If Mr Nicholson fails and the brewery shuts, the reaction in Sunderland against Vaux could be nasty.

ECONOMIST: Beer and football

Vaux directors, if they have to face the roar of disapproval from Sunderland, may well rue the day they put the company's name on team shirts.

ECONOMIST: Beer and football

Writing in Nature last month, cell biologist David L. Vaux decried the continuing publication, including in Nature, of papers with problems such as miscalculated margins of error.

WSJ: Carl Bialik: Don't Let Math Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes

But Vaux's hotel business makes much more money, and so Vaux Group has decided to get out of the beer trade (it is also selling a smaller Sheffield brewery and about 350 tenanted pubs).

ECONOMIST: Beer and football

Vaux, of the University of Melbourne in Australia.

WSJ: Carl Bialik: Don't Let Math Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes