Database query involving username and count

I have a table called tbl_users

A broken down version of it for this task

id | username | ref

I am trying to count the ref column for most entries and order by most to least.

This column displays users. So if there are 10 r开发者_StackOverflowows with "User 1" in the ref column it would return User 1 10.

How can I put this together?

EDIT. I have put together the following query (using the 5 answers, thanks).

Is throwing up an error, saying the query isn't valid basically.

$q = "SELECT ref, count(ref) as total_count FROM ".TBL_USERS." WHERE ref != 'NONE' GROUP BY ref ORDER BY total_count DESC";

Any ideas why?

ALL FIXED!!

edit: Hmm. You have 'user 1' in the ref column, and want to count that. check.

Something like this should work?

SELECT ref, COUNT(ref) FROM tbl_users
GROUP BY ref
ORDER BY COUNT(ref) DESC

follow the link provided below

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?97,26993,26993

TRY

SELECT username, COUNT(ref) 
FROM tbl_users
GROUP BY id
ORDER BY COUNT(ref) ASC

SELECT *, COUNT(ref) AS ref_count FROM tbl_users
    GROUP BY ref
    ORDER by ref_count DESC