noblecom3

The Daily Mirror's Pools 'expert' Longsight had an article in the paper on April 8th, 1964 with the headline "Draws all come out in the long run", noting "the tendency for clubs to draw several matches after ending a long run without a draw." Further examples were given including Aston Villa (6 in 11 after a run of 16), Wolverhampton Wanderers (8 in 16 after 13), Huddersfield Town (6 in 12 after 15), Plymouth Argyle (5 in 8 after 11), Bristol City (4 in 7 after 10), Colchester United (5 in 12 after 11), Hull City (6 in 12 after 12), Shrewsbury Town (6 in 13 after 13), Gillingham (5 in 6 after 18) and Oxford United (5 in 12 after 10).  And then the reason is explained: The explanation is, of course, that the general average of draws is about one in five games.  Clubs which run up long sequences without a draw can be expected to restore the balance to some degree once the run is ended. So now we know, and it's all been out there in the public domain fo...

It was quite an exciting finish to the Championship last night with Swansea City overtaking Nottingham Forest and grabbing a playoff spot by virtue of winning by three goals and Forest losing by the same margin, while at the bottom end of the table Barnsley (who beat Forest on Sunday) beat promotion chasing Brentford to secure a remarkable escape at the expense of Wigan Athletic and poor old Charlton Athletic who joined Hull City in the relegation places. All three were Premier League clubs in fairly recent history.  With six matches to play, this was the bottom half of the Championship: None of the bottom five ended up being relegated although with the 12 point deduction hanging over Wigan, the table doesn't tell the whole story perhaps.  As this Tweet from Jake Sanders pointed out: Barnsley were in the relegation-zone every week from 15 September until the 91st minute in the final game of the season and survived. Charlton were in it for one week all season and got relegate...

With the American Football seasons (College and pro) getting closer by the day, and the number of new cases in the US continuing to climb every day, the question of if and how the seasons will be played out continues to be uncertain. At the College level, one Division 1 Conference (read this post for a primer on how College Football is structured ) - the Ivy League - has said there will be no sports played by any of its members until at least 2021. Most readers might not care too much, but College Football is the only sport that generates profits at most universities, and so the knock-on effect to other sports teams of losing a season is likely to be significant.  As for the NFL, it's still not certain whether fans will be allowed to attend, but it seems certain that if they are, the number will be significantly reduced. The Green Bay Packers announced last week that face masks would be mandatory, and that the stadium's seating capacity would be significantly reduced, while the...