56 Fun Facts About Premier League

Which former European champions finished bottom of the first Premier League season?

Nottingham Forest went down with 40 points, and Brian Clough, who had won them two European Cups, retired after 18 years in charge.

Which broadcaster won the first Premier League live rights with a £304 million, five-year bid?

BSkyB's £304 million bid, made in alliance with the BBC, beat ITV; the BBC got the Match of the Day highlights.

Who scored the very first Premier League goal, on 15 August 1992?

Brian Deane headed in after five minutes against Manchester United and added a second-half penalty in the 2-1 win.

Which club, third in the 1992-93 Premier League, went down in 1995?

Norwich City were one of four clubs relegated as the league shrank from 22 clubs to 20; two seasons earlier they had been surprise title contenders.

Which club was ever-present in the Premier League from 1992 until its first relegation in 2016?

Aston Villa's relegation was its first since 1987, and the club spent three seasons in the Championship under two different owners before returning.

Which lager brand was the Premier League's first title sponsor, from 1993 to 2001?

Carling gave its name to the FA Carling Premiership for eight seasons; the league dropped title sponsors altogether in 2016 and has been plain 'Premier League' since.

Who is the Premier League's all-time record goalscorer, with 260 goals?

Alan Shearer scored his 260 goals across 14 Premier League seasons, yet he won the title only once before retiring in 2006.

Which club paid a world-record £15m in 1996 for the Premier League's future record scorer?

Newcastle United were his hometown club; Manchester United also bid, but he said the challenge of returning home had made up his mind.

Which club held off Manchester United on the final day to win its only Premier League title in 1994-95?

Blackburn Rovers, bankrolled by steel magnate Jack Walker, lost at Liverpool on the final day but still took the title, then were relegated four years later.

Which manager, appointed by Jack Walker in 1991, won the 1994-95 Premier League title?

Kenny Dalglish moved upstairs to Director of Football after the title and handed the team to his assistant, Ray Harford.

At what pre-season odds did bookmakers price Leicester City to win the 2015-16 Premier League?

Leicester were 5000/1 before the season; they were confirmed champions on 2 May 2016 when their closest rivals could only draw at Chelsea.

Jamie Vardy set which Premier League record during Leicester's title-winning season?

Most consecutive matches scored in: Vardy made it 11 in a row against Manchester United, the old club of Ruud van Nistelrooy, whose record of 10 he broke.

Which club was Jamie Vardy playing for before Leicester paid a non-League record £1 million for him in 2012?

Fleetwood Town sold him in May 2012 after his 31 league goals won them the Conference title; he had been released by Sheffield Wednesday at 16.

Arsenal's unbeaten 2003-04 'Invincibles' matched a feat last achieved in 1888-89 by which club?

Preston North End went unbeaten over 22 games in the very first Football League season; Arsenal's 38-game run of 26 wins and 12 draws earned a one-off gold trophy.

At which ground did Arsenal's record 49-game unbeaten league run end in October 2004?

Old Trafford staged the 2-0 defeat remembered as the 'Battle of the Buffet', after a slice of pizza hit the home manager in the tunnel afterwards.

Which manager's side became the first to reach 100 points in a Premier League season, in 2017-18?

Pep Guardiola's Manchester City reached 100 with virtually the last kick of the season, when substitute Gabriel Jesus scored the only goal of the final game.

Which club's 11 points in 2007-08 is the fewest ever in a 38-game Premier League season?

Derby County won just once all season and were relegated on 29 March with six games left, the first Premier League club to go down in March.

Which player has made the most Premier League appearances as a substitute?

James Milner was the league's youngest scorer at 16 in 2002 and its oldest penalty scorer at 39 in 2025, coming off the bench more than 200 times in between.

Who was the first player to reach 12 Premier League hat-tricks?

Sergio Agüero's 12 included five goals in one game in 2015, all scored after City had gone a goal down.

Who scored the fastest hat-trick in Premier League history, in 2 minutes 56 seconds in May 2015?

Sadio Mané broke a record Robbie Fowler had held for Liverpool since 1994, and a year later he joined Liverpool himself.

Which player scored in each of the first 21 Premier League seasons and holds the record for most assists?

Ryan Giggs's scoring streak ended only in his final season, 2013-14, which he finished as Manchester United's interim player-manager.

Which goalkeeper holds the record for most Premier League clean sheets, with 202?

Petr Čech fractured his skull in a collision during a 2006 match, returned three months later and wore a rugby-style headguard for the rest of his career.

Who scored the fastest goal in Premier League history, timed at 7.69 seconds?

Shane Long blocked a clearance straight from Watford's kick-off and lifted the ball over the keeper, beating the 9.82 seconds Ledley King had managed in 2000.

Manchester United's 1998-99 side was the first English club to win which treble?

The trio was League, FA Cup, Champions League; the last leg came via two stoppage-time goals against Bayern Munich in Barcelona.

Manchester City won the 2012 title with two stoppage-time goals against which club?

Queens Park Rangers, down to ten men, led 2-1 after 90 minutes; City's two late goals won a first title in 44 years, on goal difference from Manchester United.

Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City in 2008 through a group based in which emirate?

Abu Dhabi United Group agreed the takeover on 1 September 2008, and that same day City broke the British transfer record to sign Robinho for £32.5m.

Whose two goals against West Ham on the final day of 2023-24 sealed Manchester City's record fourth straight title?

Phil Foden's goals kept Arsenal, two points behind that morning and hoping for a slip, at arm's length; at 23 he became the youngest player with six Premier League titles.

Who captained Liverpool to the 2019-20 title, ending the club's 30-year wait?

Jordan Henderson's side sealed it with seven games to spare, the earliest finish on record, yet on the latest date, 25 June, because the pandemic had halted the season.

Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 from which chairman?

Ken Bates had bought Chelsea for a nominal £1 in 1982 and, 21 years later, sold a club carrying debts of around £80m.

Eric Cantona's 'kung-fu' kick into the crowd in January 1995 came in an away match at which club?

The match was at Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park; he was banned for eight months and a two-week prison sentence was reduced on appeal to 120 hours of community service.

David Beckham's famous goal from the halfway line on the opening day of 1996-97 came against which club?

Wimbledon keeper Neil Sullivan was off his line with United 2-0 up when Beckham shot from inside his own half; the goal made him a household name, and England capped him two weeks later.

Which striker won the first Premier League Golden Boot in 1992-93?

Teddy Sheringham scored once before an August transfer, then 21 more for his new club.

Who first recorded 20 goals and 20 assists in a single Premier League season?

Thierry Henry hit 24 goals and 20 assists in 2002-03, yet Arsenal lost the title to Manchester United; they went the whole of the next season unbeaten.

Which Arsenal midfielder shares the Premier League record of eight red cards with Duncan Ferguson and Richard Dunne?

Patrick Vieira collected two of his eight within 72 hours at the start of 2000-01, sent off in each of Arsenal's first two games.

Which player has the most yellow cards in Premier League history, with 123?

Gareth Barry's 123 bookings owe much to longevity: he played 653 games for four clubs, once the league's appearance record.

Which player has scored the most Premier League goals with headers, with 53?

Peter Crouch stood 6ft 7in, and his 53 headed goals are seven more than the next best on the list managed.

Which midfielder set a record in 2014 by scoring against his 39th different Premier League club?

Frank Lampard's 39th victim was Chelsea, his club of 13 years: he equalised against them for Manchester City and refused to celebrate.

Which Chelsea manager picked the Premier League's first all-foreign starting XI, on Boxing Day 1999?

Gianluca Vialli named four Englishmen only as substitutes that day, a 19-year-old John Terry among them.

Which Welsh club became the first non-English side to play in the Premier League, in 2011?

Swansea City had needed a last-day win over Hull in 2003 just to stay in the Football League, eight years before reaching the top flight.

Which club has twice lost 9-0 in the Premier League?

Southampton lost 9-0 at home to Leicester in 2019 and at Manchester United in 2021; after the first, the players and coaching staff gave a day's wages to the club's charity.

Which striker scored five goals in one half of a 9-1 Premier League win over Wigan in 2009?

Jermain Defoe got all five after the break, having gone in at half-time with his side only 1-0 up; the first three came in seven minutes.

Which 16-year-old's first Premier League goal ended Arsenal's 30-match unbeaten run in October 2002?

Wayne Rooney came off the bench and beat David Seaman from long range in the last minute, five days before his 17th birthday.

For which club did England's record goalscorer hit 213 Premier League goals before joining Bayern Munich in 2023?

Tottenham Hotspur got all 213, a record for one Premier League club, yet he left without a major trophy and won his first in Germany.

The player who set the 38-game record of 32 goals in 2017-18 had joined Liverpool from which club?

Roma sold him to Liverpool in June 2017, three years after Liverpool had held talks to sign him from Basel and lost out to Chelsea.

Which two clubs, promoted in 2017 and 2021, had never been relegated from the Premier League by the end of 2025-26?

Brentford and Brighton have stayed up every season since; Brentford won promotion in the 2021 play-off final a year after losing it, ending 74 years outside the top flight.

Which manager has won the most Premier League Manager of the Month awards, with 27?

Alex Ferguson won the first award ever made, for August 1993, and was still collecting them 19 years later in his final season at Manchester United.

The highest attendance for a Premier League match, 83,222, was set in 2018 at which ground?

Wembley Stadium hosted the game while Spurs' new ground was built; the match was a 1-0 north London derby win over Arsenal on 10 February 2018.

Who is the oldest player to appear in a Premier League match, at 43 years and 162 days in 1995?

John Burridge, a goalkeeper, started for Manchester City against QPR in May 1995, two weeks after coming on at half-time to keep a clean sheet against Newcastle, one of his old clubs.

Which Manchester United midfielder has 11 Premier League winner's medals, second only to a teammate?

Paul Scholes won the last of his 11 after retiring in 2011, becoming a coach, then returning to play in January 2012.

Which club's final-day win in 2023 relegated former Premier League champions Leicester?

Everton beat Bournemouth 1-0 through Abdoulaye Doucouré's goal, so Leicester's own 2-1 win over West Ham counted for nothing, seven years after their title.

Which club conceded a record 104 goals in the 2023-24 Premier League season?

Sheffield United passed the 100 that Swindon had let in over a 42-game season, and their defeats included an 8-0 at home to Newcastle.

Which club holds the record of 20 consecutive Premier League defeats, spanning 2002-03 and 2005-06?

Sunderland lost the last 15 games of 2002-03 and the first five of 2005-06, and both campaigns ended in relegation.

Who managed Chelsea when they conceded a record 15 goals in the 2004-05 Premier League?

José Mourinho had introduced himself that summer by saying 'I think I'm a special one', then won the title in his first season with a then-record 95 points.

Which ITV executive, later chairman of the FA, dined with the 'Big Five' clubs in 1990 to plan a breakaway league?

Greg Dyke, then running London Weekend Television, wanted the big clubs' matches for ITV, yet ITV missed out when the new league sold its first live rights.

Which club went down in 1996-97 after being docked three points for calling off a Premier League match?

Middlesbrough said illness and injury had left them unable to field a team for a December away game; the lost points sent them down, and they lost both cup finals that season too.

Why was a Premier League match at Leicester paused shortly after the half-hour mark in April 2021?

Players breaking a Ramadan fast: the game stopped so Wesley Fofana and Cheikhou Kouyaté could take on fluids at sunset, and Fofana thanked the Premier League afterwards.