Organised by both the RSS North East Local Group and RSS Statistics in Sport Section, the annual Richard James Boys lecture this year will be jointly hosted as a colloquium with the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics at Newcastle University.

Phil Giles, a former student of the School and former PhD student of Prof. Richard Boys, will speak about his career since graduating. Refreshments will be available. 

Abstract: "Phil Giles was a maths and statistics undergraduate student at Newcastle University between 1997 and 2001, later completing a PhD in Statistics at Newcastle under the guidance of the late Prof. Richard Boys. He was appointed Director of Football at then-Championship football club Brentford FC in 2015, achieving promotion to the Premier League in 2021, with the club becoming renowned for its innovative approach and use of statistics and data enabling it to compete against clubs with far greater financial resources. In this talk Phil will discuss how his statistical background has given him the tools to work in the Premier League, some lessons learned over the last 25 years both inside and outside of professional football, and how his relationship with Richard gave him the platform upon which much of his later career has been based."