Secrets of the fixture computer
Ever wondered why you have had to travel the length of the country on a wet Tuesday night to watch your team in action?
Or you haven't played at home on Boxing Day for the last three years?
Like me, you've probably just blamed the fixture computer, that mythical piece of technology that determines where you will be and when throughout the football season.
I have always imagined it to be some great beast of a machine like bertha, firing out tickertape full of fixtures while some overworked scientist desperately tries to make sense of the information spewing forth.
The fixtures for the 2009-2010 season are released at 1000 BST on Wednesday and last week I spoke to some of the key people involved in the formation of the schedule.
I wanted to find out exactly how the fixture list is put together and just how difficult a job it is. Needless to say, I spent a large chunk of last weekend in a dark and cool room as my brain tried to come to terms with its most serious case of information overload since I asked my wife to point out my most obvious flaws.
Putting the fixture list together is incredibly complex - with a whole series of factors ensuring it is an increasingly difficult task.
Just to give you one example; every club is paired with another in regard to when they play their home and away fixtures. This is done for a number of reasons, one being so that clubs like Everton and Liverpool do not play at home on the same weekend.
West Ham, it turns out, are paired with Dagenham and Redbridge. But for reasons of revenue Southend request they do not play at home on the same day as the Hammers as they believe it impacts upon their attendance.
Southend, though, are in Essex, as are Colchester, so they cannot play together on the same weekend. Colchester share stewards with Ipswich so those two clubs also request they do not play home games on the same weekend. Transport links dictate Ipswich and Norwich do not play together on the same weekend either. In other words, when West Ham play at home can have an impact on when a club as far away as Norwich (108.8 miles) play their home fixtures. And there are 12 other professional clubs in London....
Confused? Read on and I guarantee you will be.
The compilation of the fixture list is done jointly between the Premier League and the Football League. The whole process starts upwards of a year in advance when Fifa and Uefa release their match calendars but work starts in earnest in the final months of the previous season.
The Football League, for example, sends out a questionnaire to all their clubs in March. This is a club's opportunity to request specific dates they would like to avoid and what other team they would like to be paired with. The questionnaire is jointly signed off by the police and also reflects their concerns - issues such as ensuring high-profile matches do not clash with big events in a city.
During this time the main man in the process - Glenn Thompson of Atos Origin, an international IT services company, - starts the process he describes as sequencing.
For most of the year Glenn works as an IT professional in Scotland but he has been compiling the fixtures since the 1993-94 season and describes the task both as an enormous puzzle and his summer job. He is the man who owns the laptop that is the fixture computer.
Sequencing involves mapping out on what days all the fixtures will take place and the pattern of home and away games that a team will play.
There are rules governing sequencing - for example clubs will play no more than two home games consecutively and, with one eye on the financial situation at lower league clubs, the games either side of an FA Cup fixture should not both be away from home.
But slotting all the fixtures into the calendar is becoming more and more difficult.
Paul Snellgrove is the Football League fixtures officer. I get the impression he is a very amiable man but mention the fixture calendar and it quickly becomes obvious this is a complicating factor in his life.
The increase in European club competition fixtures - with the inaugural Europa League next season - is eating into the available space; as are international friendlies and World Cup qualifiers. Next season is followed by the World Cup so the campaign ends early. The Champions League final next season takes place on a Saturday, eating into another weekend when Premier League fixtures cannot be played.
Out of necessity, next season's play-off finals are split across two weekends, with the Championship finale taking place on the same day as the Champions League final.
There are 10 rounds of midweek Championship fixtures to squeeze in, six for League One and League Two and four in the Premier League. Then you have the FA Cup, the Carling Cup and the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.
The process of sequencing took Thompson 10 days this year - and once the season finished he plotted his pairings into a grid and started wading through the lists of requests from the clubs and the police. Snellgrove estimated there were about 90 this year from the Premier and Football League clubs, while on average Thompson reckons about 80% of the home and away requests are accommodated.
He also manually creates the fixtures for Boxing Day and 28 December to try to minimise the travelling distance for fans. As Thompson readily admits, the computer has no concept of the distance between grounds.
Once the sequencing and plotting was finished - are you still with me here? - Thompson fed all the information into the programme on his laptop. The methodology was created in 1982 and was updated a decade ago. Way back when the computer was a desktop based in Wilmslow and compiling a division's fixtures was an overnight job. These days it can knock out a division in 5-10 minutes.
Five days after the Championship play-off final Thompson produced his first draft of the fixtures. From that moment onwards it was all a case of refinement, refinement, refinement, with Thompson returning to his computer 30-40 times to try to improve his list.
These might include issues such as potentially sensitive fixtures being played on the opening or final weekends of the season and derby fixtures taking place in midweek.
As Snellgrove puts it: "There is a huge amount of information crunched - by the time the fixtures actually come out the original list has been changed goodness knows how many times."
At this stage only Thompson sees the list, as he adjusts and tweaks it until he comes up with a calendar that he is happy to take to the Premier League and the Football League.
Last Wednesday, Thompson headed to Preston where he met with both the governing bodies - and a further process of refinement took place over the following days.
Thompson reckons he does the job because he enjoys it and derives great satisfaction from producing a body of work that has a very tangible end product. But it must be an agonising, head-scratching process that slowly strips you of the will to live.
For instance, every time a fixture is changed it affects at least seven other fixtures and can easily impact on as many as 48.
Ian Todd is the president of the Football Supporters' Federation and sits on the fixtures working party that meets to discuss Thompson's list. One year he objected to Morecambe playing at Dagenham and Redbridge in midweek. They tried to alter the fixture but found out that it would negatively impact on so many other games that what Todd calls "the least worst option" was to maintain the status quo.
The fixtures working party met last Saturday to discuss this year's calendar. In addition to Todd, Thompson and Snellgrove, the Premier League and Football Association are represented as well as people from the top flight, Championship, League One and League Two clubs.
Todd estimates he has between 30-45 minutes to scan the fixtures and point out any concerns that might impact negatively on supporters.
Monday involves a meeting with various police chiefs and the British Transport Police. Again, there are potential issues here that had never crossed my mind. They look at potential logistical problems such as whether there will be too many fans from different clubs all heading to one train station in London for a particular set of fixtures on any given weekend.
On Tuesday the list will be signed off and on Wednesday morning we will all see the fruits of a lot of hard work.
Not everyone will be happy but Snellgrove is confident that if certain clubs' requests have not been accommodated then at least he will be able to explain why.
Thompson sometimes has nightmares about the job but always hopes to produce a list that is balanced and neutral. He reckons this year's list will not be the best they have produced but will be far from the worst.
The story doesn't end there.
Over the following week Snellgrove will deal with requests by clubs to switch days. Clubs cannot move a game away from an allocated weekend but they can switch the day of the match. Cheltenham, for example, often play a home game on a Friday when there is a clash with the horse racing festival.
Thompson will start dealing with reserve fixtures, academy games and feeder leagues to the Blue Square Premier.
This year when I see some ridiculous fixtures my club have been asked to play I hope I show a little bit more understanding. Though I seriously doubt it.
The 2009-2010 Premier League, Football League and Scottish fixtures will be available on the BBC website from 1000 BST on Wednesday.
Hello, I'm Paul Fletcher and I mainly write about life in the Football League. I have a great enthusiasm for a whole range of sports and love to spread the word about the great game of rugby league. You can also follow me on 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~32~RS~)
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really interesting article! had no idea so much went in to it!
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Yes well I am sure this will all come as comfort to those required to travel to say, Middlesborough from London for the noon kick off on Boxing Day!!
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zysfgyasunxx
That's the sound my brain's making right now. Managers should go easy on these guys!
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good interesting article, always wanted to know what went into making the fixture list. I have a lot more understanding and respect for that guy, however, i will still complain about having to go from sheffield to plymouth on a wednesday night!
I suppose when the fixtures are announced, thats when the tv companies stick their noses in and change all the fixtures again!! lol
So when the fixtures come out we can start preparing for the new season, only 8 weeks to go!!
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You seemed to have missed another level of scrutiny that will be added this year - the 'Fergie Factor'. Rafa says so, so it must be a fact.
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As a total football geek and my job involves logistics which effectively what this is the article was excelent and I'm sure you could have plowed even more detail into it if you thought necessary.
I was aware that certain things had to be obeyed but didn't understand the relationship nearby (and nearby can be no where near) was so strong. Effectively West Ham as a Premier League side have a huge geoegraphical and finiancial hinterland (a word no used since GSCE Geograpghy) One can only imagne how congested the influence is for areas such as the NW and London.
I've always thought the list does determine part of the optimisim I feel going into a season. I hate starting away from home and need to avoid the top four inthe first six or so fixtures....
for example last year my team Everton had all three promoted teams as our first three away fixtures......despite an indifferent home record we took 7/9 points
The fixture computer can certainly control your teams destiny
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Excellent article, I new about some of this but you clarified more.\it is a difficult job indeed!well done to the people that do it.
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Well after 4 home fixtures in 17 seasons for spurs on opening day lets hope the "random" computer manages to give us a home game this year.
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Wow! I had no idea. I thought it was as simple as just pairing teams up for each weekend - a randomly generated list. I had no idea that certain (neighbouring) teams couldn't play at home on the same weekend or any of the other factors involved.
This is really eye-opening.
2/3
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what a great insight into the fixtures! an unbelievably hard job to do. great credit to the guys who do it. and there was rafa thinking SAF had the brains to do all this
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Just as long as Southampton actually have fixtures next season, then I don't care when we are playing.
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Finally something really orignal and interesting to read, instead "Best of 2008/09 this and/or that". Whole operation looks like using WOPR [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOPR] from "Wargames".
Excellent. Now please put this into context with so-called facts from Rafa and "Fergie - Factor". I know you can! :)
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I still think in these tough economic times there is a case for a return to the lower divisions being regionalised as the old Division 3 North and South were.
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"It has no concept of distance" (re Boxing Day fixtures) because "it" hasn't been programmed that way). A post code and something like the RAC Route Planner software would give them the data they need ie distance and the computer could compute the rest. Sounds like a pretty creaky old programme to me. Then again probably a nice "summer job" earner.
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Totally agree with #13 - bring back regionalisation. More local derbies, bigger crowds, better carbon footprints. Whats stopping them?
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Basically, to sum up - when West Ham United, Norwich City and Colchester United all play at home; Dagenham, Southend and Ipswich all play away.
Why does the machine have no concept of geography? It would take a lot of initial effort, but the distance (either in miles or travel time) between every 2 grounds could be added. Then you can say on mid-Week games the maximum distance should be 200 miles/3 hours. You can even set more limited variants for boxing day (100 miles/2 hours), and so avoid the ever-present Fulham-Chelsea clash.
To make Sky happy, you can set a rule that Super Weekends (Man U vs Arsenal vs Chelsea vs Liverpool) happen 3 times a year. Or even have a Super Derby weekend - Manchester, Merseyside, North London, Birmingham, West London, North East so they can cover the 5/6 TV slots. These can even be scheduled for Xmas/Boxing Day, or around Easter.
Maybe a more powerful computer could be used...
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What happened before we had computers hey ?
In my youth i can remember that the Boxing Day fixtures were generally local "derbies", due to the lack of availability of public transport.
Surely it would make some sense to adopt some of the USA teams methods, ie 'going on the road', especially for occasions when say a team from the South coast has to travel to the North East several times in the same season. In these times of restricted funds being made available from the supporter base, any loss in revenue from travelling support could be made up from the television companies - instead of giving the money to the top tier, who quite frankly don't need it.
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........and then Sky and Setanta come in and mess the whole thing up. Great article - I have always suspected that setting the fixtures is an incredibly difficult job with so many co-dependencies and geographical quirks. I have admiration for the guys that do it and, for my club at least, they tend to do a pretty reasonable job (given the constraints). However, what really irks me, particularly as a fan who travels 230 miles each way for every home match, is the TV impact. Saturday 12.45s and Sunday 4pms - not great for the distance fan and moreover, for the stadium atmosphere. It also makes travel a headache - do you risk taking advantage of the early booker deals on Trainline for that London away match only to find that the fixture gets moved or do you hold out and risk paying through the nose for your rail ticket? I have come a cropper both ways! I guess thats all about the revenue though.
Nevertheless, as always, I eagerly look forward to getting my first look at the new seasons fixtures - will we be home first day, when will the derbies be played, what sort of run in do we have. Always brings out the excited kid in me!
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jes that must take 4eva.... d pay must b reli good do in fairness!!!!!
thanks 4 dis tremedous insight on fixture scheduling!!
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Agreeing with #14. The scheduling program is probably a "constraint-based optimisation engine". Such programs can easily take into account more factors, including pre-setting certain matches to minimise travel at christmas and easter, grouping clubs to minimise home-home conflicts.
Disagreeing with #13 - the range of standard over the leagues 1,2 regionalised would reduce competition and involve many less clubs in promotion/relegation contests - making the leagues less competitive and less interesting for the fans and players.
I do wonder if some teams could join a "European League" full-time with the national league teams then taking part in uefa-cup style promotion ... say the last 16 of the Champ League and the 4 of the Euefa cup made a first Euro league, and then 4 places were promoted/relegated ...? thoughts?
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Surely it would not be hard for geographical distances to be programmed in to the computer software to try and reduce the stupid long-distance midweek games that many clubs face?
Also, do the TV companies take any of this into account when they get their hands on the fixture list?
Whatever the fixture list is issues there's always going to be the same old Premier League bosses moaning that it's been fixed against them! They complain that their fixtures are too congested during the season (because their team competes in "too many" cup competitions - oh, how hard it must be to be successful!) so they want the season extended to help spread out the fixtures....then realise it eats into their lucrative summer tours so want to maintain the long summer break! They'll never be happy!
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Very interesting read Paul.
I too simply thought that a computer whacked out the fixtures and whatever it came up with, that's that.
Every team is going to have fixtures they don't like. I remember in the 2007-08 season my team, Nottingham Forest, had a trip up to Carlisle on a tuesday night which was a nightmare (Although the 2-0 victory made it sweeter). But I guess it's hard to accomodate for 92 seperate club's individual needs.
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Very interesting piece, pity they go to all this trouble just for the TV companies to decree that games played between teams who are the furthest apart geographicaly, are shifted to a Monday night, a Saturday evening or a Sunday morning. The teams can afford to stay in hotels but a lot of the fans can't.
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Can't they just hack into football manager and let it do all the work. I'm sure it's database has locations of clubs. In all seriousness computers have moved on so much in the last decade surely they can get a better computer programme designed?
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hehe very interesting :)
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Very interesting - but in this day and age of large-scale parallel processing, I'm surprised that a more modern program hasn't been written with all of these "rules" programmed in, which crunches millions of random combinations (called a Monte Carlo process) and score each permutation for how well all the rules are kept. Then a shortlist of the best permutations can be examined closely by eye to pick out any shortcomings. Obviously certain rules would have to be more important than others, but regardless of complexity it *could* be done more elegantly I'm sure... but I don't work in IT, so perhaps it's not that simple!
I guess you just can't replace the good ol' personal touch.
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Very interesting but there are concerns raised by this article, namely;
Why are "potentially sensitive fixtures" not allowed to be played on the last day of the season? Does this rule out local derbies for e.g. Liverpool, Man. Utd on the final day? This seems inappropriate.
The programme should take travelling distance and probable routes into account rather than rely upon eyeballing by the police and fans' representatives. This is particularly appropriate over 2-fixture weekends or holidays.
Why, after all the effort that goes into creating the fixture list, are the television companies allowed to move fixtures at their whim?
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"He also manually creates the fixtures for Boxing Day and 28 December to try to minimise the travelling distance for fans."
All this yells out at me that those Chelsea v Arsenal and Man Utd v Liverpool weekends aren't exactly random.
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so these are the people that had United away at Portsmouth, Chelsea and Liverpool by week 4 and followed that up by sending them away to City, Villa, Spurs and Arsenal all before Christmas. well done to them, I'm sure it was a great help to the English champions as they represented the league in Monaco and in Tokyo.
they certainly seem to plan these things very carefully don't they.
spot on about the Sky fixtures as well Cyborgia!
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I now know why so many football managers sometimes have a go at the fixture list, because the process is so complex and painstaking.
However, what was not made clear in this article was the issue of time. We are not clearly told how and who determined the final times of each of the fixtures. I say this because, some of the big teams playing in European competitions always complain about early Saturday kick-off.
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I always wondered how the fixture lists were arranged.
Great article Paul, in a sad sort of way this has made my day!
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What happened before we had computers hey ?
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What happenned was plenty of games clashing with other local events such as rugby matches, racing festivals, music events etc. London clubs within stonesthrow of each other with fans who hate each other both playing at home and arriving at the same stations together. Oh and copious amounts of rescheduling of matches, often at short notice adn to the detrement of fns everywhere.
'Going on the road' is a completely pointless idea, it works in America because of the distances involved in travelling and the fact tht they often play 4 games in 3 days. Playing twice a week does not justify the cost of staying, the handicap induced from not being able to properly train for 3 or 4 days between matches and it will also lead to more fluctuating income as clubs would go weeks without a home game.
I would like to see moe traditional games over Christmas but I also understand the need to not have the same ones each year and to continually adapt to fit everyone in. For instance If Bristol Rovers, City, Cardiff and Plymouth were all in the same division it would be nice to see Rovers vs. City on Boxing Day, but that would leave Cardiff and/or Plynmouth fans having to travel a long way so having them each play a Bristol team is the fairest result for all four clubs.
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My team is Lincoln City and every year for years it was a pilgrimage for us to go to Sincil Bank on Boxing Day. I remember the first time they down to played away on that day as being quite a shock. On the otherside of the coin, my local team Peterborough United were almost always away from home on Boxing day.
The Imps seemed to have it easy but invariably it ended in a 1-1 draw and a mid-table finish.
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Fascinating.
It would certainly also be interesting to get an update from Mr Thompson about some of the questions above, for example including geographical distances and especially the suggested Monte Carlo simulation.
As for Sky 'moving' fixtures, do they move between weeks, or just *within* them (e.g. from a Saturday to a Sunday).
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Wow now that is a verrry lonnngg process, and we all thought it was a man with a pen and some paper just making them up.
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Good article. I see no reason why a local derby should not be either the first or final game of the season, except that paranoid managers will spout their conspiracy theories. I agree it should be simple to program in distances and also that no matter what, the TV companies will step in and butcher all that hard work.
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I'm guessing it's just how it works out though that Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd are all playing on the same day every season?
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A local derby on the last day of the season would be great. it would mean there would still be something to play for for a lot of teams who's season was over a few weeks before.
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Very good article, however you seemed to have missed another vital factor in fixture compiling, SKY! We are all grateful for their excellent coverage but get a little annoyed when they switch things around just to suit their viewing figures.
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An excellent article. But I note it only covers what happens in England.
Is anyone at the BBC able to shed any light on the inner-workings of the minds of the people at Hampden Park who repeatedly churn out Dundee and Dundee United at home on the same day, despite the two clubs sharing the same STREET (never mind City)?
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Interesting indeed.
Also Paul, instead of going through the annual process of randomization and tweaking, isn't it simpler if they created three or four "best-case" fixture lists and used these cyclically over three or four seasons (Of course, making adjustments only to accommodate promotions and relegations) ?
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I'm amazed at how many clubs could be affected! Would be an interesting Job but 1 minor fixture change could affect many clubs and yourself personally!
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In reply to #42
There's no need for a Scottish computer. The fixture list writes itself:
Rangers v Celtic
Celtic v Rangers
Celtic v Rangers (Scottish Cup)
Rangers v Celtic
Celtic v Rangers (McKewans let's have another old firm game Cup)
Rangers v Celtic
etc...
:)
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Interesting and insightful. Thanks Paul.
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Very interesting article. But can somebody make sure that Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal face each other in the last few weeks of the season. That would make for some top end-of-season entertainment. http://www.loserscomesecond.com/
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Unfortunately, the two most entertaining things about this article were that Ipswich got mentioned twice and Rio Ferdinand taking a shot.
Who knew.
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I too am amazed that it is such a 'manual' process, particuarly re the distances involved because this is obviously a very easily measurable and definable bit of data and therefore relatively easy to apply some kind of rules to.
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I had a decent idea of this because I also follow the NFL here in the US. They explained the whole thing pretty well and mentioned that TV companies also get involved in this. Another problem that teams in US face is that they share games with teams from other leagues(e.g. baseball). So leagues are in touch with each other to avoid possible clashes e.g. this year's NBA playoffs where WWE Raw was scheduled in Denver. Denver didn't believe that they would progress that far and is turns out their home game clashed with the WWE show :-)) The show had to be shifted to LA.
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With number 30) "so these are the people that had United away at Portsmouth, Chelsea and Liverpool by week 4 and followed that up by sending them away to City, Villa, Spurs and Arsenal all before Christmas." - they're probably taking into account Manchester United fans live all over the country and why does it matter if its by week 4 or before christmas?
Hopefully next year Setanta won't be around to move BSP games to a thursday night, a couple of days prior
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could be worse, newcastle to plymouth is 820mile round trip, imagine that on a cold wednesday night or boxing day
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Anyone who thinks this can be solved with a "better" computer or program is unfortunately unaware that this problem is one of the hardest to solve in computer science. It's called an NP-complete problem (engineer shorthand for really really really hard); if you have ever heard of the travelling salesmen problem it's a similar problem. They are characterised by the huge number of permutations to the problem and a complexity in assessing if a permutation is better than another. There is also an unclaimed $1,000,000 prize fund for someone who can describe the relationship between NP and P (very easy problems) which if someone did claim it then this would be easy & there would probably be an Excel macro to do it.
In short a computer program will not do as good a job as these guys are doing for quite some time and it doesn't matter how many computers you chuck at it. Kudos to them & please give Blackburn as the last game of the season so we can send them down ;)
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Please no Cardiff v Swansea 11am Sunday kick off again!!
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I will never complain again about fixture schedules.
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Yet another great article Paul. I'm sure that for most fans it won't come as much of a suprise that a computer system is at the forefront of the compilation process, and I only hope to God that they take backups of the thing! Can you imagine what the scenario would be if it went 'missing' from the back seat of the car? Then we'd have to go back to bits of paper with numbers on and draw them out of a hat ... One other thing - If a fixture is entered with a sort of 'is this going to be OK' type of tag attached - does it respond with 'Computer says NO ...' :-)
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As long as Hull City dont go into the last day needing the same sort of results elsewhere & dont have to face Manchester United, I will be a happy man.
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41. well, maybe not all of us - sick to death of early kick offs on a Saturday, and of all the games kicking ioff at different times
51. well it matters because the article says no team will play more than 2 games on the trot home or away for a start. it also matters because it would have to be a very very long odds chance that all those fixtures could turn out to be away first and home second. and an even longer odds chance that each of United's matches after a CL group game would also be away from home.
as for your point about United fans living all over the country? yes that's true, although why limit it to just all over the country? United fans live all over the world, as I'm sure fans of many other English and Scottish sides do. i realise you were simply firing off a standard 'witty' barb in the spirit of "we support our local team - especially when they're playing United at home", but even so you really could do better. Or at least, you could at least try; go on, give it a whirl, you might surprise yourself.
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interesting now all the newcastle fans will be able to visit diffrent places and no need to go to Manchester or merseyside anymore, but wait for next season can they return to Leeds.
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good article Paul
can you explain why tottenham always seem to play away from home, at a northern team, consistently on the first game of the season?
no backbone is the explanation for why we always lose the fixture... but an explanation of why 'them up the road' have a cushty home fixture, and we have an away one, nearly every year, would be nice.
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Very intersting. Thanks, Paul.
But I would like to know why in the Premier League we do not have a season in two halves like they do in Italy, where the second half of the season is exactly the same matches as the first half, in the same order, but the home teams are now away, and vice versa. This also lets them have a reasonably fair, if unofficial, "midseason champion". It also means that both of the matches between two teams will not take place in the gloom and mud of mid-winter.
Presumably, the Premiership computer currently has a factor for avoiding that the home and away games between two teams are too close together, so you would replace this factor with the one that produces the mirror image season.
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Interesting article, but I can't help but think that it ignores one glaring factor - TV.
It's not a coincidence that the awful 'Grandslam Sunday' appears now on a regular basis, with the Sky 4 all playing each other on the same weekend. This article ignores this.
Why won't fans be told about television companies leaning on the premier league to engineer the fixture list to reflect their wishes?
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In reply to #31 & #36...
You'll see when the fixtures are released they'll nearly all be 3pm Saturday kick-offs, aside from the few other days when fixtures are played (Boxing Day, the occasional midweek game that pops up midway through the season etc.) The TV companies then come in and make their picks for the slots they have, so for example Sky will pick the games they want for the Saturday 12:15, Sunday 4:00 etc. and Setanta pick their Saturday 5:15 games. These slots are fixed in the TV contracts but I understand there is some involvement with the police as well, for example they don't tend to allow sensitive derbies to be played late on a Saturday after both sets of fans have had all day to drink.
The TV companies can only move fixtures within a weekend, they can't change the week, the furthest they can take a fixture from Saturday 3pm is Setanta with it's Monday night slot (which is moving to Sky from the 10/11 regardless of Setanta's future).
Aside from the TV companies getting involved, the other thing that changes fixtures is the cup competitions, with things like Europa League sides having their games moved to Sunday (even when not on TV) after playing on the Thursday, and teams who get to the Carling Cup final etc. having games postponed usually to midweek later in the season.
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58) The only reason United had 3 away games in a row was because of the super cup, the fixture organiser can't be expected to account for extra fixture such as this and trips to Japan on top of everything else.
And no it wasn't your run of the mill "barb" at Man United fans, the club I support is 4 divisions below the EPL and would be impossible to support my local team just for UTD visits. The point I was trying to make is I actually think less concern will be put into the scheduling of their fixtures as they're likely to be moved for TV anyway and whenever/wherever United games are played they will get near on full attendance and revenue will not be affected unlike smaller clubs.
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Re; Spearmint fresh No. 51. Imagine having to play teams away from home, such an inconvenience. Don't you realise you got to play all these fantastic teams at home in the 2nd half of the season?? It isn't always about Man Utd. Infact there isn't a mention of them.
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And after all this hard work ensuring clubs don't have long midweek treks, the tv companies schedule games so that supporters that have season tickets can look forward to a 500 round trip on a Monday night. As for #54, the police move certain games to breakfast time, not the fixtures committee, so set your alarm clock for 11am again next season.
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Very interesting article and it is something we have been looking at for a while (especially wrt #14 and 22).
Take a look at
http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gxk/papers/gxkjors2008.pdf
which looks at four seasons to see if we are able to schedule Christmas/New Year fixtures over four seasons.
We have some follow up work in preparation which looks at seven seasons worth of data and uses more sophisticated techniques (which is particularly related to #53). Using these more sophisticated techniques we get even "better" solutions.
We are just about to do this seasons fixtures to see how we compare with the fixtures that will be published very soon.
Of course, we are conscious that we are only scheduling Xmas/New Year at the moment, but we are just about to start working on the complete seasons data.
We would also be interested on any feedback to the work we have done so far - and we are happy to let anybody have a look at our "work in progress" if they are interested.
Thanks again, very good article.
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So long as Argyle don't have mid-week fixtures against Newcastle,Middlesbro,Norwich, Preston and Blackpool.
All round trips of more than 600 miles. Some people have to work the following day.
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Responding to a few points above:
TV companies get their hands on the schedule after its announced, then request their live matches from this. So the decision of who gets the 12:30 match on a Saturday, or the Monday evening game, for example, is taken by them. This is done in two batches i.e. the TV games for the first half of the season are decided in July, then for the second half in December I think.
I don't know if the 'Super Sunday' events are generated by Sky after the fixture list is created but if you think about how many football matches there are and the relatively low number of potential variations, a random generator will throw up a few weekends of big matches every season.
@#30 - the computer does not allow for the 'strength' of various teams, so if one club has a tough start or finish it is simply a result of the random generation. Utd's start this season was a bit skewed as well due to the fact they missed out on a match due to the European Super Cup.
@#40 - local derbies aren't played on the final day, or first day of the season, as clubs know that those matches are guaranteed high attendance and revenue, so to have a derby on that day would be to 'waste' the high-attendance levels of the derby.
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Great article, I remember reading a funny story about a guy who once did a week of work experience with the fixture computer.
You can read it here:
http://www.b3ta.com/questions/workexperience/post79365
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Great article, shame about the Newcastle picture. It reminds me of hope, good players (Given and Milner), Keegan and above all a 1-1 with Man U, when we couldn't even score against Hull...
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Thanks Paul, very interesting. So now we know that sorting out the football fixtures is akin to brain surgery in terms of complexity; pity then...."the computor has no concept of distance between grounds".
Mr Thompson's having a laugh surely????
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over here, from division 3 down (league one or whatever) is divided into north and south.
saves travel and costs. gets better crowds. and as someone said, less petrol is used so it's better for the environment.
why not the same in the UK for the lower leagues?
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Very interesting stuff and intriguing. I always wondered why, when you can set up a basic algorithm to give you almost perfect home-then-away fixtures for any even number of teams, that we landed up with the vastly mixed and confusing schedule that we do. Now I know! Thanks!
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69. the European Super Cup is an annual event. the fixture compilers in each country know exactly who will be playing in it. there is no excuse at all for it to mean a team playing in Monaco has to play 3 consecutive away matches in their domestic league. compiling the fixtures to force them to do so is therefore deliberate, since as the article repeatedly states - and as we all know anyway - there is a certain leeway to alter the fixture list where appropriate.
similarly, the idea that the fixtures are simply a random generation is ludicrous. for instance, as has been pointed out, the chances of the top 4 all playing each other on any single weekend are remote in a random draw. the chances that this scenario is repeated in a random draw the following season - or even in the same season - are negligible.
United's fixtures in the 1st half of last season were laid out thus:
I) played 3 away games on the trot in the first 4 matches
II) played Everton, City, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Portsmouth and Villa away from home
III) played away from home immediately after each of their CL group games
Now, in a fixture list slaved over during its compilation for weeks on end, and tweaked according to that article at least 30 or 40 times to accommodate individual circumstances, the United fixtures were loaded against them in a way that certainly was NOT random.
History shows that they were still able to close a 7pt gap at christmas and win the league with a game or two to spare, but let's just say that the fixture compilers' mandate did them no favours.
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Great article, I often wondered how it worked out with the teams no in the premiership.
However as a spurs fan I'll be far from amused if we play this season opener away as it will the 5th year in the row and we're rubbish away!
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Oh for the days of just a Saturday kick off at 3.00pm for ALL games, including the FA Cup.It worked ok for years............. However Sky now calls the tune, "its my way or the highway"
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What a fascinating article.
The only thing missing though is Fergie - doesnt he get the final say as to who Man U play, when, where and how long the match will be?!?!
If not, Rafa, Wenger and a couple of others should probably think about apologising to Taggart.
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In response to No42, with the exception of the Old Firm Scottish football doesn't actually involve many paying spectators so it doesn't become an issue about local clubs playing at the same time. An example in Inverness recently there were more competitors in a charity run than watching a vital SPL relegation battle on the same day!
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Clubs have woken up to the fact that Boxing Day crowds will be large no matter whom they play, whilst games just before Christmas are traditionally low. Hence put the attractive local derbies two weeks before Christmas and have unattractive fixtures on Boxing Day, increasing overall crowds!
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And then after all that hard work Sky go and mess it all about so's they can show the matches on the telly.
But I want to know why the Mersyside Derby always features the first game at Analfield and the return fixture at Goodison and never the other way around?
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81. At 11:20am on 15 Jun 2009, supa1878 wrote:
And then after all that hard work Sky go and mess it all about so's they can show the matches on the telly.
But I want to know why the Mersyside Derby always features the first game at Analfield and the return fixture at Goodison and never the other way around?
----------------------------------------------
it doesnt, liverpool have played at goodison for the last 2 seasons first!
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Funny how the Premier league "Big 4" always have at least one weekend together though isn't it!!
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Inappropriate games are ones like sending Leeds to Bournemouth on May Bank Holiday weekend for the last fixture, or a (relatively for 4th Division) well-supported Wolves (who had just missed out in the play offs) to new-boys Scarborough for their first football league fixture, both of which happened some years ago and caused problems for the locals.
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In reply to No 45, when was the last time Celtic & Rangers met in the early rounds of a cup? Any conspiracy theories here?
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I skipped most of the end because it hurt my head. And I thought revision was bad...
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Supa1878-what are you talking about? The last 2 seasons the Merseyside Derby has been at Woodison first and Anfield second. Also, I wonder will Liverpool get a home fixture first this season as they havent had one since 03-04.
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2. At 07:28am on 15 Jun 2009, PhnomPenhHoops wrote:
Yes well I am sure this will all come as comfort to those required to travel to say, Middlesborough from London for the noon kick off on Boxing Day!!
-------------------
I'm sure you will find we are called Middlesbrough - just a little irritation we find up here that you southerners can't even be bothered to get our towns name right
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Great piece Paul, very useful information. I'd say this is possibly a slightly better solution than Fergie doing it in his office...
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Fascinating article, Paul.
My team, Middlesbrough, played Everton in the League twice last season - in November and December - before we'd played Man Utd at all.
This seems to happen most seasons with different clubs - any reasoning behind it?
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For the Super Sunday (Chelsea, Arsenal, United and Liverpool all playing in the matchday):
Without loss of generality:
There are 6 times that Chelsea will be playing Arsenal, United or Liverpool.
When Chelsea play Arsenal, there is a 1 in 17 chance that United will be playing Liverpool.
Or, when Chelsea are playing Arsenal, there is a 16/17 chance that Sky WON'T get it's Super Sunday. (again all without loss of generality).
Sky only have to beat this odd once out of a possible 6 attempts (when Chelsea play a top 4 team). This works out as a probability of around 0.3. (That is [1 - (16/17)^6] or the probability of at least one Super Sunday.)
While it is small, it's not small enough to say that there is a definite fix. However, with all his discretionary changes I'd be suprised to not see at least one!
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Really interesting article...sounds a lot more complicated than GCSE IT!
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Great blog and a good insight in to how the fixtures are set up.
Don't know if it's just me but I'd love to do this job!! Sounds like 1 massive jigsaw puzzle only with real outcomes to real people.
How do they decide who get's this job because there can't be many other jobs like it in the world.
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It would literally be impossible to please every club with the fixture lists and cup competitions the clubs all have. It's a miracle the fixtures can get compiled at all and that they generally work out very well. There will always be a few oddities thrown up but now we can understand that this is usually the lesser of 48 other evils. Good article - thank you.
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i saw a section about this on a football focus a few years back, really interesting i think.
as long as the tigers are away at the emirates and white hart lane the first 2 games cause an easy 6 points would be just the start we need haha!
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Now then,
Many thanks for all your posts.
I'm honestly not sure why the fixtures computer does not take into account travel distances. I guess I should have asked that question but I had enough trouble getting my head around all the other maths involved.
I reckon that it just would not work - that trying to factor in distance as well would perhaps break the programme!
As for people wondering about fixtures changing - there is scope to move a fixture around a particular weekend, say from Saturday to Friday or Sunday. TV do not get involved until the list has some out and although they can change day, to the best of my understanding they cannot change weekend.
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Hi Paul,
Very interesting. Now...if you could find out how Shoot League Ladders are made...
Seriously though, on the back of ToffeeGirl's point and your updated comment - I know the police can request a change in kick off time, but notwithstanding that, are all weekend fixtures assumed to start at 3pm and weekend ones at 7.45? Is it really just TV that sets any variances or are there other factors involved?
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Confused.com :S
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Lets not forget Sky Sport's demands. Anyone remember the unbeaten season of Arsenal - The game to go unbeaten for the 50th time (including the season before) was against Man U. Sky went potty with their graphics about this milestone. Arsenal spent the first half of that season playing low end clubs and only a couple of top half clubs (not the big four) at home.
Grand Slam Sunday anyone?
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I've written a fixture generator program myself. Took me about a day and a half and I think it probably does everything the official one does *and* is semi-aware of geographical concerns too, because clubs are assigned to a region. One extra column in the database, and one more thing to factor into the fixture generations. Probably added about ten minutes dev time max.
Oh, and it also has the capacity to flag newly promoted/relegated teams or teams who have moved to new stadiums, so their home games aren't midweek or Boxing Day, in order to let as many visiting fans as possible get to the new ground.
I ran the generator a minute ago, and it came up with Coventry at home to Newcastle on the opening day.
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Never had fixture problems in the Jurassic era (i.e. without PC's). So why the big song and dance. Perhaps too many competitions and too many external demands methinks.
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Very good article.
My main gripe is that if as has been pointed out the fixtures are done on a mainly manual basis then why do the people in charge always give my team Plymouth midweek games away at teams like Newcastle and Midlesborough. Surely it would be fairer if matches like these which involve great distances should be prioritised to be weekend matches so that more fans are able to attend. Also the idea of having "derby" matches on boxing day is an issue for Plymouth fans,even getting our nearest rivals Bristol City means travelling 200+ miles for some supporters and yet we very rarely get Bristol City on boxing or new years day.
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Re the 'Super Sunday' - last season, there was no occasion when Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal were playing each other on the same weekend. Sky made up their 'Super Sunday' in 2008-9 with Chelsea v Arsenal and Manchester City v Manchester United on Nov 30 and the reverse fixtures on May 10.....
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> As Thompson readily admits, the computer has no concept of the distance between grounds.
How hard can that be? Get someone to sit on google maps and write down the distances it spits out - it only needs to be done once. I bet there's a google maps API call (there WILL be software somewhere that does it) that spits out travel distances between two UK locations.
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Like most people on this blog, I was extremely interested reading this article and I have a lot more sympathy with the people who put the fixtures together. Mind you I still don't forgive them giving Liverpool a horror start to the season two years ago. I know the fixture guys didn't make them play rubbish, but when it was against virtually all the top teams in the first six weeks of the campaign, Liverpool's season, like Butlins, was over in September!
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Re 104 MattParkins
QuickAddress uses grid references held in a database so that if you front-ended the application to provide an entry for Post-Code #1 and Post-Code #2, it returns a value (in miles) of the distance. The only 'issue', though, is that the milage is worked out as a straight line. In the main, this is OK, but go and look at a map of the British Isles and there are a few that don't work out because there's water in the way! However, if a programme has been written to work out what it (the fixture generator, that is) currently does, then I can assure you that it can be improved to incorporate disatances. Jeez - believe me there are THOUSANDS of little apps going on all over the place every second of every day everywhere - can't be that hard to improve!
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Thank Paul, enjoyed this lots.
As you'll have gathered the main point we'd like to put back to Glenn Thompson is adding the distances in (there seem to be any number of programmers who've posted above, who would happily offer assistance).
I'd suggest a rule of a maximum distance (say 200 miles) for midweek fixtures.
I do acknowledge that for teams at one end of the country, like Plymouth, this might restrict some fixtures, but their fans accept they would travel the distances anyway.
Thoughts?
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I hope those at Newcastle United have been in touch and requested a home game on Boxing Day this season. We have had away games in Lancashire for the last SEVEN seasons in a row.....
Whilst I understand compiling the fixtures must be a bit of a headache, surely the TV companies are involved early on in the process for all the "Super Sunday" weekends they have - that can't just be coincidence!
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What a fantastic article. Glenn Thompson is obviously a man with a brain the size of a computer.
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WELL I'M STAGGERED!
Staggered that they use 27 year old software (though updated 17 years ago) when no-one else whose business ran on those principles would still be in business.
Staggered (though now, not surprised) that they have not made use of any of the myriad GIS programs around.
Staggered that they outsource this relatively simple problem.
Staggered/
Oh I give up. How do you domesticate a brachiosaurus?
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It does seem that the final fixtures of a season are 'filler fixtures'. (Man. Utd. vs Wigan, for example)
Why is it a bad idea to put two teams together in a potential title-deciding clash, which they clearly, as evidenced by this' avoid?
It'd be more exciting.
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Really good article!!!
Oh to all the Man Utd fans... you had 3 away games in a row 'cos of the Euro Supercup, which is for some reason held on a Friday not pre-season, you wont have to worry about that again.
And you had 7 tough away games in the first half of the season, blimey, so what? So I guess you had quite alot of easy away games in the latter half, so you could play young/reserve players and play your better players in the Champions League's important games.
Why should these guys look over the list and go, oh look this particluar club has tough away games this half of the season when in fact how would they know how a team is going play in the next season?? It can be guessed but never known.
Oh and as a Newcastle fan, how about a home fixture on Boxing day?? Any chance for once??
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Very good article, insightful and interesting.
Although there was no mention of how things are affected why Sky make their choices of live matches, are these choice automatically granted or do they also have to get the green light from the police etc??
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Is there a website where you can look up the paired teams for each of the Premier League teams?
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Question ? why cant the sequence be home/away/home/away etc ? There may have to be exceptions BUT surely even if you cant be totally fair surely the concept of H/A/H/A should be kept to as far as possible.
Question ? why should teams have the benefit of playing all their home games against the better teams in the 2nd half of the season ? And too those who say, they are at a disadvantage by playing them all the top teams away first, tell me when the league title was last won by Christmas ? Its won in the second half of the season. there should be a fair spread for all teams.
Question ? Why can 2 teams play each other twice, often within a 6 week period and yet still not have played all the other teams ? farcical.
Yes, drawing up the list is hard but a semblance of fairness should be its yardstick, these basic rules are broken in the points above
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*103
Not in 2008-09, but in the season before that Grand Slam Sunday was Liverpool v Man Utd and Arsenal v Chelsea
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Computers can take into account distances travelled, there is a computer program that does it and takes local derby games into account, I have been using it for over twenty years, go to www.specialitysoftware.co.uk
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Wow, sounds mind-bogglingly complicated. As someone that doesn't go to watch many football matches it never really occurred to me that the attendances of teams would affect those of nearby teams. I always just thought it was a case of making sure all the teams play each other twice so that the fixtures don't clash.
Nice article.
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MAN U GET SPEACIAL TREATMENT!
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I would love to see Alex Ferguson do that! Ouch. Head Ache!
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112. the point about the drastically lob-sided fixture programme is that it shows the compilers chose not to avoid it - Liverpool argued as you have that it may have actually benefitted United. whether that's true or not true, what it did do was leave the table in a false position for more than half a season until the fixtures began to unwind.
the point about the away games after CL matches is that it is something the compilers chose not to avoid
the point about the Super Cup is that it is an annual event, and that there is therefore no reason at all why the system of compiling fixtures doesn't take that into account other than that they choose not to - even though they claim to accommodate the requests of all teams 80% of the time
the point about not worrying about the Super Cup is just a petty side swipe at something that really doesn't concern you and never ever will
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Wow!
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Hello - I have e-mailed the man who runs the fixtures programme to try to get to the bottom of why it does not take into account distances between clubs.
As far as I know there is not a website with a list of the paired clubs.
The reason why you do not get "sensitive" fixtures played on the opening or closing dates of the season is laregly, I believe, related to police advice.
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Surely you only need to do the fixtures for half a season the second half should be exactly the same as the first half. Instead of the nonsense of playing a team twice in the space of a few weeks ridiculous!!
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Regionalisation is not the answer. For one thing it will do nothing to reduce the long journeys, especially for those who find themselves in the southern section. For instance clubs towards the far south east won't have long journeys north but these will only be replaced by long trips west.
And if for instance all the teams relegated from the Championship were northern and those promoted from the Blue Square Premier were all northern aswell, what would that do to the balance of the regionalised leagues the following season?
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What a great article, I had no idea so much effort went into the fixtures. I used to think what a great job it would be to be the one deciding the fixture list, but it sounds like an absolute nightmare!
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What nonsense. It is only difficult if you allow too much flexibility like "We (Man City) don't want to play Man Utd in August". Given a computer and the right software it is a very simple exercise. It requires little human effort every season except replacing the relegated / promoted teams.
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The main question about Local Derbies for Boxing day and other festive fixtues has been asked by supporters groups for years, Why didn't you use this chance to ask the people who decide the fixtures the question?
The last excuse I heard from the football league was that there was not enough teams to pair up!! Crazy I know. Mind you, all that needs to be said is "sorry its police advice" and thats usually the end of the matter.
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The Kendall paper (#67) has an appendix with the team pairings he used for the Christmas/New Year fixtures - he has a maximum of 4 teams that can each be paired together (so Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich and Southend) - somewhat simpler than the actual program that also involves West Ham and others
The point about the actual program not incorporating travel distances is not that it is difficult to collect distances but that the addition of additional constraints will increase the complexity - and allow clubs to make requests such that we don't want to play any mid-week games where we have to travel more than 100 miles
The Kendall paper produces fixtures that reduce travelling distances over the holidays by about 30% on average - both both his fixtures and the actual ones still have between 8 and 14 clashes each match day when paired teams are both playing at home
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How does the Rugby crossover work? There are so many clubs that share grounds - including some pretty big teams - Reading/London Irish for example, or occasionally Leicester Tigers use the Walkers Stadium. Does the football fixture list get priority as it is more complex?
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Thanks - great insights. You've earned your money today boy. Fingers crossed for those fixtures now; is there still time to request Birmingham's game on the final day to be at home and not against Chelsea or ManU?!
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As (almost all) the rugby clubs are tenants not owners, they have to move games during the season if there is a clash (such as re-arranged cup ties and the like) - the Rugby fixtures for the season are typically released about 3 weeks after the football ones, so it's likely the Rugby fixtures work around the football ones for the season as well
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Honestly, it really isn't as simple as working out the first half of the fixtures then reversing them for the second. That sort of thinking does not take into account other events taking place in a certain place at certain times or other sporting fixtures in the same place - or clubs indeed sharing their ground with other sports.
trek_madone (post 128) I did ask about local derbies and travelling on Boxing Day. Believe me, FSF president Ian Todd (a member of the fixtures working party) is very hot on this subject and has been ensuring that distance between grounds on dates such as 26 December and midweek is a key factor when the fixture list is worked out.
A lot of work does go into the list - but the people who put it together would be the first to admit it is far from perfect.
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30-odd years ago, I worked as a programmer for the company that compiled the fixture list. We also had a program for predicting the football results in the hope that we could win the pools jackpot. When crowd trouble started to drive people away from football, our group suggested that we could take the fixture list and feed it into our prediction program. We could thendo away with the messy business of actually palying football matches. We could even release the results week by week to simulate a whole season.
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Hmmmmm so when does Sir Alex Ferguson have his input as Benitez must be wondering?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I already knew there was much more to it than anyone thinks, however this made good reading, it was interesting to hear how so many team's fixtures depend on one completely random one.
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Either way the fixture list is better than Fifa. For some stupid reason it decides to put FA Cup matches on the same day as league ones!
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By Fifa I mean the game...
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There are clearly some other factors, $ky $ports always get enough "super sundays" that there is clearly some sequencing at work, the big 4 always seem to play each other at the same time...
In Spain last year they deliberately fiddled the list so each team came up against the "big 4" in back to back weekends, and the big 4 played each other in two blocks that were supposed to be the key parts of the season. We don't go that far in England, but its not too far off!
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Great article Paul. It is missing something though... At what stage to they get Sir Alex Ferguson to sign it off too?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Clubs having any say in when they would rather play and who they would rather play against on which particular weekend is wrong. The fixture list is open to 'rigging'. Who does this guy support out of interest? Say he is a big Man Utd fan (for arguments sake) he can arrange to give them an easy 10 opening fixtures. Never make them play against 2 top 4 teams in a row etc etc. The fixtures should be far more randomly generated in that respect. I understand there are other factors, but these can be worked around. Say there is a concert or another sporting event, you can just move the fixture from a Saturday to a Friday, Sunday or Monday. Wheres the issue?
And saying a computer will 'break' if theres too much information connected to travel distances is ridiculous! I cant believe its THAT hard for anyone who is good with computers.
Anyway, a very good article, eye opening in some respects.
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I owuld love to have that jobb!!!
But im not clever enough :(
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[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/2gt3t3l.jpg[/IMG]
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I bet he's glad we don't play on Christmas Day and Boxing Day any longer.
Christmas Day - Torquay United v Notts County
Boxing Day - Notts County v Bournmouth
Mind you, next season would have been OK in Div 3 in old money
Christmas Day - Notts County v F*&^%$
Boxing Day - F*&^%$ v Notts County
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I find the thought that the fate of the English Football League is dependant upon one man, his laptop and an excel spreadsheet just a little bit scary!! www.forgirlswhocantdofootball.blogspot.com
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GeorginaBest - I think a touch of hyperbole might be involved in the suggestion that we are talking about the fate of the English Football League. There are plenty of other factors in the mix as well.
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County have been away on the first and last day for 3 seasons in a row . Will complain if it happens again
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How does the fact that a small but increasing number of clubs groundshare with rugby clubs get worked out - or are the football fixtures the first set to come out, forcing the rugby fixtures to be designed around football's?
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83. At 11:24am on 15 Jun 2009, Croydon Owl wrote:
Funny how the Premier league "Big 4" always have at least one weekend together though isn't it!!
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They didn't last season.
Though, there did seem to be derby weekends.
Last season:
Man U v Man C
Arsenal v Chelsea
Cardiff v Swansea
Rangers v Celtic
all on the same weekend!
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I do believe us Pilgrims can complain more than all of you - SCUNTHORPE away on a tuesday night. 640 mile round journey!
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i hope rafa has a read of this before he starts complaining this season
fergie blatently has a choice in what goes on...
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I always have memories of our deputy head teacher sitting in the head's office with this giant board of pegs, as he worked out the school calender for the following year.
From what you say, things don't appear to have moved on that much. It is downright comical that so much of this is still done by hand, a Computer could do all this without the need for all this tweaking, as others have said, a computer can work out how far the grounds are away from each other. Rules can be set to take into account all the stipulations you list, plus a darn sight more. Like concepts of not making away fans travel great distances too often too close together, so clubs don't see poor away ticket sales because in the last months, their fans had already done over a certain amount of mileage. There is no need to have to manually create the Christmas fixture list. Issues like teams having Saturday lunchtime away fixtures right after a European match could be factored out, but it looks like with most things to do with out so called "professional" footballing bodies, it is fudged and messed up, and no attempt is ever made to make sure the job is done as well as it is possible to do.
I guarantee you that if you laid down a challenge to computer experts, 101 better systems could be demonstrated, but no, they keep going back to the same guy and a half baked system from 1982. It's so shockingly bad, it is laughable.
You also failed to mention that once it is all done BSkyB step in and then move them all about again to suit themselves.
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re 114:
many moons ago i read a book "the history of the football league" (I think that's wot it was called) the 2 end pages were a map of England with the 'paired clubs' ie wednesday cant play at home on same day as sheff utd (obviously!) but also rotherham and barnsley
cant remember who wrote it tho sorry - sure google/amazon could help
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I had some idea of the work involved - been a football fan for a long time. Back in 1968 when I started to visit Stamford Bridge, both Chelsea and Fulham had home draws two FA Cup rounds in a row and the staggered kick-off was just ONE hour apart on Saturday afternoon. Definitely wouldn't see that happening today.
On a sad note.....
Sadly, Tony Kempster, the man who has created the best non-league website, passed away last night, after a long battle aginst cancer. He died peacefully at home in the presence of his family.
I am disappointed that the BBC Football pages have not carried this sad news as a headline item and have not posted an article as a tribute to the dedication and work that Tony has shown over many years (and even during his illness, up to the end of the last season less than a month ago) to keep fans of non-league clubs informed and up to date. This is something that the major football pages (BBC, ITV and Sky) have neglected to do, concentrating as they do only on the major leagues, with just a small nod to the Blue Square leagues.
THANK YOU, TONY, FOR YOUR HARD WORK - RIP 14th June 2009
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Those of you saying all the computer needs to do is to create one half of the fixtures then simply reverse the fixtures for the remainder of the season, have not read the article properly.
This system does not allow for special events. For example, Hull City try and avoid clashing with Hull Fair (it uses the KC car park) and home fixtures for Hull FC who also play at the KC! I am sure there are many, many other local issues for most clubs. The calculating of the fixture list is a logisitical nightmare that can not be solved so simply!
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All the paracetamol in the world will not cure the headache I now have from reading this article.
Jokes aside, I genuinly never knew that there were so many factors in doing the football fixtures. I can't quite see how West Ham playing at home on the say day as Southend will affect Southend too much. I can understand the police requests to not have Everton and Liverpool playing at home on the same day. I'm not saying that there would deffinately be fights, but why take the chance if you can avoid it?
The only thing that annoys me is why should big clubs moan about losing money over one or 2 games? Don't they make enough of it to make up for it? Just one or 2 games shouldn't be a problem but I can kind of see why they would object over finances if there were 5 or more games. Personally I tihnk that the fixtures should be decided and agreed with, then stuff the European fixtures. If Man U are upset with not being on tell because Portsmouth are playing Spurs then it's their problem, not the rest of the leagues. I'd rather watch Pompey or Spurs over Man U anyway
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What club does Glenn Thompson support?
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Tottenham v West Ham on boxing day please.
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sabre tooth (post 158) - There has been a lot of posts re: travelling distance for fans. The issue of West Ham and Southend is also one of geography but from the clubs perspective. Both these clubs have the same catchment area and many West Ham fans may have Southend or Leyton Orient as their second team. So to have home fixtures on the same day would affect their revenues, i.e. gate money, programme sales etc. For anyone with a grasp of geography, there are so many pairings of clubs within 10-20 miles of each other. As anyone who drives and uses a UK map, you will know that you are never more than 10 miles or so from a major town, a town that will probably have a football club of some status, even at non-league level. It seems that a lot of posters are concerned with the Big 4, Sky TV kick-off times and the lack of public transport on bank holidays. But to get a better understanding of the problem, you have to look at the whole picture. There's more to the fixture scheduling than meets the eye.
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why does everybody go on and on about the fixture list helping liverpool and being unfair on man u or vice versa. everybody plays everybody else twice, just get over it!!agreed that supporters should have to travel as little as possible in midweek tho
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its a facinating procedure, i had no idea it was so complicated, i had never considered some of the logistical problems they aim to avoid when making the fixture lists, other than the obvious ones like derby games, other major events, etc. good insight, yet i feel few will remeber this when the fixtures come around during the season!
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More than just roman squares isn't it
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Good insight, and I'll bear this in mind when we start our season with two away matches that I can't afford followed by a home match on the one day of the season I cannot make.
Still, I can't help feeling that Glenn Thompson is a psydonum for a well known knight who manages in the top flight.
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Good article
I was aware of a couple of things taken into consideration when preparing the fixture list, such as rival teams not playing at home on the same day, but i didnt imagine it took so much planning and organisation. It must be so tiring to produce. Fair play to the guys who do it
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No. 160 - unlikey
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Nice article, thanks. More like this please. My only grumble about the fixtures is why local derbies no longer seem to be dated on Boxing Day or New Years' any more like they used to "in the old days". I would have thought that would have been a no brainer to program in and would add that bit of extra glamour to the fixture list.
Algis Kuliukas
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Good article Paul.
I believe the police also have more input than is realised. As one senior officer suggested last season that Lincoln play a local derby behind closed doors to avoid "problems"
Also, like Middlesbrough fan 88 we Forest fans we also get annoyed by being referred to (incorrectly)as "Notts" Forest.
For the record its Notts County and Nottingham Forest.
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So basically, West Ham are one of the most powerful sides in British football.
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One thing is there is lack of full randomness.
I can not understand some places where he says manual tweaking is needed.
Any reasonable Artificial Intelligence program should do this in no time.
"Ground distances " and all can not be understood by program is utter rubbish.
Then one factor missed out in article is Sky's influence.
Then there s always the chance for managers to ask for change of fixtures, which leads to unwnated allegations.
So not an entirely transparent procedure.
Just makes it look like a big deal to common people.
But as an IT person, I find the procedure a bit dodgy.
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I wasn't saying that the computer program can't be adapted to take account of differences - but that if you add more constraints to the problem (such as minimising mid-week and holiday travel distances) then the solutions to the problem become more complex - and you will get more conflicts between the various constraints - such as is it more important to minimise travelling distances for fans or avoid West Ham and Southend playing at home together - the more constraints that you add to the program, the less likely that everyone will be satisfied with the end result
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Very interesting article.
Quite a lot of comments about how the program could be improved, mostly valid I would say. However I am sure that Mr Thompson as an IT professional from ATOS is perfectly well aware of this.
Secondly do the TV Companies actually change dates? I doubt it, they probably only have an influence on the time a game is played.
Well done Fletch
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I really hope they see sense this year and don't send us (Plymouth Argyle) up north on a Tuesday to the likes onf Newcastle. By the sounds of things that shouldn't happen but it wouldn't be the first time.
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That still doesn't explain why we (Charlton Athletic) have played Bristol,City home and away on midweeks the past 2 seasons..... I expect Hartlepool away to be a Tuesday night in February this season, just means you can't go to such games unless you're a lottery winner and don't need to work for a living!
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About all the comments saying how complex it is.
Just publish the parameters needed to be considered and ask for a suitable program (or even make an open contest).
Am sure many a software guy will come up with suitable programs that can be used by FA.
From my part. I do not even need a fee for such a program, the knowledge that my program wil be used by FA itself is the price.
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What many fans don't appreciate is that (for example) Carlisle would rather play Torquay on a Tuesday night than waste a Satureday afternoon fixture. The difference in the number of Torquay fans travelling to Carlisle on a Tuesday as apose to a Satureday is not that great, however the number of Oldham fans is. Therefore have your closest teams on Saturedays and the ones that don't bring that many fans anyway on a Tuesday..
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Mind blowing amount of info. I thought they just put all the team in a computer and hey presto.
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No potentially sensitive fixtures on the last day?
Brentford played Luton last game of the 08/09 season. When the list was released, this fixture stood out as we thought it could be a "us going up/them going down" important match. As it turned out, this is exactly what happened, although both criteria had been settled earlier.
There has been the odd bit of trouble in previous years when Luton have come to ours and, given Northern-heavy fixtures involved in L2, it's certainly a fixture that could have been described as local, to the point where the police had a dry run of away supporter funneling after the home match against Exeter a few weeks beforehand.
The Luton fans were by and large very well behaved, possibly due to having already been long condemned to the Conference, but I wonder what might have happened had they only been a couple of points adrift of safety on the last day.
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So that's how towards the end of last season Portsmouth played Newcastle on a Monday night and following that Sunderland played Portsmouth on a Monday night both involving the longest travel distances possible in the Premier league for each club and requiring at least a day off work for each set of fans - Brilliant !!!
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I had every sympathy for this poor man until;
"He also manually creates the fixtures for Boxing Day and 28 December to try to minimise the travelling distance for fans. As Thompson readily admits, the computer has no concept of the distance between grounds."
I'm just a lowly mainframe hack and even I can knock you up a proximity algorythm in an afternoon. You only need the grid reference of the grounds and you're away. "the computer has no concept of the distance between grounds", the computer has no concept of anything until you tell it!
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I know a little about Glenn and his system. He wont remember but I did my work experience in 1987 at Atos Origin (formerly SEMA, formerly CAP) in Wilmslow and was shown around the mainframe that did this originally.
What is also a nice little touch, is that the room this computer is based in is, according to google maps, approx 500 yards from the house of a certain Sir Alex Ferguson. Whilst there are probably 2 other managers within 5 miles of this office (Mark Hughes is in Mottram at least) I'm fairly sure SAF is the nearest.
Just guessing, but SAF will probably drive past the window of this place every single day to get to the A34, or the road out to the Airport. Do you think he even knows how close he is!!
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I don't want to know, don't let light in upon magic!
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I have very old football programmes from the 1930's in those days they would play home on Christmas day and then away against the same team on Boxing Day
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I like the point where the guy mentions that the boxing day fixtures are done manually and not computerised...
Check out how many times Celtic have been sent to Aberdeen on that date or round about that date over the past two decades, unbelievable!
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Great article. But the whole process smacks of excessive bureaucracy to me use of a computer programme that can't even tell how far apart places are; questionnaires; rubber stamps and sign-offs; police reports... is it all necessary? or is it just a load of rubbish that can be used to tell people how difficult it is to compile a fixture list. It's not that difficult is it?
I don't really understand why this chap seems to get so stressed and having nightmares about it? weird! I reckon anyone with a decent grasp of geography, knowledge of football, is well-organised, and has a diary could do this in under a week without a computer at all.
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As I am a Wolves season ticket holder, I am also interested in the flight schedules! That's just as complex.
Last season I managed 16 home games and 3 away, this next season, flights permittting, I hope to see all 19 home games. Fingers crossed and flight schedules at the ready.
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The whole thing sounds very Fulhamish, just try the underground anywhere in London when any 2 of its Premiership clubs are at home and you'll know what I mean. It shouldn't take a computer or a degree in astrophysics to know that the fixture list isn't a well thought out process it's merely a compromise.
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"To make Sky happy, you can set a rule that Super Weekends (Man U vs Arsenal vs Chelsea vs Liverpool) happen 3 times a year" - Cyborgia.
Don't they do this already, there seem to be a huge number of these so-called 'super' weekends, trumpeted by $ky at every available opportunity. That can't be a coincidence.
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Excellent Article, I now feel enlightened and informed.....however you can bet your rent money that Newcastle and Boro will be either thr first or last game of the season. It was just always going to happen....
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As a Canadian sports fan, one of the things that attracted me to English & Scottish football, at all levels, was the passion and atmosphere created by the presence of the travelling supporter. Devoted sections of Stadia just for travelling fans is just not something we normally see in North America, except in college sports (which have much more passion than their pro equivalents, in my view). Because of distance, I follow soccer on TV. The unique contribution of these dedicated supporters cannot be overstated. As they sing throughout & roar for goals, these fans are truly an essential ingredient in the enjoyment I take from the telecasts, as much as the fuid motion, passing, and power in the game.
Towards that end, anything that can ensure that supporters can follow their respective teams away from home must be encouraged. I found the article fascinating, and I thank you for explaining the process so that those of us that follow the EPL & Football Leagues from abroad can have a better understanding of the game.
Like many in North America, I was raised on traditional sports like the NFL, basketball & hockey. I have come to love european football much later in life than the typical person living in the UK. Any article that can help me understand the sport better will always be appreciated. Keep up the good work.
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@border_latic. Maybe for a simpleton it seems simple. Its obviously a fairly complex problem, with many variables, and many rules. There are literally millions of people to keep happy, and the co-ordination between the parties inbolved looks like hard work.
Weird that he gets stressed? Not a big jump, imagine if he got it wrong. The cost to his company, and the people involved could be enormous.
Lets see what you can do in a week. You could save the FA a small fortune.
After that, try and crack P=NP. That should keep you amused. Cant be that hard can it? Its only a short formula.
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A really good artical. Some people are never happy about the fixture lists but there again you cannot make everyone happy all the time.
At least we have the oportunity to watch football at a level where we want to, be it Premiership or non league.
I would like to see fixtures back on a Saturday at 3pm and wages/transfer fees to an acceptable level but there again I know this cannot happen now as it has gone too far! Players being transfered and paid the same price as some countries national debt is obsene! Maybe it is time to let the 'top clubs' disappear in to the European abiss and get British football back to the British people again.
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Regionalisation of leagues 1 and 2 has two potential problems. There would be a season where there would be no promotion from league 2 and therefore nothing to play for the top 22 clubs. And also my team Lincoln City would probably be close to the cut off point and lose their derby with Notts County but gain a fixture with Carlisle about 200 miles away.
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Fascinating article although can someone please explain to me how Arsenal v Middlesborough this year was on Sunday 26th April, 1.30pm kick off......the same day as the London Marathon. Surely someone should have foreseen that!?.....is it Arsenal's fault, the Premier League's, Westminister Council or who?
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When I was a boy it was quite common to have two or three fixtures between 24th and 28th December and more often than not two of them were "reverse fixtures" - play a team at home on Christmas Eve and Away on Boxing Day. What was always so strange was that it was quite common to lose the home fixture and win the away fixture. I think that in the 50s we (I'm a Villa supporter) used to play Wolves quite regularly over Christmas. One year we played them on Christmas day and then again on Boxing Day. We even lost at home 7-1 to Bolton one Boxing Day - a few hangovers on the pitch methinks. But we did put 5 past Chelsea the following Christmas Day. Going to the football with your Dad whilst your Mum was boiling cabbage for 6 hours and under-cooking Turkey (which wouldn't fit in the oven) was a Christmas tradition before the late 60s when back-to-back fixtures appeared to stop.
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Whats all the fuss about? The computer is doing all the number crunching and hard work. All thi sbloke is doing is putting in a bunch of variables - admittedly a lot of 'em - but nothing complex about inputting some data. Somehow - the inference coming across is that one bloke is trying to squeeze all this into one head and come up with the answers...
Anyway - looking forward to Newcastle v Torquay - I could do with a holiday in the tropics toward the end of the summer......
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They failed to mention when in all this process they consult with Alex Furguson, to check he is happy with it all.
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I'm fixture secretary for our local snooker league, and believe me, a lot goes into it. Putting certain teams opposite each other in the fixtures to ensure they are never home on the same day can be a nightmare at times, but I'm only doing this on a small scale. On a larger scale I imagine it's a right nightmare.
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I enjoyed this article but ultimately it failed to shed any light on the strange phenomenon of SkySports'perennial 'Grandslam Sunday', whereby the 'Big Four' are all mysteriously drawn to play one another on two weekends during the season. Are we led to believe this is merely a freak coincidence? Answers on a postcard please!
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Perhaps if you all supported your local team and didn't try to get to Manchester or Liverpool from the 4 corners of the country you find the majority of teams do kick off at 3pm on a Sat.
A BSP team real supporter not a I support Utd but have never been fan !!
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RE: 8 & 60.
I might be wrong but I think that Clubs can make simple requests about fixtures too. I.e. I believe Sunderland request to have a home fixture to start the season and home fixture to end the season and this certainly seems to be the case. First game home to Liverpool, last game home to Chelsea. Either Tottenham actually ask for an away fixture to start and end the season or its a case of 'you don't ask, you don't get'!
Hence only 4 out of 17 for a home game to start the season. What's the odds Sunderland are home first and last game again and Tottenham away?
Find out Wednesday.....
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I feel quite strongly about football being shifted around for TV. I don't think it's right. All weekend matches should start at 3pm just as they used to. If TV companies want to show them, then they show them at this time. Of course, it'll never happen now. They should have stopped it before it got out of hand. Now some Saturdays there are like 2 premiership games at 3pm and that's it.
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To all those down south moaning about their fixture orders...just be thankful you play each team once, home and away.
Its infinitely preferable to three games against five of the teams in your league, two against the other six and with the annual possibility of playing away three times against the same team. Factor in what is literally a bespoke calandar allowing for the needs the top two teams and you have the most bizarre and one-sided set of fixtures in European football. Cheers SPL.
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I thought it had been decided that Alex Ferguson would do all the fixtures in his office and fax them out to the teams afterwards?
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The TV companies have first say, they also want to write the most exciting script, this ensures relegation threatened teams playing teams competing for Euro places near the end of the season, I hope British teams playing in the Champs league get their preferences. I'm amazed that they'll get it right though because this is a bunch of dinosaurs that had Malouda score a perfect goal at the world watched FA cup final and it was not given. Expect another farce of continuing injustice, wrong decisions, disrespecting the Ref and a team getting relegated because of a wrong decision. Ridiculous. We have technology, each team to have two decision appeals per game.
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Excellent article.
Not that I expect anyone will read this post following 200 other posts, but here's my tuppence worth. As a GIS professional, and in common with post #110, I concur that the process of allocating the Boxing Day fixtures (manually) could be improved with the introduction of a GIS network analysis.
Many of the complaints from fans come from the large distances they have to travel for midweek games. With every club plotted on the main roads network, distances (or travel times) to all other clubs in the same league could be calculated. A threshold could then be set above which it is unreasonable to expect fans to travel (say 2hrs or 140 miles etc) for a midweek match (or indeed Boxing Day match). Factoring this into the decision rule set would go some way to appeasing the suffering fan base.
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Midweek games are a problem with either fans not wanting to travel too far (maximum distance limitation) or police wanting to avoid local derbies with trouble potential (minimum distance limitation).
Also for certain clubs (eg Plymouth) their nearest opponent could be > 100 miles away, so does this mean that they should not play any midweek games?
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RE: 207
As an I.T. consultant myself, there is no doubt that building 'distance based rules' for midweek/boxing day games etc could be built into the fixture system, so lets ask the obvious question - why has it not been implemented?
Answer - Cost. Unless the Premier League/F.A/whoever holds the purse strings puts their hands in their pockets and stumps up the cash to include 'distance based rules' - it ain't gonna happen.
Any comments anybody? It CAN BE DONE - so how do we go about making it happen?
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Many thanks for a fascinating article.
"Thompson will start dealing with ... feeder leagues to the Blue Square Premier."
Does anyone know how far down the non-league pyramid (sorry, 'National League System') league fixtures have to wait to fit in with the Premiership and Football League fixtures? And when will the Ryman League fixture list be published!
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Simples ;)
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I wasn't having a go at you Paul. Just thought the question should be asked why teams aren't paired up with their nearest neighbours on Boxing Day/NYD. Its done in Non league. What do I know though? maybe when the fixtures come out Cov-Leicester will be 3PM Boxing Day!!!
The whole police thing is a red herring in my view.
Like when games are moved from 3PM Saturdays, Thats a whole other subject!! Like I say, just my opinion.
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Thanks for the article Paul, but can you please answer one question? Why isnt the Premier League based on two rounds, like for example, the Serie A and the Bundesliga? In the Serie A, Milan and Inter share the same ground. So do Juventus and Torino, and Roma and Lazio. Still theres no problem in having all teams play one another in one round and the reverse fixtures in a second round. Every season in the Premier League we get teams who still have to play one or two others but have already played both their matches against some other team. Theres also a very wide gap between certain matches involving the same teams. I think that having two rounds with reverse fixtures would be more fair.
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Why dont they do it the same way as in Spain.Their season reflects 2 mirror halfs so you play the teams in the same order first home and then away over the course of the season. This seems perfectly fair and surely would only necessitate getting one half of the season right to begin with.
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Please, no Newcastle or Middlesbrough away in midweek! But I fancy another early derby against the Jacks!!!
Newcastle home first day of season!!!!!!
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Very interesting article!
Now I'll try not bemoan these guys when it feels as though they've purposely left big fixtures for the games towards the end of the season, it all seems a lot of hard work.
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Interesting article.
Fans will still complain about difficult fixtures though. Some will say how come they have to play all the top teams in the division away from home in the first (or second) half of the season. However, that means you play all the bottom teams in the opposite half of the season. All teams have to play each other home and away at some point of season, it doesn't really matter when. For example: if your team is relegated after a hard end to the season, they should have done better at the beginning of the season.
All that really matters is form and ability going into each game. A team on form is likely to get a result (whether home or away) if they are playing well or are a superior team.
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I am suprised Sky don't have a say.
You never get a crunch title game on the first/last day, or at Xmas. Surely this is because the tv guys know these times are dramatic anyway without needing a big game to sell them.
Also when sky had all the top 4 televised on one day. There is no way that was a conincidence. It happened 2 seasons running!
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'My only grumble about the fixtures is why local derbies no longer seem to be dated on Boxing Day or New Years' any more like they used to "in the old days". I would have thought that would have been a no brainer to program in and would add that bit of extra glamour to the fixture list.'
Clubs hate this and request otherwise. Boxing Day is always a big earner as is your derby, so why would you want them both on the same day? Police bill is higher on Boxing Day and for a derby, again why put them both on the same day and end up with a massive bill? That can create serious cash flow issues especially at lower levels.
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When did Rafa say that Ferguson actually had a say in the fixture list? He was just telling him to stop complaining when fixtures don't go your way, and gave examples of when fixtures weren't ideal for Liverpool in the past and nobody complained then. Rafa said that united had an advantage in the second half of the season playing at home, but how does that in any way imply that the fixture list is fixed for them? He was clearly just pointing out the positives of their schedule, so ferguson can stop moaning when things aren't perfect.
Rafa then goes on to give 2 suggestions, 1 being adopting the Spanish way of doing the fixture list, which is a perfectly viable option, and the other for ferguson to compile the fixtures himself, which he knows is obviously not possible and is clearly just a cheeky dig at him.
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Quite right Bellion-Wonderland, Im sure theres a few envelopes been exchanged somewhere, and if they havnt already im sure they will do soon.
Sky seem to have more influence on fixtures, K.O. times and the like, than anything else.
ANIMO ET FIDE #12
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I agree with many of the postings from British people who are not English (40, 42 etc)...it would be great when this type of article is being written, to consider changing it from an English perspective and making it British (to include the Scots). Fletcher, it only takes a 5 minute phone call to the SPL. Please employ some Scots at BBC Sports website!
Otherwise, great article Fletcher..I'd love to see the discussions in a tv documentary.
Thanks!
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I'm suspicious of how random they are, especially when you get the big four playing each other on the same day and glamorous fixtures on the opening day. Among other examples.
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I always knew that Southend had a big influence in football matters! Now I know the real reasons why! Does the computer also take into account the tides?
Bet we still get Carlisle or Hartlepool away mid week though.
UTB
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There have been many responses to the fact that the list helps one team or another get an advantage. Any football fan knows that over the course of a season the team who wins their league deserves to and those that go down deserve to. It is the same principle as the amount of lucky or unlucky decisions which go a team's way over the course of a season. United won the league because they were the best team , end of ! One comment though, why do United fans always have to travel to Middlesbrough over Christmas - surely that can't be random . Sick to death of it .........
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The response to the admission that "the computer has no concept of the distances between grounds" has bordered on the ridiculous, as the articel goes into great detail on the constraints already placed on the system by the requirement to ensure certain clubs do not play at home on the same, requests from the clubs for various things, input from the police etc.
Seems to me that the distance between the grounds is one of the most minor aspects of it, except for the Christmas period and midweek games which make up a small minority of the total fixture list. It might be easy to include the allowance for distances in the program but I doubt, given the other constraints outlined, that it will actually give a better result than the present process with all its flaws.
Oh ... and #185 ... you might not have noticed that this whole article was referring to the Premier League and Football League, so you will need to look elsehwere for the explanation of Celtic's constant Boxing Day trips to Aberdeen.
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Although we struggled at Anfield early on last season I really hope Liverpool get a home game first (2003 was the last time) and tonk someone 3 or 4 nil that plays a defensive game to give us some much needed confidence in these type of games. Rafa just needs to err against caution over the first few weeks unlike last season.
Also in following my local team (Luton Town)I now have to wait an extra 2 or 3 weeks for their fixtures . Boxing day at home would be nice please as that aint happened since 2002 !
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Interesting and useful piece
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I suppose the biggest issue on why the computer doesn't take geography into account is why should it. Computers can only work with the data they are given and geographic distance isn't always that relevant. Tranmere played Hereford on Boxing Day last season. It might be a similar distance to Walsall for us, but its an extra hour by road and more by train. A computer can understand distances, but can it understand the relevance of why distance is important.
As much as I'd love the long away trips to be on a weekend, that also means we would play all the Southern sides on a weekend. That would mean the local rivals (Oldham, Stockport) would have to be midweek games. Not great for those of us who work away and cannot get to Tuesday night matches. Why should exiles, young children and people who work nights, be forced to miss the best games every season?
Eliminating the concept of distance from the equations, and handpicking certain important dates with travel restrictions makes perfect sense really. I don't want to play Oldham on Boxing Day - Boxing Day will be a big attendance; Oldham will be a big attendance, so why have 1 big gate when we can have 2.
A boxing day trip to Walsall or Huddersfield, as we have had in 6 of the last 7 seasons, I think, would be better really - a game neither set of fans minds missing, but one reasonably easy to get to.
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Fascinating! Excellent article.
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My head hurts.
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Arsenal haven't been at home on boxing day since 2004.
I guess with 60,000 fans, the police aren't too keen on us being at home when the tube is closed.
My only problem is that if there is a fixture on new year's day, then teams away on boxing day, are also away on the 28th of december, and that really annoys me. Especially when our home game for the christmas period gets moved to jan 2nd as it was in 2006 and 2007.
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I've never understood why Boxing Day is not regularly used for local derbies; Man u/Man c, Fulham/Chelsea etc etc. Seems like it would save a lot of travel over the Christmas holiday period. Anyone know why??
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"A post code and something like the RAC Route Planner software would give them the data they need ie distance and the computer could compute the rest. Sounds like a pretty creaky old programme to me."
How long does it take for routeplanner to work out a single route? Not very long. How long does it take to work out all the possible combinations of all the clubs and all 10 rounds?
I'm thinking a long time. Maybe we should start organising it 2 years in advance?
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There has been lots of discussion about taking distances into account and I refer you back to #67 (and the link - http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gxk/papers/gxkjors2008.pdf).
This does exactly that for Boxing Day and New Years Day, and shows that it is possible to shorten the distances that supporters have to travel on those two days.
Of course, all the various requirements (or wishes) may not have been met - but it does show proof of concept.
As many people have said, there are many other requirements that could be taken into account which makes, an already problem, even more difficult.
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very interesting
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... and I meant to say (in reference to #234) that the data for posts #67 and #235 came from greenflag.com which, for a couple of reasons, was better than the RAC and the AA.
I am just working on the 2009-10 season and am using Google Maps this time - as it has a much better API.
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Paul Fletcher:
There's a fairly straightforward mathematical reason why the distances aren't included. Wikipedia says there are 116 clubs in the top 5 divisions (Premier League down to National Conference). We will assume that every single team has a chance of playing every single other team, and that there are 116 distinct stadiums to travel between.
This is what is commonly known as the handshake problem: if you have a given number of people at a party and they all shake hands with everyone else once, how many handshakes take place. With 3 people, A B and C, you need 3 handshakes - A+B, A+C, and C+B. Four people, ABC and D, six handshakes - A+B, A+C, A+D, B+C, B+D, C+D. And so on. The formula is N*(N-1)/2 - ie, N because everyone has to shake hands, N-1 because you do not shake hands with yourself, and divided by 2 because otherwise you count a handshake twice - A shaking hands with B, and also B shaking hands with A, when in reality they are the same handshake.
So, applying the formula to 116 clubs: 116*115/2 = 6,670 distances required.
Let's say finding the distance and writing it down takes just a minute each time. That's 6670 minutes, or 111 hours. Assuming a normal working day of 8 hours, that's almost 14 entire working days dedicated to working out the distances - and that assumes you don't slack off the pace of doing 60 an hour. Dropping to 20 an hour gives you 42 working days of doing this - assuming you work five days a week, that will take you two whole months.
This also assumes that, once you know the distances, it won't take any longer to work out the fixtures themselves - in reality, if you impose conditions such as "must not be more than 100 miles away midweek" it will take a little longer to do so as you need to check that the fixtures comply with the extra requirements.
I can see why he doesn't want to work them out ;)
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I knew a lot of work went into this, but had no clue how many things had to be taken into account to make everyone happy. i wont be so quick to moan about the fixture pile up anymore
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Agree with no222 !
I hope you can give us the reason.
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I simply had no idea how much work went in- i really did think it was literally a case of the computer just coming up with a load of fixtures- credit to that guy who has that job- i could never do it !
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One problem with post 234, nationalsocialist's idea of doing it two years in advance, you don't know who's in each league until the end of May.
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Good article
Knowing that the Boxing Day fixtures were manually chosen makes me wonder what he has got against my team Brentford. In what masochistic mindset was he in when he sent us to Exeter on Boxing Day. Why not Barnet, Daggers, Luton, Wycombe......?
And why on earth are League 1 and 2 games shceduled for the same nights as European games. Why not on a different night, it must really hit our attendances
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Cracking article! I think that Cov were trying to get a home match as our last match of the season (Halls Testimonial Year), so fingers crossed!), I have to say though that I hate mid week fixtures at home (football should be on the weekend!) such a pain to get to from where i work and live! :-)
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Great article, you would not believe that a West Ham fixture would impinge on Southend and so on, fascinating especially when you think of all the rivalry's there are around the country and the sad fact that you have to consider keeping traveling fans apart. What a job though, any starts?
ps cant wait till tomorrow (fixture release)
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I always thought this subject was so closed shop it would never see the light of day. Utterly fascinating.
All of which begs the question, can it still be done with pen and paper.
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Wow, how... completely normal. Software like this - or more advanced as it seems - is used daily around the world to compile train schedules, flight schedules, school exam rotas, etc. What's so special about this one that doesn't even have a concept of distance?
It's simply a logic puzzle with weighting factors (desires versus must-haves) applied to reach a number of solutions. The results can then be finessed with more and more trivial factors until human intervention is needed which should simply be a choice of a few possible sets.
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OK, but the Premier league ALWAYS, yes ALWAYS plays the champions against a newly promoted team every year - and always plays all of the local derbies on the same weekend. EVERY EVERY year this happens!!
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why release the fixtures at 10am on wednesday??? then in about 2 weeks a load of fixtures will be moved, as always, for tv and police??
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#238:
A bit of GIS/mapping work on a computer would give you all the distances pretty quickly.
Even if you don't happen to have GIS software and road network data to hand, as the crow flies distances could be done on a spreadsheet very quickly, all you'd need is each clubs coordinates then a bit of pythagoras will get the distance.
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Re 238: You only need the distances between clubs in the same division, i.e. 20*19/2 + 4*24*23/2 distances = 1294. And anyway, although it is a bit of work to find these distances, once you have them you only need to do them once, you don't have to do them every year (except for clubs which haven't been in the same division before). Given the latitude + longitude for each ground a suitable computer program should be able to get distances between all pairs pretty much instantaneously. So I don't think it would be a big problem to include them. Though by the time you've included all the other constraints there might not be much room for manoeuvre to get rid of long midweek trips.
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# 238 Why would you want to create distance relationships between all 116 clubs? Do you really envisage having to schedule league fixtures between Eastbourne Borough and Liverpool, or Chelsea and Forest Green? Surely all you would need to do is create the relationships by division, so using your formula 190 for the Premiership and 276 for each of the other divisions. Which reduces your 6,670 distances required to around 1,300 which, realistically, two people could knock out in a day or two. Then every season you just add the new relationships created by promotions and relegations - a couple of dozen after the first season and less in following seasons. An hour's work maybe. Sounds like Mr Thompson is making sure he keeps his job to me.
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#198 I think the problem for SAF is that they don't consult him. I'm sure they all think they could do it better and more fairly but let's face it they couldn't. SAF should be flattered that Rafa thinks he is able to find the time. Next time those two start complaining about which one is influencing the fixture list their teams should be ordered to play a seven game shoot-out, five-a-side, no goal keepers and defintely no handbags. Oh and please no arguing about who offers the best bottle of wine!!!
I feel the fixture list creating is the greatest mind game of them all. ;)
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@247
Atos Origin are the software providers for train fares, and just look how simple they are!
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i hope alex ferguson reads this and realises the world doesnt just revolve around his club playing at home after a champions league fixture
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What I feel will wreck Leicester's season...the Rugby Team.
They want to kick off at 2:30/2:45pm but I guess they will end up moving our game against Coventry again!
As long as we get a nice game to start and some good trips to places..I wont mind.
My Brain was scrambled reading the article...seems pressure to squeeze nearly 1,000 matches into a season adding the Champs League, UEFA Europa League, JPT, Carling and FA Cups and such like the World Cup....Its a lot to do...how do you plan it a year ahead as well??
Do the fixtures get selected and the teams fill them?
Not a job you want if you dont want pressure on you!
My Perfect Job :D
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Really interesting article! I'm a Manchester United Fan and usually agree with Fergie when he rants about his fixture problems! But after looking at it from the other side, it makes you think that fergie needs to keep HUSH!
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How come there's never any big fixtures on the first weekend of the season? e.g. you would think Liverpool would get a opening game v everton, arsenal, man u or chelsea once every 5 years.
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Yes, you'd think SAF would have learned to button it by now.
Desperate for every measure of help they can get, they were no doubt happy that two of the north-esst clubs were relegated. But then two midlands clubs came up, so not much comfort there for these fellas.
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In my opinion this system is a piece o sh.. Tell me where in the world a club can request to play on different day that a club located 100 or 200 kilometers from it? How can they prove, that it can onfluence attendance? I can understand, that two teams from the same city, as Everton and Liverpool, shouldn't play at home in the same day, but that can be achieved by a very simple system, which is used e.g. in Spain and Poland and which doesn't require any software. And what's most important, in the end Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool or United always complain that some of the top teams are priveleged and some other not. During one of the previous seasons Chelsea played league game at home after Champions League game five times in a row, when Arsenal played after CL games always away. So what's this system for? It's a waste of money and it's only profitable for the company which provides it and for FA Premier League, because they get money from newspapers or websites for publishing even part of the fixtures (the only league in the world to do so). Nevertheless, good article. :)
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good article, madness really when you think how much work really goes into it and the fact that the process starts as soon as the final promotion playoffs have been decided!!
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@ 155 With reference to Sheff clubs with Rotherham and Barnsley. This last seasons I went to a Johnstones paint match at Rotherham (well Sheffield Don Valley stadium) and on the same night I think it was either Sheff W (poss Sheff U) at home to Barnsley!! These things couldnt be dreamt up!!!
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and also @ 108, I watched Newcastle away at Leicester on boxing day 2003, not really 7 years of lancashire trips (although to be fair, City are further away than the lancs clubs!)
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An away game for Spurs and a home game against a newly promoted team for Arsenal seemingly a certainty, if previous seasons are anything to go by, that will leave less to sort out for the first weekend anyway.
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#264
Seems like you were wrong, though I agree with your cynicism.
Anyway, how come the fixtures are on the BBC website before the Premier League website? Why does this whole game sniff of style, promotion and money over substance.
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are you 'aving a larf with the opening day???
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looking forward to United fans whinging about that...
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An excellent article and I actually started to have some sympathy for the fixture planners, that was until (being a Gillingham fan) I noticed that they have in their wisdom awarded us the with local derbies over the Christmas/New Year period of Stockport, Hartlepool and Exeter quite how they have managed that when about half the teams in the division are based within about 50 miles of us, I do not know. I think if theyd tried to be more awkward, theyd have struggled!
At least we have Brentford on Boxing Day, which is localish, though Charlton, Millwall, Brighton or Southend would be much more preferable. Still, beats Morecambe, Accrington, Dagenham, Grimsby and co!
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What an intersting article. Considering the fuss that is constantly made about boxing day, it would be great to develop it as some kind of rivalry round... Tottenham vs Arsenal, Everton vs Liverpool, Fulham v Chelsea, City vs United and so on. I realise its not quite true for every team but it would very much work on a general level, with the home team rotating yearly (subject to relegation). Im sure many fans would look forward to having such a game fixed in annually, and whilst these games are generally more at risk to hooliganism, the threat of having such a game removed as a result of violence could put pressure on people to behave appropriately.
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I dont beleive it! The 6th season on the trot Liverpool start with an away match! Unreal. Yet again, United get an easy home fixture to ease them in.
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Great! No could you explain why, according to the BBC web site, Liverpool are not playing Chelsea this season?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/fixtures/default.stm
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Very interesting article. Never really thought about how much work and all the variables that are needed to produce the fixture list.
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It is shameful that the program can take as long as 10 minutes to generate a fixture list for a league. If integer linear programming were used, it would be both quicker and guaranteed to be optimal for the information supplied. Move over, Glenn!
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271. paul
they must have just given Liverpool the 6 points to save everyone the bother...
;o)
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Seems Chelsea will be gettin 12, they're not playing Man U or Liverpool.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/fixtures/default.stm
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
LOL!
calm down
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We aren't playing Chelsea or Man City too!!
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"Paul Snellgrove is the Football League fixtures officer. I get the impression he is a very amiable man but mention the fixture calendar and it quickly becomes obvious this is a complicating factor in his life."
I'm guessing that the life of a Fixtures Officer who doesn't arrange the fixture calendar doesn't work too hard...
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Well I'm glad you have confirmed that the fixtures are actually generated by a computer because for years the Football DataCo Ltd have insisted that they are not. The reason is that the output of a computer program cannot be copyrighted and, as the BBC will well know, the FDC make their living by collecting license fees for people simply printing fixture lists (check the bottom of each listing page on the BBC website). Now their business model has been publicly demonstrated to be null and void, will they be refunding the "license fees" they have been collecting from fan websites and media organisations alike for the last ten years?
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On a more serious note, really pleased with the fixtures. Birmingham first and Stoke last is the best I could have asked for. Good thing is that there are no big games for us in the end of April/ beginning of May.
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I am shocked - Newcastle are away first game, last game and boxing day - that hasnt happened since... well last year and the year before and...
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This doesn't sound that impressive to me.
Basic Graph Theory (a branch of mathematics) could help produce the seasons fixtures with relative ease.
The fact that they have to tinker and refine what the computer throws up is a bit of a fudge.
With regard to the Boxing Day fixtures surely they can get a software programme that recognises the weightings of each path? Pretty basic really.
Also, school timetabling is very similar too. Paul Fletcher why don't you write a blog about how great it is that pupils and teachers can have such seamless timetables for each term that ensure that pupils doing a choice of subjects don't class with another group doing another choice of subjects.
What's your next blog Paul? How great it is that people can do their ten times tables or know how to say the alphabet?
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Hmm
So how come Utd get Champions League then City at home then Champions League and then Liverpool away, Blackburn home, Champions League and Chelsea away, if in second week of second leg of first knock round then Liverpool at home after it
oh and if in quarter finals then first leg has Chelsea after it
Of course Chelsea and Liverpool will be knocked out by then anyway.
great
and then just before the first leg of semi finals Utd have City away
Computer my ****
its a fix -ture list alright!
'They' have got it in for Utd....
Fergie's hols ruined!!
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Sunderland v Portsmouth Sat Dec 12
Portsmouth v Sunderland Tue Feb 09
Why not 'tweak' your useless fixture program to include fog, snow and railstrikes to make it even more inconvenient for Portsmouth and Sunderland supporters to travel to these matches? Afterall geography already dictates that these supporters will have the longest round trip of any Premier League fixtures. These two fixtures should have been the first two written in manually for Sat pm kick-offs during September and return fixture in April when weather is more unlikely to be inclement. Sunderland away at Pompey on Tuesday evening in February beggars belief!
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Good article BUT it doesn`t mention that one of the main factors they have to take into account is that Man United MUST have a Home game to start , and preferably an easy one !
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Great article, but was wondering at what point Mr Thompson became a Man Utd fan? was it 1992 like the rest of them?
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I wonder if Stoke are happy with their last 3 fixtures, hopefully not to avoid relegation!
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Well that really does confirm to me the people who run the FA are a bunch of outdated idiots . In an age where we have Cray super-computers that can run at many MIPS, they have some bloke with his laptop!
No wonder they dont want modern technology in the live game. These people are dinosaurs, old-school-tie twits who really should join the 21st Century.
Amazing! .. I can see that Ferguson has an argument now .....
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And that copyright notices below the fixtures is just nonsense. Because if you adhere to that I can't even put a fixture on my blog or website, because it's 'copyright'. How on earth is an event time copyright?
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I'm sorry, but come on.
First time we were promoted we had Arsenal, away on the opening weekend.
Second time we were promoted we had Chelsea, away on the opening weekend.
This time it's Man U, away on the opening weekend.
Really, that is just taking the mickey.
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290. At 11:19am on 17 Jun 2009, Ultras wrote:
And that copyright notices below the fixtures is just nonsense. Because if you adhere to that I can't even put a fixture on my blog or website, because it's 'copyright'
errrmmmmmm, that's right you can't. Daft but true.
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#53: this is nonsense - the travelling salesman problem has been solved to 85900 towns - a search space of 85900!=9.6e386526 permutations, using integer linear programming. I have written ILP programs myself which, without doing anything sophisticated at all (e.g. breaking symmetry, branch-and-cut etc) resolves search spaces of around 10^40 in under 2 seconds. While ILP is not guaranteed to produce solutions quickly, it usually does in practice. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmics_of_sudoku#Solving_sudokus_via_stochastic_search_.2F_optimization_methods
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So can anyone who programmes this computer tell me what they have against Newcastle? For the EIGHTH successive season we are away on Boxing Day.
Surely something is wrong there,I wouldn't mind playing at home one season then the following playing away. This must be some sort of record
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I have just had a look at the fixtures for the past few years, from 2000/2001 to date (including the forthcoming one) 10 seasons in all
Newcastle have been away on the first game of the season 8 times, and home 2 times
Newcastle have been away on the last game of the season 7 times, and home 3 times
Newcastle have been away on the first and last game of the season 5 times
Newcastle have NOT been at home on the first and last game of the season in any of the most recent 10 seasons
Newcastle have been away on Boxing Day 8 times, and home 2 times. In fact the last 8 have all been away. All bar Leicester away in 2003/2004 and Sheff Wed this coming season have been in Lancashire (Bolton twice, Wigan twice, Liverpool and Blackburn). The two home fixtures were 2000/2001 against Leeds, and 2001/2002 against Middlesbrough
ALSO
Newcastle have started the season against one of the so called "Big Four" 4 times out of 9 Premiership seasons
Newcastle have ended the season against one of the so called "Big Four" 3 times out of 9 Premiership seasons
As far as I am aware in the 10 seasons, apart from Boro in 2001, none of the "holiday" fixtures (Christmas, Easter) when travelling is difficult, have been against "local" teams even though Boro and/or Sunderland were available matches.
They say everything evens out for all teams, but not on the above evidence.
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BillMcGarry
I will second your statement.
I don't expect this guy Glenn Thompson to be some kind of Leonhard Euler but I don't think that he'd be able to solve the Königsberg problem in this day and age.
I don't even think Glenn could even run a bath let alone have the credentials to run the fixture lists.
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its a fix! they hate utd! its not fair!
I liked the post where someone tried to explain that within a whole season it is not impossible for the sky 4 to play on the same week end. Not impossible, not even improbable.
Ultimately you will play everyone home and away and will make that long trip at some point in the season, yes sky dictate kickoffs for TV games but they pull the strings and do more good than harm overall.
With so many factors to consider some will always feel hard done by but ffs, get over/on with it!
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What's clear from all this complaining is how many different variables there are to manage. In an entire fixture list every fan can pick out one or two things they don't agree with, and these become 'disgraceful' mistakes that prove the fixture list's bias and the idiocy of the people running it.
So far I've seen people complaining that:
a) Their first match is away
b) They play away matches over Christmas
c) Their last match is away
d) They have to travel a long distance on a tuesday
e) They've got a good team first game
f) Their rivals have got an easy team first game
g) They've got good teams towards the end of hte season
h) Their rivals have got easy teams towards the end of the season
i) They've had the same fixture two years running
j) They've got difficult/easy matches around a specific time of the year
k) Etc etc ad nauseum
When I saw the Blades were away first/last/boxing day once again it annoyed me initially, but if you step back and look at the bigger picture you've got to accept that such things happen, it's impossible to satisfy everyone.
I do agree with the people who say there should be a much more advanced systems in place to compute the fixture lists, taking into acocunt more variables. At the same time, you should be pragmatic about exactly what can/should be taken into account. Distance would be an obvious improvement, but who you play around Champions League matches is not something to whinge about.
P.S. As far as copyright goes, if you read the article you'd see that the computed fixtures are then fine tuned by a person, which is why they're copyrightable.
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291 - jpkesseler - To start away at ManU is the best thing for us! Lets get the most difficult game over and done with as soon as possible. The season won't be decided on the opening day anyway and there is no better introduction and lesson about playing in the premier league than visiting the champions. And who knows they might come from pre-season training a bit tired and without Ronaldo, we could nick a point or three!
I think the fixtures worked out quite nicely for us. I can see Birmingham challenging for...
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Great article.... anyone with common sense knows that its not just a computer thats spits out the fixtures though. As you pointed out, there are so many other issues to take into account. However.... don't be fooled !!! Club officials have a huge say in this too!!! Club Managers and Directors (certainly of the top teams) have a huge influence on fixtures. There have been many articles on websites and in news papers listing facts on this. Lets face it, football isn't as pure as we all think or wish.
Never-the-less.... they all have to play eachother some time so there's no 'fixtures' excuse if our teams lose. You have 90 minutes to show up and play your heart out. At the final whistle the players should be dropping to the floor because they've given so much. They should any way!
Can't wait for the season to start!
YNWA
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I find it comical that so many contributors to this blog are of the opinion that they could create a better system with one hand tied behind their back down the pub of a saturday evening. You are (mostly) not IT experts. You are not mathematicians. You may not understand combinatorial explosion. What makes you think you could do a better job than this guy, who has been doing it for over 20 years, has an intimate understanding of all the complexities and inter-relationships, and an excellent relationships with the stakeholders in the process?
I, with a degree in IT and an understanding of the kinds of complexity that can result from even one of the sets of dependencies mentioned in the original post, am actually staggered that the system is able to create a whole division's worth of fixtures in 5 minutes! The addition of the travelling salesman problem would add days if not weeks to that, and still not necessarily result in an optimal solution.
The geographical problem is not as simple as having an extra set of rules giving distances between stadia. That is merely the _beginning_ of solving the problem. Once you have those distances, you then have to include calculations of routes that reduce distance, incorporating all the previously mentioned constraints, and attach rules that let the system know why one route is better than another. This is information which we humans can process very easily -- we've evolved over millenia to make judgements of this nature -- but which are very hard (nigh-impossible) to represent in a computer system, even one based on a learning AI system.
I repeat: it is not trivial.
It is, however, hugely interesting (at least to me, and judging from the response, to many others). So thanks Fletch for revealing some of that complexity.
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I have just had a look at the fixtures for the past few years, from 2000/2001 to date (including the forthcoming one) 10 seasons in all
Newcastle have been away on the first game of the season 8 times, and home 2 times
Newcastle have been away on the last game of the season 7 times, and home 3 times
Newcastle have been away on the first and last game of the season 5 times
Newcastle have NOT been at home on the first and last game of the season in any of the most recent 10 seasons
Newcastle have been away on Boxing Day 8 times, and home 2 times. In fact the last 8 have all been away. All bar Leicester away in 2003/2004 and Sheff Wed this coming season have been in Lancashire (Bolton twice, Wigan twice, Liverpool and Blackburn). The two home fixtures were 2000/2001 against Leeds, and 2001/2002 against Middlesbrough
ALSO
Newcastle have started the season against one of the so called "Big Four" 4 times out of 9 Premiership seasons
Newcastle have ended the season against one of the so called "Big Four" 3 times out of 9 Premiership seasons
As far as I am aware in the 10 seasons, apart from Boro in 2001, none of the "holiday" fixtures (Christmas, Easter) when travelling is difficult, have been against "local" teams even though Boro and/or Sunderland were available matches.
They say everything evens out for all teams, but not on the above evidence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
look on the bright side.......
Newcastle are guaranteed not to be playing any of the big four on the 1st or last day of the season in 2009/2010 ;-)
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So Utd at home first and last, Liverpool away first and last. Surely it aint that difficult to produce a list where teams have one home and one away fixture as a start/finish to the season.
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To put the Tuesday travel thing in context:
Tranmere have 6 Tuesday fixtures this season.
Wycombe and Huddersfield away
Wycombe, Huddersfield, Southend and MK Dons at home.
From a fan's perspective, that's great news. Huddersfield is easy to get to. Wycombe is a pain, but 1 bad fixture per season isn't too bad.
From the club's perspective, it's a pain. 4 midweek home-games means lower attendances, young children will miss the game. Southend, MK and Wycombe will bring less fans as well so less money for us.
In balance, we would be better with 21 afternoon home matches and 2 evening kick-offs rather than just 19 afternoon kick-offs. Fans who go to every away match will be happy. Those who can't for other reasons won't be happy.
Just goes to show no matter what the fixtures produce there will always be good and bad points about it.
I will complain about being away on the opening day, last day and Boxing Day though. For the second season in succession.
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I hope Mr Thompson regularly (very regularly) backs up his computer!
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Hm. Three times Birmingham City get promoted to the top flight, three times they start away at a top two club. Random?
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Rob K
It may be interesting but not for positive reasons. It is interesting to find that the fixtures are put together in such a chaotic fashion.
As a mathematician it would seem that I have a much greater understanding of the possible permutations, paths, weightings and cycles needed to ascertain a fully viable and working model than what is currently being used.
So why use a system that is clearly not fully meeting the needs of everyone involved including this Glenn guy.
Mathematicians tend to be thinkers who can produce viable and logical algorithms, while IT professionals are simply doers and users. Give the job to someone much better skilled at the job is what I say.
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"claretande wrote:
Anyone who thinks this can be solved with a "better" computer or program is unfortunately unaware that this problem is one of the hardest to solve in computer science. It's called an NP-complete problem (engineer shorthand for really really really hard); if you have ever heard of the travelling salesmen problem it's a similar problem."
I don't think the travelling salesman problem applies here as the distance between the two nodes is known and fixed. The first part of the program could interface with mapping software and for each club order the rest of the division by distance order, the mid week and boxing day fixtures could then start from this list with the rest of the fixture list being built from the remaining fixtures. The process would be very complex but not certainly possible.
Perhaps the FA could organise a competition to design a computer program to do it!
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Further to the publishing of the fixtures, does anyone know at this stage the exact dates of the Championship, League One, League Two, etc Play off final dates at Wembley?
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Why do they even entertain they idea of clubs making requests? Other than police advice and avoiding other events (festivals, marathons etc) should the fixture not be decided at random (given the fact that there is no consideration for travelling)
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what a joke. Just shows how open to manipulation by clubs like Man U to get an easier calendar.
There should be no restrictions for the premier league. My way would be to select the same order of fixtures each season but shuffle the teams randomly. So for example Man U might get the same order as WBA did last season.
An easy way to do this would be to assign a number to each team from last season and then draw lots to assign which teams get 1 to 20. Then 1 plays the fixture list you assigned a number to for last years fixture list.
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299 our last 2 seasons we have drew 0-0 at home on the opending day to teams who have gone down. I'm sure you'd take a point but don't get too carried away with it.
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"dandelionblue wrote:
Paul Fletcher:
There's a fairly straightforward mathematical reason why the distances aren't included. Wikipedia says there are 116 clubs in the top 5 divisions (Premier League down to National Conference). We will assume that every single team has a chance of playing every single other team, and that there are 116 distinct stadiums to travel between."
You are working from a flawed premise. Yes, one club in theory could play any other club in the pyramid however that would be in a cup game (which are randomly selected).
The computer would only need to work out distances between teams in the same divison. And as most of the distances would be the same as the year before (the bulk of the divisions would not change) it would be even less work.
Lets take the Premier League as an example:
17 teams in the league are the same as last year (we have three new ones)
The first new team will need to calculate the distance of 19 other clubs, the second team would be 18 (all clubs apart from the first club) and the third would be 17 (all clubs apart from the first two).
That would mean that the premier league would only need to determine 54 distances which would take about an hour.
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I notice for the third season running Arsenal play Man U, Liverpool and Chelsea all in a short space of time (in fact this season in the space of 10 days). They have also had to play nearly every premier league game that follows a champ league group game away from home.
When these "coincidences" take place isnt it about time they ensured it was done randomly and transparently?
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I can't believe these fixtures.
It's like they were designed to punish fans who travel to see their team playing away from home and who want to visit as many different grounds as possible.
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WRT #308
Fully agree - this is a tough problem (probably NP-Complete - but I am not aware of a proof - but as it is TSP like, it probably is).
The complexity comes about not just because of combinatorial explosion, but also because of all the constraints that have to be taken into account. Some of these are "hard" (i.e. have to be adhered to) and some are "soft" (i.e. adhere to them if you can).
There is also the fact that what is a good schedule to one person is a terrible schedule to somebody else. So if you have a computer algorithm that tries to generate these solutions how do you fairly compare one against another, during the generation process.
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WRT #308 (again)
"Perhaps the FA could organise a competition to design a computer program to do it!"
I believe that this is what the NBA (or NFA - one of the large American sports anyway) did/do.
If you are interested take a look at
http://mat.gsia.cmu.edu/TOURN/
This describes the "Travelling Tournament Probelm" and even small instances (10 teams) are difficult to solve to optimaliaty.
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#307 -- I would suggest that it is not the process which is chaotic, but the description of it in the article. No disservice to Fletch, but clearly he is neither an IT expert nor a mathematician. Expecting non-specialists to communicate domain-specific problems clearly and accurately is a recipe for failure -- and it is clear that that was not his intention in this article. Instead, he was trying to convey a flavour of the complexity involved. In so doing, he may have misrepresented the actual difficulty (by an order of magnitude), leading to the assumptions we have seen by other posters thinking they could do better.
I'm not saying the process could not be improved. But I am saying that the current incumbent is surely the best candidate for the job, as the domain-specific knowledge he possesses would need to be replicated in any new system, and the cost/benefit analysis to creating a new system versus continuing with the current one would seem to point to the old adage, 'If it ain't broke...' Perhaps the best outcome of the current system is that everyone is equally unhappy...
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Rob K
Well I can't argue with your evaluation of Fletcher. He is clearly out of his depth in both trying to understand the complexities and trying to report them in his blog. You'd have thought he'd done a little more homework on this first before trying to write about it.
But I still stand by statement that a much more elegant system could easily be derived that would negate the current haphazard nature of what Glen does. The fact that he has to 'refine' his fixtures is clear evidence that he hasn't a full understanding of the system being used or that the system is not fit for purpose.
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Newcastle Utd have played away from home on Boxing Day for the last 8 seasons! At least I now know who I am blaming!
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248. At 10:46pm on 16 Jun 2009, nathankendal wrote:
OK, but the Premier league ALWAYS, yes ALWAYS plays the champions against a newly promoted team every year - and always plays all of the local derbies on the same weekend. EVERY EVERY year this happens!!
CORRECT !!
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248. At 10:46pm on 16 Jun 2009, nathankendal wrote:
OK, but the Premier league ALWAYS, yes ALWAYS plays the champions against a newly promoted team every year - and always plays all of the local derbies on the same weekend. EVERY EVERY year this happens!!
CORRECT !! - Man Utd playing Birmingham that is.
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Rob K
I am absolutely amazed by your comments and yet you claim to be a graduate of I.T? Nowadays, Computer programs which run for 5 minutes for this low volume of data output of data is a life-time. An ICL system-25 mini could have done that easily in 1982! Any man-size computer could do this currently in milliseconds. Just feed the parameters into the program and bingo!
I always thought the program was run on the morning of the press release. Of course, there would be the few stipulations by SKY on Super-Sundays etc but the reality is astonishing. Plus all these tweaks, sounds to me, exactly what it is A total mess!
You have astonished me with your interpretation of the spec. and the task involved.
I'm an analyst-programmer and this job would be a piece of cake. Once I'd written the software, fed in which team belongs to which division, plus the other factors including SKY and F.A 'demands' etc HEY PRESTO! The program would last for as long as English football remains in its current format.
Your statement doing it for over 20 years is totally irrelevant. This bloke Thompson is sitting on a gravy train and laughing all the way the bank, employed by those morons at the Football Association.
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Now then,
Many, many thanks for all your comments. Plenty of them raised different questions relating to how the fixtures are put together.
Glenn Thompson of Atos Origin has very kindly e-mailed me, hopefully shedding some light on issues that people obviously care about.
You can view his answers here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2009/06/fixtures_questions_answered.html#099366
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"Rob K wrote:
I find it comical that so many contributors to this blog are of the opinion that they could create a better system with one hand tied behind their back down the pub of a saturday evening. You are (mostly) not IT experts. You are not mathematicians. You may not understand combinatorial explosion. What makes you think you could do a better job than this guy, who has been doing it for over 20 years, has an intimate understanding of all the complexities and inter-relationships, and an excellent relationships with the stakeholders in the process?"
I doubt the guy who has been doing it for 20 years is an IT expert or a mathematician either, and just because someone has been doing it for 20 years doesn't mean that there isn't a better way. It should be possible to create a piece of software that can handle the rules and also factor in travel distance.
"I, with a degree in IT and an understanding of the kinds of complexity that can result from even one of the sets of dependencies mentioned in the original post, am actually staggered that the system is able to create a whole division's worth of fixtures in 5 minutes! The addition of the travelling salesman problem would add days if not weeks to that, and still not necessarily result in an optimal solution."
I also have a degree in IT and also have previously worked for a company that creates mapping routing software and I agree that the travelling salesman problem would add days to the calculations. However, we don't need to add the complexity of the travelling salesman problem into this. Once the distance matrix has been calculated it would just be another rule added to the mix. The program is already going to be fairly complicated because of all the hard rules described above but a softer rule like distance wouldn't add much complexity.
The travelling salesman problem is a problem that involves trying to find the best route through multiple nodes - if the fixture computer needed to calculate the best route for someone trying to travel to all grounds in the country the travelling salesman problem would apply but now it doesn't.
"Once you have those distances, you then have to include calculations of routes that reduce distance, incorporating all the previously mentioned constraints, and attach rules that let the system know why one route is better than another."
Why would you need to add anything like this into the mix? This is a fixture computer not a sat nav. All this computer needs to know is that Bristol is nearer to Plymouth than Newcastle, not the best route to get there (that is up to the fans!)
I repeat: it is not trivial.
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Realised it was involved but not that complicated. Great article!
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Very interesting article that does pose a question relating to matches involving Wigan Athletic that impact on Wigan Warriors.
If football clubs advise particular dates when matches should not be played then the debacle that meant Wigan's traditional fixture with St Helens be moved to accomodate the Wigan v Arsenal match over Easter 2009 is different to the version given by Wigan Athletic chairman, Dave Whelan. They would have known that Wigan v St Helens was a tradition and they should have advised the fixture compiler of this. The excuse that they could not have the pitch ready in 24 hours now appears ludicrous in light of this article. The same thing happened at the end of the last RL season when Wigan were forced to play Bradford at Widnes because Wigan Athletic were playing Man Utd the next day . A real eye opener.
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colmthekav wrote:
what a joke. Just shows how open to manipulation by clubs like Man U to get an easier calendar.
There should be no restrictions for the premier league. My way would be to select the same order of fixtures each season but shuffle the teams randomly. So for example Man U might get the same order as WBA did last season.
An easy way to do this would be to assign a number to each team from last season and then draw lots to assign which teams get 1 to 20. Then 1 plays the fixture list you assigned a number to for last years fixture list."
Well it would appear that you have not read this article at all, there is so many calculations that have nothing to do with manipulation by specific clubs, just imagine if all 12 London clubs played at home at 3pm on a Saturday, it would be stupid. This system thinks about that and ensures it does not happen. You "system" sounds like something a bunch of twelve year old chavs playing football would use to pick teams at football, not a complex fixture calendar.
I say good on Mr Thompson. Im sure this job is unbelieveable complex, and its just as well that someone takes the time to make sure the football calendar. As someone said on the "What do you think about your clubs fixtures" blog, each season in the premier league, each team will play each club twice once at home, once away, simple as that.
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Great piece Paul and some very interesting thoughts...however not one person has mentioned the problem of people who work for clubs and have to be at grounds sometimes hours before kick off - what about stewards, catering staff, programme and lottery sellers etc - While some of these jobs aren't required for away games, how many people double up roles - eg matchday steward and away travel stewards - surely the fairest way to compile the fixtures is to play each team once and then reverse the fixtures for the 2nd half of the season, and play all games on Saturdays and Wednesdays, and forget any outside influences like Champions League games etc - apologies to those of you whose clubs are involved but surely the English Premier League fixtures should only concentrate on the English Premier League. Also if the EPL did this, they could then look to change matches where paired teams clash with home games and move 1 fixture accordingly.
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I never realized so much went into the scheduling. :)
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sheffield united away on a friday night, great choice by who ever decided that beauty.
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Nice article, thanks. More like this please. My only grumble about the fixtures is why local derbies no longer seem to be dated on Boxing Day or New Years' any more like they used to "in the old days". I would have thought that would have been a no brainer to program in and would add that bit of extra glamour to the fixture list.
Dating for Divorced
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Sounds a wee bit complicated....
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