The Greatest Sporting Dynasties of all time

[soutso]

13 hours ago, Booyaa said:

Yet in that period Manchester United were not the highest spenders.

Poor, and bitter, argument.

I'm not an Everton fan. 

Please post the net spend of all teams during Fergusons time at United and perhaps your snide remark may have some substance 

[SirVantes]

47 minutes ago, soutso said:

I'm not an Everton fan. 

Please post the net spend of all teams during Fergusons time at United and perhaps your snide remark may have some substance 

Not all net spend of all teams, just Liverpool and United 1990 - 2011.

http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2012/08/lfc-vs-man-utd-21-year-grossnet.html

 

[soutso]

50 minutes ago, SirVantes said:

Not all net spend of all teams, just Liverpool and United 1990 - 2011.

http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2012/08/lfc-vs-man-utd-21-year-grossnet.html

 

Well that article f***s my argument. (If accurate) I'm still going to be all juvenile and stick to my guns re United being scum. 

In any case, the figures since 2011 would make awful reading for a United fan. Pogba's fee alone would make them weep

[BrightonCorgi]

Most successful single athlete (in terms of palmares) is Eddy Merckx.  I doubt any athlete will come close to what he achieved.

[Liga1069]

The Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady led New England Patriots have to be included on any dynasty list.  

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/02/09/best-nfl-dynasty-ever-new-england-patriots-cleveland-browns-san-francisco-49ers

 Patriots of 2001 to 2016 :

• New England’s regular-season winning percentage of .766 over these 16 seasons is the best of any team in league history in a span of at least 12 years.

• New England has won 14 division titles in those 16 seasons, the highest rate of division/conference titles won by a franchise over that span.

• Including playoff games, no team over a long term has averaged as many wins as New England, 13.8, in a season. That, of course, is helped by the fact that playoffs have expanded. But it’s still an impressive number. The Patriots’ 13.8 wins is a full win better, on average, than San Francisco’s 12.7 wins from 1981 to 1998.

 

[JohnS]

22 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Most successful single athlete (in terms of palmares) is Eddy Merckx.  I doubt any athlete will come close to what he achieved.

In the modern era, certainly the greatest cyclist to compete. In regards to the ancient era, check out Gaius Appuleius Diocles. He'd put Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Roger Federer's collective earnings to shame.

[BrightonCorgi]

4 hours ago, JohnS said:

In the modern era, certainly the greatest cyclist to compete. In regards to the ancient era, check out Gaius Appuleius Diocles. He'd put Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Roger Federer's collective earnings to shame.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eddy-Merckx

Eddy Merckx won 35% of races he entered...  

[Baldy]

With all so call "dynasty" or "great achievement", one have to put in perspective strength of competition.   Canada for example, excel and win many Olympic medals when new winter Olympic sports are added.  Four years later the world caught up and we don't win anything anymore.

[Ken Gargett]

8 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Most successful single athlete (in terms of palmares) is Eddy Merckx.  I doubt any athlete will come close to what he achieved.

this is a bloke who was caught for doping three times? i don't care how successful he was, he was a cheat. and i believe, despite all the usual protests, he later confessed. back in those days, they copped a month or so each time.

even if he was squeaky, he does not come close to heather mckay. i know people can argue that it was only women's squash, and fair enough, but leaving that aside (and unless you count billiards with walter lindrum), i do not know of any individual sportsman who comes close.

she lost two games very early in her career in the very early 60s and was then undefeated until she retired in the 80s. did not lose a single match over a couple of decades. and not only that, if i recall correctly, during those couple of decades, she lost only two sets within those matches. that beggars belief. imagine if federer had lost only two sets in a decade. it would be like a cyclist not only winning every race he entered for two decades but leading at every stage in every race for that time, bar just two stages.

as an aside, she took up hockey during that time and was a member of the australian national team. she also went across to the states and canada and took up racquetball during, but mostly after i believe, the time she was playing squash. she won a heap of titles at that as well, and was eventually inducted into the USA hall of fame, which i presume is a fairly big deal.

and never a hint of doping.

[gweilgi]

On 5/20/2017 at 1:59 PM, Ken Gargett said:

all of these are extraordinary stuff and full of merit.

but none, that i can see, are uninterrupted streaks. 50%? 11 out 13 and so on. great stuff. but surely they all still full behind 11 from 11. you can't beat perfection.

I would disagree.

Success is not the only measure of a great athlete, or a great team.

The ability to recover from adversity and defeat is equally impressive, IMHO.  It demonstrates depth of resources and will better than "merely" winning.  

[Ken Gargett]

14 minutes ago, gweilgi said:

I would disagree.

Success is not the only measure of a great athlete, or a great team.

The ability to recover from adversity and defeat is equally impressive, IMHO.  It demonstrates depth of resources and will better than "merely" winning.  

i understand what you are saying and sure, it plays a role. one of the greatest individual performances in sporting history has to be keiran perkins winning his last gold medal. coming from such adversity.

but what you are actually also saying is that they are not as good as a team that didn't win everything, because they kept winning, they are not as good as a team that both won and lost. it is nonsensical from that perspective. how can it possibly be better (or at least, how can you be a better team) to win, lose, win than it is to win, win, win? sure, if you put phelps in an under 12 swim meet and he won every race, you can say it is not such an achievement (and a lesser achievement than if say one of the under 12s beat him in one race just once) but that is not what we have here. they were playing plenty of great teams in that era, teams which had a heap of australian national players, some of the greats of game. yet, they were able to overcome this time after time. they overcame any adversity during games (although they certainly lost some games during the season in this period).

and as these are teams that have considerable turn-over of players, how can that not "demonstrate depth of resources" better than anything?

there is also the issue of having to get yourself up to win every time. maintaining the hunger. i understand from what i have read that this was a major problem - you can imagine if you won every year, you might not have the drive that a side that has not ever won has (which is why i do think, together with team selection, our origin run will come to a grinding halt this year). they managed to do that.

you can't diminish a team because they won everything rather than lost a few. makes no sense.

they, this team, did what they had to. i did not see any of the games but i'm sure they went through plenty of tough ones and they certainly rose to the occasion, time after time.

[Sean3]

How about the Edmonton Oilers of the '80's?  Can't remember the exact years or how many Stanley Cups they won, but I remember them being utterly dominant.  Gretzky, Messier, Fuhr, and so on...

[NSXCIGAR]

8 hours ago, Baldy said:

With all so call "dynasty" or "great achievement", one have to put in perspective strength of competition.   Canada for example, excel and win many Olympic medals when new winter Olympic sports are added.  Four years later the world caught up and we don't win anything anymore.

A dynasty is a dynasty, to be sure, but some dynasties are unquestionably greater than others. For example, the LA Lakers 1980-1988 dynasty is far more impressive to me than the Chicago Bulls 1991-1998 dynasty. The Lakers had exponentially stronger competition than the Bulls ever did. Those 1980s NBA teams were chock full of Hall of Famers. 

[BrightonCorgi]

13 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

 

even if he was squeaky, he does not come close to heather mckay. i know people can argue that it was only women's squash, and fair enough, but leaving that aside (and unless you count billiards with walter lindrum), i do not know of any individual sportsman who comes close.

Squash or tennis is already 50% odds at winning.  Going against 100+ cyclists every race and winning 35% of the races is more impressive IMO.  I really don't care if an athlete dopes or not; professional sports is just entertainment.  If they are caught and penalized; that's the cost.  No matter how many PED's one takes does not guarantee anything.   The fact of how close they are willing to risk their lives to win is pretty impressive.  

Lance Armstrong won all 7 TdF's as far as I am concerned, but let's save that for another thread.  

[Ken Gargett]

18 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Squash or tennis is already 50% odds at winning.  Going against 100+ cyclists every race and winning 35% of the races is more impressive IMO.  I really don't care if an athlete dopes or not; professional sports is just entertainment.  If they are caught and penalized; that's the cost.  No matter how many PED's one takes does not guarantee anything.   The fact of how close they are willing to risk their lives to win is pretty impressive.  

Lance Armstrong won all 7 TdF's as far as I am concerned, but let's save that for another thread.  

if we have ventured into single athletes and you've named this guy, then you can't expect to have him considered but don't want cheating mentioned. i don't get how you can do otherwise.

but first, understand what you say re 50%, but remember it is 50% each round. you have to keep beating them. he/she is not 50% to win the tournament. a more valid argument is how competitive was women's squash. reasonably but clearly well behind tennis. and plenty of other sports, i would concede. of course, you can only do what is possible in your sport. just keep winning against whatever comes against you.

but i still say if federer, or another tennis player, won every tournament over 20 years, and only lost two sets in that entire time, there would be no argument of any kind whatsoever. he would be the unquestioned greatest of all time in every respect. and that is exactly what this woman did.

as for dismissing the doping, i find that simply idiotic, with respect. the bloke was a cheat. he has confessed to being a cheat. as far as i am concerned, he is ruled out of the discussion.

you say taking PEDs doesn't guarantee anything. that is utter crap. of course it does. it guarantees an unfair advantage over a clean athlete. perhaps, the clean athlete is not good enough to beat the cheat, if he was clean, but we'll never know. 

if the bloke was clean, then his achievements would be immense and he would certainly be a contender. as it is, his achievements are meaningless.

 

[BrightonCorgi]

8 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

you say taking PEDs doesn't guarantee anything. that is utter crap. of course it does. it guarantees an unfair advantage over a clean athlete. perhaps, the clean athlete is not good enough to beat the cheat, if he was clean, but we'll never know. 

if the bloke was clean, then his achievements would be immense and he would certainly be a contender. as it is, his achievements are meaningless.

 

No one "clean" has won grand tour in 20+ years.  

[gweilgi]

10 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

as for dismissing the doping, i find that simply idiotic, with respect. the bloke was a cheat. he has confessed to being a cheat. as far as i am concerned, he is ruled out of the discussion.

you say taking PEDs doesn't guarantee anything. that is utter crap. of course it does. it guarantees an unfair advantage over a clean athlete. perhaps, the clean athlete is not good enough to beat the cheat, if he was clean, but we'll never know. 

if the bloke was clean, then his achievements would be immense and he would certainly be a contender. as it is, his achievements are meaningless.

 

That's two different issues, it seems to me.  

Legal versus illegal performance enhancing measures is a matter of regulations within a sport.  It's a governing body deciding what to permit, and what to ban -- no more, and no less.  If they ban certain substances or practices, that is up to them and says nothing about the fairness (or other) of the contest.

"Unfair advantage" is far trickier because "unfair" is such a nebulous (not to say "weasel") word.  Is it unfair for an athlete to have access to the finest first-world technology and expertise in order to produce the very best performance his or her body is capable of, when someone from a small and poor country is denied such a huge advantage even though they may have far more innate ability?  Is it fair to deny athletes from a poor nation the shortcut of pharmaceuticals to make up their competitive disadvantage?