About The Margin
The Margin is what happens when a history degree, a product role inside Arsenal, a software engineering background, an MA in Digital Media Management, and a genuine obsession with why things happen all end up in the same room.
Where it started
Not as a player, obviously. But working inside one of the world's most scrutinised football clubs gives you a very particular education. You see how decisions are made, how narratives form, how the gap between what the public thinks is happening and what is actually happening can be enormous.
Working in product also means I sit at the intersection of football and technology every day. Football is one of those rare industries where technology is still in its early stages of solving real problems — from performance analytics to fan experience to operational infrastructure. Being inside that process, seeing where the data actually goes and what questions it genuinely answers, has shaped how I think about sports analysis entirely.
That gap between what the data says and what gets communicated publicly — that's the margin.
I grew up watching football the way most people do: results, highlights, opinions. But the closer you get to the game, the more you realise the scoreline is just the surface. Underneath it is a system. Movements, shapes, decisions made in fractions of a second that ripple through careers, transfers, leagues, and communities.
I wanted to understand why. And I wanted to show other people why too.
The background
01
History taught me that data is never just data — it's evidence. Learning to read primary sources, question context, and separate cause from correlation turned out to be exactly the right training for sports analysis.
02
I work in product at Arsenal — sitting at the intersection of football and technology every day. That insider view, combined with years writing code professionally, means I can build the analysis tools, the data visualisations, and this website from scratch. The engineering enables the journalism.
03
My masters gave me the toolkit to think seriously about how stories travel — editing, production, the mechanics of digital storytelling. If the writing is the argument, the reel is the evidence you can actually feel.
The formula
A number, a pattern, a result that doesn't add up. Something in the data that the standard narrative hasn't explained.
History, tactics, economics. What was happening around the data — why it means what it means, and what people got wrong.
The argument, rendered visually. Animated data built from scratch. The conclusion that moves as you read it.
“It's incredible what story the data tells — if you're actually willing to look at it honestly.”
Sharon Akaka — Founder, The Margin
From Sharon
I spent years in software engineering building things for other people's visions. I loved the craft of it. But the itch was always there — to build something where the subject matter actually kept me up at night. Where the research felt like reading, not work.
Coming back to football — specifically to the question of why it unfolds the way it does — felt like all my different interests finally agreeing with each other. The history instinct that asks what came before this. The engineering mindset that asks how we actually build this. The media skills that ask how we make people feel it, not just understand it.
The Margin is all of that. It's been a while since I built something for myself. It feels good.
Find me
hello@findthemargin.com
Sharon Akaka
Substack
@themargin
@themargin_
TikTok
@themargin_
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