The Day I Decided to Fact-Check Football History
You know how it is. You’re having a quiet evening, scrolling through some nonsense online, and suddenly someone pops up with an opinion that just grinds your gears. This time, it was my mate, Gary. He was arguing with someone in a chat group about how easy the Premier League was back in the day, specifically pointing to the 2012/13 season—Sir Alex Ferguson’s final victory.
Gary claimed emphatically that Manchester United didn’t just win it; they basically got handed the trophy halfway through the season. He said it was a total walkover, no pressure, no contest, and that the modern league gaps are always tighter. I read that and immediately felt the need to intervene. I vividly remember that season being competitive, even if United were always ahead. But the thing is, memory cheats, especially when nostalgia coats everything in a golden haze.
So, instead of just arguing based on feelings, I decided I was going to execute a full historical data retrieval exercise. I wanted to definitively prove or disprove whether that 2012/13 season was “clear,” especially when put into context against the massive point totals and gaps we’ve seen in the last decade. My project kicked off right there: find the raw numbers and measure the definition of dominance.
I Dug Out the Old Archive
To start, I needed the indisputable facts. I didn’t want a quick Google summary, which might be skewed by recent editorializing. I needed the clean, final league table data. Thankfully, years ago, when I was managing a sprawling fantasy football league, I created and backed up an archive of every final Premier League table since 2000. This archive lives on a dusty, ancient external hard drive that I keep stored away. It took me a good fifteen minutes just to locate the right cable and another ten minutes to get the old beast spinning without my laptop complaining.
Once I managed to access the files—which, naturally, were locked behind a password I had to try three times to remember—I pulled up the spreadsheet labeled ‘PL_Final_1213.’ This was the bedrock of my practice. I scrolled down to the top two spots and wrote down the totals for reference.
- Manchester United (1st place): 89 points.
- Manchester City (2nd place): 78 points.
I ran the subtraction immediately. 89 minus 78 equals 11. An 11-point difference. Okay, that’s substantial. But was it a ‘clear’ win in the context of history? That’s where the second, more rigorous phase of my practice began.
The Contextualization Practice: Comparing the Gaps
The core of the argument with Gary was not just the number 11, but what that number means today versus what it meant then. So, I launched into a deep dive of recent dominant seasons. If 11 points feels like a massive gulf, what do the contemporary mega-champions put up?
I re-accessed my archive and also cross-referenced data from the last ten seasons, specifically looking for seasons where the title race was considered a clear runaway. I was looking for modern benchmarks to make that 11-point gap look either huge or suddenly quite small.
Here’s what I uncovered and charted in my notes:
- 2017/18 Season: Man City won with 100 points. The gap to 2nd place (Man Utd) was 19 points.
- 2019/20 Season: Liverpool won with 99 points. The gap to 2nd place (Man City) was 18 points.
- 2004/05 Season (for historical context): Chelsea won with 95 points. The gap to 2nd place (Arsenal) was 12 points.
This comparison was the crucial breakthrough. When you stack 11 points against 19 points, the 2012/13 victory, while comfortable, suddenly looks less like a historic domination and more like a strong, consistent season that capitalized on a slightly weaker chasing pack. That 19-point gap means the runner-up was essentially irrelevant for the last two months of the season. An 11-point gap? That’s four wins. If United had hit a massive slump late, the pressure would have been fierce, even if City hadn’t been flawless.
The Final Message I Sent
I didn’t just send Gary the 11-point figure; I delivered the full report. I compiled my findings into a concise summary, explaining that while 89 points was more than enough to win the league back then, it’s a standard haul now. And the 11-point difference, while solid, isn’t the crushing statistical defeat that modern league winners inflict.
I told him straight: “No, United didn’t win it ‘clearly’ by today’s standards. They won it comfortably, yes, but 11 points is nowhere near the 18 or 19 points of separation that City or Liverpool have achieved recently. That 19-point gap in 2018? That was clear. The 2012/13 title was a dominant season for its time, but if you put that season today, it feels tight. It feels human.”
The practice taught me that perception of dominance is entirely relative. What feels like a gulf one decade is just a small hurdle the next. You have to ignore the noise and process the arithmetic yourself to see the reality.