Mike Rowbottom: Lost in the fog of a facts and figures overload

Apocryphal may be, but the story which has been cherished down the years by athletics writers is this:

David Coleman, well past his pomp, has been handed a batch of biographies to support his BBC commentary at a major championship. But the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed supplier of this information is very soon summoned back to the Great Man, who is clearly far from happy. "Too much information!" Coleman exclaims in strangulated terms, flapping the offending paperwork. "Too much bloody information!'

Like David Bowie's character in The Man Who Fell To Earth, who finds himself gazing at a cacophony of simultaneous television broadcasts, we are all to a greater or lesser extent overwhelmed by this endless influx.

Sport, never more so than in these troubled times, exists as a welcome parallel universe into which we all may morph. But if it is information overload you are seeking to escape, you've come to the wrong place.

Those who cover Premiership football matches this season are presented with a stapled collection of statistics that have, cumulatively, an oddly enervating effect.

Do we really need to know that Manchester United have hit the woodwork six times so far this season? Do we really need to know that the team with the most corners so far this season is Blackburn Rovers, with 80, or that Dennis Wise's figure of assists for Leicester City thus far is nil?

Leafing through Chelsea's most recent programme this week, I noted some esoteric variations on this general theme. Under the section "Abused" we are presented with a list of players who have been involved in incidents "leading to an opponent being booked or sent off." The Dutch midfielder Boudewijn Zenden proudly heads this category, with six credits – twice as many as the next player.

But what are we to infer from this? That Zenden is often victimised, or – God forbid – a successful agent provocateur?

Another section is entitled, even more alarmingly, "Aids". In this context, Aids is Assists' younger and less important younger brother, documenting as it does "important but not crucial parts played" in the scoring of a goal.

We are now moving in rarefied statistical terrain. And the obvious question is – why stop here? Why not push on towards the twin peaks of "no more than peripheral involvement in the goal" and "nothing whatsoever to do with the goal"? All part of the bigger picture, after all.

Of course there is a place for football statistics. "Southampton have yet to win at their new stadium this season." Now there is a statistic that is both useful and pertinent. And likely to remain so. "Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is Chelsea's top scorer this season with 10 goals." Fair enough.

What is dismal, rather than useful, however, is the welter of decontextualised, quasi-mathematical information.

Take the now widespread tallying of a team's shots on and off target. For instance, up to last weekend's match against Manchester United, Liverpool had apparently managed 62 shots on target, and 59 off.

So what?

How many of those on-target shots never had a faint hope of beating the keeper? How many of those off-target were thunderous efforts that went narrowly wide?

And, even if we knew, once again, so what? Who wants to view their football through this blizzard of nonsense?

Alan Green, the Radio 5 Live football commentator, often makes a thing about how he doesn't believe in researching his matches. Such statements – with their implicit criticism of more obviously assiduous colleagues – are part of Green's showboating appeal. But I know where he is coming from on this one. And I'm with him.

When I watch Sky Sport on a busy match day, or even BBC this season, and the information is streaming across the screen like so many columns of soldier ants, I begin to feel woosy.

It was a simpler exercise in those vanished Saturdays when all dramatic focus rested on the teleprinter as it began to chatter about the early results.

Years ago, standing in the lounge next to my Dad, I watched the glad news of my team appear and disappear within the space of a handful of typed lines. "West Ham United 3, Wolverhampton Wanderers 1, latest", swiftly followed by "West Ham United 3," (Yes, yes! Hurry up!) "Wolverhampton Wanderers 3." (Typical.)

Watching the screens now at 4.45pm is like trying to cover the Olympics. It's all going on, everywhere, endlessly. When it comes to sporting statistics, I am increasingly convinced, less is more.

An editor who once taught me a lot about newspapers used to hold up pages that carried a mass of competing headlines in order to illustrate a basic truth. "When everybody shouts," he used to say, "nobody's heard."

Hello?

Do I have your attention?