Has Leeds United ever won the Premier League?

Has Leeds United ever won the Premier League? The simple answer is no, Leeds United has never won the Premier League, at least not yet. Of course, in 2020/21 the ‘Mighty Whites’ returned to the Premier League after a 16-year absence, but in their previous 12-year spell in the highest echelon of English football finished no higher than third place. They achieved that position in 1999/2000, under former assistant, and caretaker, manager David O’Leary, who was eventually appointed as permanent replacement for previous manager George Graham.

Of course, the Premier League did not start until 1992/93, when the 22 clubs in the First Division, as the top flight was previously known, broke away from the Football Association and the Football League. At that time, Leeds United was effectively defending champion of English football, having beaten Manchester United to the First Division title by four points in 1991/92. In fact, that title, under Howard Wilkinson, was Leeds’ third, following previous wins in 1968/69 and 1973/74, both under Don Revie. Indeed, following promotion from the Second Division in 1963/64, Don Revie’s Leeds finished no worse than fourth in the First Division for the next decade; Revie left Leeds in July, 1974 to succeed Sir Alf Ramsey as the manager of the England national team.

What is the significance of the Olympic rings?

What is the significance of the Olympic rings? Arguably the most iconic symbol of the modern Olympic Games, the Olympic rings were designed by Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin in 1912 and publicly presented for the first time in 1913. By that stage, Baron de Coubertin was president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), having played a pivotal role in the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896.The Olympic flag, bearing the Olympic rings, was officially raised for the first time during the opening ceremony of the Games of the VII Olympiad in Antwerp, Belgium in 1920.

The full colour version of the design consists of five uniformly-sized, interlocked, coloured rings centred on a white background. From left to right, the Olympic rings are coloured blue, yellow, black, green and red; the blue, black and red rings are positioned at the top and the yellow and green rings at the bottom. According to Baron de Coubertin, ‘This design is symbolic; the five colours are those that appear on at least one of all the national flags of the world at the present time united by Olympism.’ According to the Olympic Charter, ‘The Olympic symbol expresses the activity of the Olympic Movement and represents the union of the five continents [Asia, Africa, North and South America, Europe and Australia] and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games.’

What is a googly?

What is a googly? The origin of the term ‘googly’ is uncertain, but it was first recorded in the early twentieth century, when it was used to describe a type of delivery, or ball bowled, invented by Middlesex and England cricketer of the day, Bernard Bosanquet. Bosanquet was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1905 and, by that stage of his career, was already well-known to the scribes at the independent cricketers’ almanac as an exponent of a deceptive, off-break delivery, which became known as a ‘googly’.

The stock delivery of a right arm leg break bowler, or right arm leg spinner, is the leg break. For a right-handed batsman, the leg break turns, or ‘breaks’, away from the leg-side to the off-side or, in other words, away from the batsman’s body. An important characteristic of the leg break is that spin is generated by the wrist, rather than the fingers. Thus, by bowling the ball out of the back of the hand, with the wrist at 180º to the ground, the right arm leg break bowler can spin the ball clockwise, rather than anticlockwise. The end result is a delivery that, while apparently bowled with a normal leg break action, breaks away from the off-side to the leg side or, in other words, a ‘googly’.

Deception and infrequency are the keys to the efficacy of the googly. Bowled correctly, the ‘wrong ‘un’ should be indistinguishable from a regular leg-break and, employed sparingly, can bamboozle an unsuspecting batsman by turning in the opposite direction to that expected.

Did Sea Pigeon run in the Derby?

Did Sea Pigeon run in the Derby? Sea Pigeon is probably best remembered for winning the Champion Hurdle twice, under Jonjo O’Neill in 1980 and John Francom in 1981. Indeed, O’Neill described the son of Sea Bird as ‘the fastest horse I ever rode’, while Francome said, ‘he was easily the best I ever sat on’. Those sentiments were reflected, at least to some extent by Timeform; the best part of four decades after his retirement in 1982, Sea Pigeon remains one of just sixteen hurdlers to be awarded a rating of 175 or more since the early Sixties.

However, it should not be forgotten that Sea Pigeon was arguably the finest dual-purpose racehorse of all time. In the latter part of his career on the Flat, he recorded back-to-back victories in the Chester Cup in 1977 and 1978 and won the Ebor Handicap, under a record 10 stone, in 1979. All told, Sea Pigeon was 37 races – 21 over hurdles and 16 on the Flat – and early in his career, before being gelded, was considered a Classic prospect by his trainer at the time, Jeremy Tree. Sea Pigeon did, indeed, run in the Derby, starting at 50/1 and finishing seventh of the twenty-five runners under Tony Murray.

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