The Day Dave Got Me Proper Pissed Off About Historical Football Stats
You know how it is. You’re having a beer with your mates, the current season is winding down, and somehow the conversation always drifts back to the “good old days.” This time, it was my mate Dave. Dave supports Man U, and as they were cleaning up back in 2013, he acts like they were untouchable gods who finished the season with 120 points and the rest of us were amateur kickabouts.
I was trying to talk about how close the mid-table battle was that year, but Dave just kept gobbing off about how huge the gap was between the top and the bottom, specifically citing the 2012/13 Premier League table. He kept saying my team was something like 40 points behind the title winners. I knew he was massively exaggerating the actual final totals, but after three pints, I couldn’t pull the exact numbers out of my head to shut him up. It was proper annoying. That night, I decided I wasn’t just going to look up the top four; I was going to find every single final team point total for that season, lock it down, and bring the receipts next time we met up.
Diving into the Archives: The Search Begins
I started the next morning. First, I just Googled the obvious: “2012/13 Premier League final table.” Easy enough, right? Wrong. Every major sports news site wants to show you the current season, or maybe the last five. When they do show older tables, they often just give you the top five, or maybe the full standings but only showing wins, losses, and goal difference, not the final points column clearly displayed for all twenty clubs in one easy shot.
I had to dig deep, way past the first page of search results. I ended up wading into some old, dusty stats forum that looked like it hadn’t been updated since 2014. It was slow, clunky, and filled with banner ads that kept freezing my browser. I seriously had to wrestle with this archaic webpage for about forty minutes just to get it to load the archived season tables reliably. It felt like trying to access top-secret government files, not just football stats.
I didn’t trust that single source, not for a crucial pub debate. So, I opened up another four tabs. I pulled data from three different sites—one dedicated to historical results, one that was an archived version of a major broadcast network’s sports page, and one surprisingly robust Wikipedia page. I started my own manual process of cross-referencing. I wrote down the final points for the top five teams first—just to make sure all my sources were singing the same tune. They were close, but one source had a slight error in the goal difference column for West Brom, which immediately made me doubt its reliability for the rest of the numbers.
I scrapped that source and settled on two trusted archives. Then, I had to manually transcribe and organize the data for all twenty teams. That’s the part that really takes time. It’s not about finding the data; it’s about making sure you haven’t missed a single point for the teams stuck in the middle, the ones nobody talks about unless they’re arguing about historical relegation battles.
The Finalized Ledger: Points Confirmed
After about an hour and a half of this digital archaeology, I had the complete, confirmed list. It felt like I’d just finished an audit. I put it all into a simple list so it was easy to read and impossible to argue against. This is what I was looking for. This is the truth, settled once and for all. Dave’s estimate was way off, which, honestly, felt pretty satisfying.
Here’s the full log of the final points for every single club in the 2012/13 season. You can see exactly how the table shook out, from top to bottom. If you’ve ever had a heated argument with a mate about that year, this list will arm you with the facts.
- Manchester United: 89 points (The Champions, of course, but nowhere near the 100+ points Dave suggests for absolute dominance.)
- Manchester City: 78 points
- Chelsea: 75 points
- Arsenal: 73 points
- Tottenham Hotspur: 72 points
- Everton: 63 points
- Liverpool: 61 points
- West Bromwich Albion: 49 points
- Swansea City: 46 points
- West Ham United: 46 points
- Norwich City: 44 points
- Fulham: 43 points
- Stoke City: 42 points
- Southampton: 41 points
- Aston Villa: 41 points
- Newcastle United: 41 points
- Sunderland: 39 points
- Wigan Athletic: 36 points (Relegated)
- Reading: 28 points (Relegated)
- Queens Park Rangers: 25 points (Relegated)
My Takeaway After All That Work
What I learned is that finding very specific historical data sometimes requires more effort than finding brand new data. The internet constantly optimizes for the present, so you have to force your way into the past. It also confirmed something I always suspected: people remember the narrative—”Man U won easily”—but they completely forget the details—”Man U finished 11 points clear, not 30.” The gap wasn’t as ridiculous as Dave made it sound.
The best part? Next week, I just printed this list out and slid it across the bar to him, no words needed. He tried to argue about goal difference, but once the hard numbers are staring him in the face, the argument pretty much collapses. This is why I keep these logs. It’s not just for sharing; it’s for winning petty arguments with mates who refuse to check their facts. Mission accomplished.