A recent survey by Virgin Money asked football fans to estimate how much, on average, they thought about the game each day. Fans of Sean Bean’s favourite side – the Blades (Sheffield United to the uninitiated) – came top of the poll, thinking about football 110 times a day; followed by Charlton fans (104). The cares associated with following a top premiership club are obviously fewer, since Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United fans only think about football 90, 81 and 71 times a day respectively.

Comment: If a similar survey was conducted among the corporate learning community asking how many times a day they thought about, say, e-learning, would the results even match the performance of Everton fans – the club that came bottom of the Virgin Money poll with a mere 43 thoughts a day?