949/50 seems easy.
r

[mightyWBA]

Ichkeria..
We beat Argentina in the 1962,(1966) and 2002 World Cup finals,lost on penalties in 1998 after a 2-2 draw and were cheated by Maradona in 1986,our only "defeat".
Only played Uruguay twice including 1966(drew)
We beat Germany 1-0 at Euro 2000
Against France it's won 1 (Spain 82) drawn 2 lost 1(we beat them in '66 as well)
Played Holland only twice apart from beating them at Euro 96
We've beaten Spain 4 times at the European championship finals (1968(twice),1980,1996) drew in the 1982 World Cup and only lost once (WC 1950)
So apart from Spain,France,Argentina and Germany you're right..and if we were allowed to count Euro 96 our 4-1 drubbing of Holland could be added!

[ichkeria]

MightyWBA,
All those games you mention were either in group stages or preliminary knockouts. The stat is not trying to claim England are no good (necessarily) but is of interest nonetheless.
It's a bit arbitrary (who do you count as "major footballing nations"?) and it also benefits from the fact that the European Championships didn't really have much of a "finals" stage before 1980.