Originally published in an edited form in Some Sunny Day Issue 2.
This was originally planned as a
sort of ‘misery memoir’, a form of literature that was recently popular, with
the likes of Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, which, surprisingly, had nothing
to do with cricket. Almost any long term
follower of any football team could produce something along the lines of Colin
Shindler’s Manchester United Ruined My Life, which was a shortened title which
should have continued ‘by being really successful whilst Manchester City were a
bit shit’. He subsequently wrote a
follow up, Manchester City Ruined My Life, about how the club’s take over by
rich owners brought the Premiership title but removed the club from its
original fan base. There’s no pleasing some people. But it’s that sort of masochism that seems to
unite football supporters. As I say, I
was going to cheer younger readers up with tales of being one of only five fans
in the away end at Doncaster as City lost 6-1, how one of my mates got locked
in at Bolton because they forgot that there were any away fans, how 14 of us
arrived at Darlington to be told that the club had told Darlo they didn’t
expect anyone to travel and we still outsung the home fans. Yes, these and other stories of strikers who
were more barn door than ballon d’or, midfielders who’d struggle to pass water
and defenders who couldn’t tackle a toddler all form part of my anecdotage. Then
I read a review of Shindler’s second book by Nicholas Blincoe in The Daily
Telegraph which contained the sentence “If you are English, male and thinking
of writing an autobiography, The Diary of a Nobody hovers over you like a huge,
taunting clown’s face”. However, that may not stop me in future issues.
So
has it really been that bad that ‘misery memoir’ is where you’d file a
Pooterish version of watching City for over 40 years ? Is the current season any worse than average
? Am I asking too many questions ? In an
egocentric, solipsistic style, I decided to look at the statistics since I was
born – during a promotion season – to see what City’s average League position
is and what has been the win ratio down the years. And for added spice I’ve done the same for
Argyle and Torquay. If you were thrilled
by the technical drawing in the last issue, prepare to be dazzled by graphs,
pie charts and histograms (well, one of each actually). And may I add the accountant’s rider of
errors & omissions excepted ? And I do know of the existence of the book How To Lie With
Statistics.
See graph above for the relevant finishing positions per season, reproduced too small for anybody to re-interpret them particularly in glorious monochrome. City’s average League position (and ‘League’ includes the Conference years) over the last 50 seasons is 76.66th, that’s 8th and two-thirds in tier 4 (currently known as League 2), with a win percentage of 33.9%, 28% draws and 38.1% defeats (see pie chart right). Argyle’s average position is 52.54 – 8 and a half in tier 3 (League 1) with W, D and L percentages of 34.7%, 27.2% and 38.1% whilst Torquay averaged 78.36th position - 10th and a third in tier 4 – with WDL percentages of 34.8%, 27.5% and 37.7%. So Plymouth have the highest average position but also the highest percentage of defeats (38.08% to City’s 38.06%), Torquay have the lowest average position but the highest percentage of wins and City have the highest percentage of draws; I blame Colin
Appleton .
When
I say ‘average’, I mean the mean. For City, Argyle and Torquay the median (the
middle one when placed in order) League positions are 78th, 51.5th
and 79th respectively (or 10th in tier 4, 7.5th
in tier 3 and 11th in tier 4).
For the sheer sport of it, I also looked at the modal League position
(the position the side has finished most often) for the three Devon sides, City
have finished 63rd, 82nd and 89th three times
each (19th in tier 3, 14th and 21st in tier 4)
and Argyle have finished 38th, 52nd and 59th
four times each (18th in tier 2, 8th and 15th
in tier 3). When choosing to quote the
modal average, I was hoping to be able to write “on average over the last 50
years, Torquay United have been bottom of the League” as I know they’ve finished
92nd four times. However they’ve been 77th (9th in tier
4) a phenomenal six times.
My
next hypothesis was that of those 50 seasons, City’s worst spell was the
Nineties after relegation from the third tier.
Therefore I broke down the statistics into ten year periods.
Years
|
Average
Lge Posn
|
1964-73
|
77.6
|
1974-83
|
64.6
|
1984-93
|
75.1
|
1994-2003
|
84.2
|
2004-13
|
81.8
|
And this is where the
glorious histograms, normally known as bar charts, come in (see left). City’s highest loss percentage and lowest win
percentage – the draw percentage is surprisingly stable – is for the period
1994 -2003, which, surprisingly seeing as City’s lowest positions are in the 5
seasons following 2003, is also the period of the lowest average position, The
highest win percentage, possibly due to those Conference years, is in the last
ten seasons. Similar percentages to the
94-03 period would just about glean 50
points, often seen as the total necessary for survival. I would therefore argue that this season is
roughly average at the time of writing, although the draw percentage is a
little low. It could also be argued that
the last ten seasons have been the most successful,
certainly in terms of games won.
So,
does anybody know what the sequel to Angela’s Ashes was called ?
Sexton A Blake
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