Don't blame Reading if Stevenage get juicy fixture

[moo]

So if by this logic I run outside now and take a dump in the middle of the road, I could affect not only the result of our next fixture, but potentially the Euro's ?

[chilipepper91]

So if by this logic I run outside now and take a dump in the middle of the road, I could affect not only the result of our next fixture, but potentially the Euro's ?

Just by posting that, you have.

Come to think of it, just by replying to your post I have.

[voyager1]

So if by this logic I run outside now and take a dump in the middle of the road, I could affect not only the result of our next fixture, but potentially the Euro's ?

Through chaos theory you would affect all the events leading up to the next fixture and in theory could affect the result. However, the result is more likely to be affected by factors on the day as well as the team itself in the leadup since there is likely to be some degree of bias (e.g. factors affecting either team - e.g. quality of the team, a top goal scorer being unavailable due to injury/suspension). If Tottenham Hotspur were to play Reading Town FC at a packed out White Hart Lane and use the entire first team, you'd expect Tottenham Hotspur to win every single game for a long time. Maybe there would be the odd game in every hundred or so where Reading Town FC cause an upset - and each time they play each other, Reading Town FC might learn new tricks so in this scenario the outcome of the previous match could influence the outcome of the next one.

With the FA cup draw, the balls are all the same - no ball has any advantage over the other ball. Also, unlike the scenario described above, each entire FA cup drawing is completely independant. If you do the FA cup draw three times (putting all the balls back in the bucket after each draw), the outcome of the first draw has no affect on the outcome of the second draw and so on. Bit like the National Lottery. It is highly unlikely you'd see the same six numbers being drawn the following week but statistically it is just as likely as any other individual combination of six numbers.

[Avon Royal]

Don't blame Reading if Stevenage get juicy fixture

Surely we can blame Reading that Stevenage got ANY fixture in the 4th round............

[voyager1]

Don't blame Reading if Stevenage get juicy fixture

Surely we can blame Reading that Stevenage got ANY fixture in the 4th round............

Yes, because you're referring to ANY fixture. The outcome of winning the FA Cup 3rd round is a guaranteed place in the FA Cup 4th round (unless you go bust or the world ends)

What is not known is who we'd have got had it been us in the draw.

Stevenage got Notts County at home. A lot of people think that had we have beaten Stevenage then we would have had Notts County at home - because thats what came out of the draw. What I'm saying is that if you alter the events leading up to the draw then you will alter the outcome. Therefore had we progressed, its unknown who we would have got so no point worrying.

My local team Luton Town were knocked out by Cheltenham in the FA cup 2nd round. Cheltenham got themselves an away trip to Spurs and the Luton Town forum eventually filled up with posts either from Luton Town fans crying out "what could have been," and Cheltenham fans gloating "look what you missed out on,". All that is a load of nonsense.

The purpose of my post was to prevent people on here getting upset had Stevenage drawn a dream tie in the FA Cup.

If we had drawn to Stevenage and the FA cup draw on Sunday had "Reading or Stevenage vs Tottenham Hotspur" and we lost in the replay at Broadhall Way, then we could get upset.

[Stuka]

Don't blame Reading if Stevenage get juicy fixture

Surely we can blame Reading that Stevenage got ANY fixture in the 4th round............

Yes, because you're referring to ANY fixture. The outcome of winning the FA Cup 3rd round is a guaranteed place in the FA Cup 4th round (unless you go bust or the world ends)

What is not known is who we'd have got had it been us in the draw.

Stevenage got Notts County at home. A lot of people think that had we have beaten Stevenage then we would have had Notts County at home - because thats what came out of the draw. What I'm saying is that if you alter the events leading up to the draw then you will alter the outcome. Therefore had we progressed, its unknown who we would have got so no point worrying.

My local team Luton Town were knocked out by Cheltenham in the FA cup 2nd round. Cheltenham got themselves an away trip to Spurs and the Luton Town forum eventually filled up with posts either from Luton Town fans crying out "what could have been," and Cheltenham fans gloating "look what you missed out on,". All that is a load of nonsense.

The purpose of my post was to prevent people on here getting upset had Stevenage drawn a dream tie in the FA Cup.

If we had drawn to Stevenage and the FA cup draw on Sunday had "Reading or Stevenage vs Tottenham Hotspur" and we lost in the replay at Broadhall Way, then we could get upset.

It is a fair point in technical terms.

[dogzbollox]

Are you Stephen Hawking in disguise?

[Billy The Fish]

You're watching the FA cup 4th round draw and the balls are pulled out of the hat. Stevenage get a lucrative 4th round fixture - either an easy bye to the 5th round or a lucrative match away at a Premier League side. This rubs salt into the wound suffered yesterday - you think "well, that should have been us"

You start looking for someone to blame - was it JM, BMD, any of the first team or Lady Luck.

A pointless exercise. Let me explain.

The FA cup draw is done by someone placing the balls into a pot, shuffling them and pulling each one out. Whilst the ball number would have been the same for Reading if they had of beaten Stevenage, the outcome of pulling that number out would have most likely been different.

Imagine if I could travel back and change history (disregard the laws of physics regarding the grandfather paradox). My trip back to yesterday somehow results in Reading getting a 4-0 win.

Instead of the Stevenage fans staying until the end celebrating their FA cup win, several of them left early. Likewise, the Reading fans who left 10 minutes early now stay until the end. This alters the outcome of everyone's evenings. You parked at the Madejski Stadium and drive down the A33 towards the M4, the Stevenage fan emerging from Imperial Way has to stop to give way to you. This holds up the person behind them, and the person behind them, including all the non match traffic. This butterfly effect quickly spreads throughout Reading and the whole country. Car accidents which occurred last night would have been replaced by other car accidents etc.

The Stevenage fan who delays the Paddington bound train by a few seconds as he jumps through the closing doors - that never happened in the timeline where Reading won because he left early and was already on the train. Everyone is a few seconds late, the train driver is late home.

This would filter through to the people doing the draw. They load the balls into the pot a second or so early/late. They place their hand into the pot differently. All the FA cup draws will be different. The probability of getting exactly the same outcome as the one today will be 1 in (10 to the power of a ridiculously high number).

Whilst a physics related posting might not seem relevant in a football thread, I thought I'd post it in anticipation of everyone balling their eyes out if Stevenage get a good fixture.

Thanks for posting that. I've always thought that my attendance (or non-attendance) at matches must affect the outcome in some way, so it's nice to have it confirmed.

It helps me deal with the fact that the only two home matches I've missed in recent years have been Reading 6 West Ham 0 and Reading 3 Liverpool 1, and it's comforting to know that, had I dragged myself from my sick bed, or missed my Mother-in-Law's 80th birthday party, then those results could have been very different!

[TFF]

Chaos theory is a bit like God, lots of people believe in it but it's impossible to prove.

Personally, I think that had we beaten Stevenage we'd have a home tie against Notts County.

[Maguire]

Similar to Billy The Fish, people say things like "bet you're glad you didn't come" or "you missed a cracker" and I just think "if i'd gone then the game would've been totally different so it's irrelevant really".

Of course your attendance at a match changes the actual game (if not necessarily the final score)

[seahawk10]

Does this mean that I can stop blaming myself for the loss as I had the laptop broadcasting the game whilst cleaning the garage instead of my usual perch in the kitchen?

[Royal With Cheese]

Does this mean that I can stop blaming myself for the loss as I had the laptop broadcasting the game whilst cleaning the garage instead of my usual perch in the kitchen?

No, you'll burn in hell for that.

[royalhaven]

Agree with all the above but It would have been great to play Notts Country at home...if only Reading would have won. Chaos my arse, it is written!

[floyd__streete]

Agree with all the above but It would have been great to play Notts Country at home...if only Reading would have won. Chaos my arse, it is written!

Yeah, it was our chance at a once-in-a-lifetime fixture. The Halley's Comet of cup ties.

[Pseud O'Nym]

Seems to me you're all working on the, somewhat pedestrian, notion that there is one universe proceeding through time upon a linear course. This is by no means necessarily the case, there may well be multiple divergent universes in which in Stevenage drew the winner from Man U v Man City for example.

I am posting this on the assumption that this forum and its denizens actually exist, where a more likely scenario is that you're all a figment of my morbid imagination.

[Extended-Phenotype]

The Universe is deterministic, what happens would have always happened; you can’t change the future by doing something differently. You doing something differently IS the future.

Is this relevant to the thread? I’m not sure now. But I would have always been not sure, so f/ck it.

[mr_number]

The Universe is deterministic, what happens would have always happened; you can’t change the future by doing something differently. You doing something differently IS the future.

Is this relevant to the thread? I’m not sure now. But I would have always been not sure, so f/ck it.

Yeah, free will is just an illusion, I with EP here.

[M-U-R-T-Y]

[West Stand Man]

The sequence that the balls come out is totally independent of the previous day's results. Thus, it is a reasonable assumption that whoever Stevenage got would also have been who we got, as we would have been that same ball.

[Extended-Phenotype]

There is no hypothetical universe in which Reading were that ball.