Home and Away : Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:39 pm  

I made separate league tables for home and away games:



Fortress Odsal! Or perhaps not.

(Yes I did post this five minutes ago. This is the non-gibberish version).

Re: Home and Away : Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:57 pm  

Probably because we're going to smaller stadums and outnumbering the home fans and making more noise so it feels like a home game. Tends to be much better atmospheres at away. Odsal is so big with only 5k and not much atmosphere, it just feels flat sometimes.

Re: Home and Away : Sun Apr 10, 2016 9:05 pm  

On a different PC and don't have the data to hand right now but IIRC it wasn't true last year, or the year we got relegated. It's not out of character for us though. The all conquering year of 2003 for instance we had a much worse home record than away.

Re: Home and Away : Sun Apr 10, 2016 9:37 pm  

vbfg wrote:

On a different PC and don't have the data to hand right now but IIRC it wasn't true last year, or the year we got relegated. It's not out of character for us though. The all conquering year of 2003 for instance we had a much worse home record than away.

If this is true then it begs the question, is playing at home such an advantage? It's not as if players can be intimidated by away crowds in this league, nor in Super League from past experience.

Re: Home and Away : Sun Apr 10, 2016 9:56 pm  

From memory across the leagues roughly 60% of wins are for the home team. I haven't broken it down by league before. I imagine it's lower with smaller crowds. I do remember reading about a study (albeit in soccer) where referees called a game on screens with the sound turned on and others did the same game with the sound turned off. The results of that were way more favourable to the home team with the sound on compared to off. I would assume on that basis that it's a more pronounced effect when the referee is on the field where all the sound is focussed.

Pure wins isn't the only way to measure it though. It may be that you lose by fewer at home compared to away. In fact I bet you could probably put a value on how much playing at home is worth to different teams.

Re: Home and Away : Sun Apr 10, 2016 10:00 pm  

You could break it down by referee too. I feel a project coming on.

Not that I want to prejudice the results or anything but I've got two words for you:

Steve loving Ganson

Re: Home and Away : Mon Apr 11, 2016 7:08 am  

vbfg wrote:

From memory across the leagues roughly 60% of wins are for the home team.

In the Championship this year:

57 games so far, 35 home wins. 61%

Since 2006, which is as far back as my Ch. match results go atm:

1152 games, 639 home wins. 55%

SL this year:

62 games, 34 home wins. 55%

Since 1996:

3446 games, 1952 home wins. 56%

I have no idea what it's like in soccer, and I have no intention of supporting the cultural hegemony so I won't be looking into it. From the Big 4 in the US though:

NFL: 53%
Baseball: 54%
Basketball: 62%
Ice Hockey: 55%

I am assuming it's a little larger in soccer, primarily due to the nature of the crowds. For similar reasons I imagine it's bigger in US college sports too.

Generally speaking though British RL is of a kind.

I bet games in the NRL atm are interesting to look at too, now that there are only one or two suburban grounds in regular use. Huge advantage for Brisbane there.

Re: Home and Away : Mon Apr 11, 2016 7:27 am  

It'll be interesting what that table looks like by mid June, as five of Leigh's next six league games are away. (admittedly counting the Blackpool game against you)

Re: Home and Away : Mon Apr 11, 2016 11:15 am  

This is great - they play a lot more games in the US don't they? In baseball at least. Perhaps more squad rotation might affect this. Based on what you have presented (and without rigorous statistical analysis ) teams have a slight advantage playing at home then.

Re: Home and Away : Mon Apr 11, 2016 11:21 am  

vbfg wrote:

You could break it down by referee too. I feel a project coming on.

Not that I want to prejudice the results or anything but I've got two words for you:

Steve loving Ganson

CH and L1 only so far. FA will have to wait for his Ganson ammo.

I guess there's a reason why I haven't heard of a few of these names at the top, and why still more of them are notorious.

33 altogether. Trundle on down to number 24 before you see an even split and the poster child for even handedness, Joe "Last word in fairness" Cobb.

Poorly named columns. That is of course home wins and away wins. I count draws as "half wins", hence all the .5s you see.