Strap's Stats 17 - 11 November 1998
Can The Royals Make The Play Offs?
After our mighty wins over Walsall and Stoke had taken us up to the giddy heights of 18th, the optimist in me started wondering how many teams had managed to reached the play-offs, having languished at 18th place 10 league games into the season. If the Royals were going to make a real go of getting promotion this season, given such a dreadful start, I wanted to know one thing. Would it require a super-human effort to achieve what had previously been out of reach of other teams, or was the ability to make it from such a lowly starting point was a commonplace occurrence.
Unfortunately for the stattos, the play-offs have not always been between those teams finishing 3rd to 6th! However, for the sake of this exercise, I will concentrate on these positions.
OK, you want the bad news? Since 1986/87, only 2 teams, (out a possible 48), have finished in 3rd, 4th,, 5th or 6th place in Div 2, having been 18th or worse after 10 games! These are Peterborough, who finished 6th in 91/92 having been 19th after 10 games, and our dear friends from Bolton, who finished 4th a year earlier, having been 20th after 20 games. Funnily enough, Peterborough ended up being promoted!
From a historical viewpoint then, it looks like we have little chance of reaching the play-offs, with even less chance of winning promotion via that route! What about automatic promotion then?
Surprise, surprise, since the introduction of the play-offs, no team has managed to win automatic promotion in our division having been 18th after 10 games. The best I can come up with is Bolton, finishing 2nd in 92/93, being 17th after 10, (although they did slump to 18th after 13!). So on the surface, I might as well pack up my slide rule now, and wait patiently for next season? Get out of here!!!
Let’s look at the respective home and away records of the teams who made it to the play-offs, and won automatic promotion. Maybe we can bend the stats to prove we’ll make it this year after all!?!
Below you’ll find the complete records of all the teams finishing between 3rd and 6th in Div 2 since 1986/87. The average number of home points required to get to a play-off place is 47, with the figure being 31 from the away matches.
Following the Bournemouth game, (more of which later BTW!), our current record is :
Home Away
P W D L F A Pts P W D L F A Pts Total Pts Total GF Total GA
8 3 5 0 12 7 14 8 3 0 5 8 16 9 23 20 23
14 points from 8 home games equates to 40 for the whole season, whilst away, 9 from 8 equates to 26 points. Bugger, that only makes 66 in total! As you can see from the chart below, only Bolton in 89/90 made the play-offs with a sub-70 points total! So no go there I’m afraid. What about if we assume that one or the other predicted totals will be exceeded, I mean, the way the guys are playing at the moment suggests things can only get better! Yeah that’ll do it! Let’s see if anyone’s been promoted via the play-offs with a home record of 40 points OR an away record of 26 points!
Lo and behold, of course, we find that getting promoted via the play-offs, with a home record of only 40 points, OR an away record of 26 points HAS been achieved! Proof positive I think you’ll agree that the Royals are going up this year!!
What we must be careful of of course is exactly where we finish in the play-offs! What do I mean? Well check this out. 12 teams have been promoted via the play-offs from this division, and as you can see from the chart below, no-one has done it twice. The important thing to note is the final league position of the eventual winners. Believe it or not, the eventual winner has come from either the highest or lowest qualifying place on 10 out of 12 occasions! So historically speaking, Tommy Gun and the boys stand a much better chance of going up via the play-offs this year if they finish 3rd or 6th! If they finish 5th, then all bets are off! No team has ever won the play-offs in this division by finishing in the 3rd qualifying place! Spooky!
Just to finish, (and if you thought the above was contrived, just wait for this!), I’ve also included a chart showing the various performances of the teams who’ve actually appeared in the play-offs. Strangely, several appearances does not guarantee eventual promotion via the play-offs. For example, both Bristol clubs, as well as Stockport have made it to this stage 3 times, and have never progressed. So I think we can therefore ignore any threat from Fulham and Northampton! (OK this really is stretching the stats, but what the hell!). Walsall and Burnley have already gone up once via this system, so they won’t be the play-off winners this year as no team has ever done it twice. Stoke will probably win the division with City 2nd, (assuming of course you’re willing to suspend disbelief and assume the Royals won’t win the title! – mmm, I think there are too many negatives in that sentence, but you know what I mean!), which leaves the play-off places to be occupied by Preston, Gillingham, Blackpool and of course the new boys – the Royals!
Now because I’m an optimist, (and also because I put a £100 each way bet with William Hills at the start of the season at 11-1 that we’d go up!), I’ve included below the details of those teams finishing in the top two places since the play-offs started.
Now I’d obviously love to be proved wrong, but I think automatic promotion may just be out of our reach this year. But wait a minute! Bolton, (again!), managed to get into the top two despite being 18th after 13 games, Bristol C managed it despite being 19th after 9 games, ditto Oxford despite being 14th after 24 games, and Brentford 13th after 17. We’re now 10th after 16! So it’s bloody obvious to me that if we continue our improvement, and reach a decent level of consistency by Christmas, WE’LL BLOODY WALK OFF WITH THE TITLE!!!! With my winnings, I’ll even be able to afford to buy a season ticket for the Mad House next year!! (What’s that you say about chickens and counting?)
I just LOVE stats! Come On You RRRRRRsssss!!!!!
Just as a postscript, I managed to get to the Bournemouth game on 7th November. On the way from sunny Epping, I thought I’d drop in at Elm Park, just to say one last goodbye to what had become my spiritual home for the previous 28 years. Naturally it was a very moving moment. As I parked in the car park off Tilehurst Road, not quite believing the scene of devastation just beyond, the radio was playing a Joan Baez hit from ’71 – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Locking the car, I stumbled up the newly laid steps to the tacky white picket fence in front of the Sales Office. I went in. The room was typical of the genre, anonymous watercolour plans on the wall, mud stained entrance mat, neat and tidy desk in the corner. Even the lady at the desk was archetypal. Dressed in a regulation suit of a delicate shade of green that just managed to clash with everything else in the room. Her lapel badge suggested her name was Jackie, but to me she might as well have been the devil reincarnate! How dare she smile at me whilst just over her shoulder the South Bank was in its last death throes.
I mumbled something about having just travelled down from the Midlands, and would she mind if I had a last walk round the ground. To be fair, she must have understood that I wasn’t a prospective buyer, merely some middle aged old twat that was finding it hard to let go of a little piece of personal history. She dug out a new hard hat, which she handed to me without speaking. I accepted it and made my way slowly past the demolition fencing.
The turnstiles had been demolished, and the ground was a sea of clay. I made my way over to the South Bank. As I passed through the entrance, the one just in front of the "slope", I stopped dead in my tracks. The scene before me was almost too much to bear. All trace of the turf was gone, not a square foot left. Great mounds of topsoil could be seen in both goalmouths, and I could see straight through to Norfolk Road! There was simply no evidence of the Main Stand left. The Town end had lost a good bit of the terracing next to the South Bank. The very spot where I’d stood to see my first Reading match no longer existed. For some bizarre reason I found this deeply hurtful, but at least the demolition contractor had had the decency to leave my home – the South Bank - till last. The roof looked intact, but the bottom 10 or so rows of terracing had disappeared, along with chunks of the perimeter wall. The lowest row of crash barriers was lying in twisted heaps, the odd section sticking skyward, like some severed finger pointing accusingly at an unknown assailant.
Lighting a cigar, (I’d picked a shit day to give up smoking), I turned left and began walking slowly towards the centre of the South Bank. I’ve often heard people talk of this, but it was the first time it had ever happened to me. As I silently made my way along those beautiful old terraces, I swear I could actually hear the roar of past crowds, I could sense myself swaying with the rest of the crowd, scarves over our heads as we sang. What was really spooky was that in my first season as a South Bank regular, we would often sing that same Joan Baez number I’d heard on the radio as I pulled into the car park! I can’t remember the words we sang, but I remember the tune – very moving.
I remembered the sensation as the whole South Bank literally cascaded down the terraces when we scored. It was an indescribable feeling of belonging to a whole, a feeling that I haven’t experienced since, although paradoxically, the Mad House East Stand at the Luton and Bournemouth games this year captured part of the feeling. I won’t bore you with the full range of memories and emotions that came flooding back. Suffice to say, they were as crystal clear that afternoon as if they had happened last week, not 15, 20, 25 or even 28 years ago! Seasoned Royals will know what I mean.
I continued my forlorn trip down memory lane. I could see former players, long gone now, gracing the pitch. Seems that most of the memories were of night games, and the Robin Friday wonder goal against Tranmere was played out before my very eyes. I’m not ashamed to say that my eyes were watering as I made my way round the South Bank, and sat on the foundation of the floodlight pylon at the junction of the South Bank and the Tilehurst End. This was where my sons Daniel & Christopher liked to sit. They’ve only been to Elm Park about a dozen times. They’re only 9 and 7, but they appreciated the history alright. Something strange then happened deep within the darkest recesses of my mind. I gradually remembered that the only reason I had ever come to Elm Park was because my own father had died. I had just turned 11. He’d been ill for some months, and died of a brain haemorrhage. He couldn’t have disliked sport in general, or football in particular, more if you’d have paid him! My hobbies then were angled very much that way too! It was a subsequent friend of my mother’s who suggested I go along with him to watch Reading. The rest as they say,… So I have my father to "blame", a devout sports hater, for my life long love affair with Reading! Had he not died, my mother would not have met someone else, and I would never have experienced the exquisite pain of supporting the best team in the world. By one of those weird coincidences of fate, the date of the game against Bournemouth, 7th November, was the 29th anniversary of his death! As I said, it was a really spooky few minutes!
Stubbing out my cigar, I returned to the little sales office, via the South Bank loos. I passed the hat to "Jackie", and this time her smile was different, as though she at last knew that the place she was selling this month had a value, a worth, that simply couldn’t be measured in pounds, shillings and pence. It had a history, a soul if you like, all of its own. And no matter what the fates have in store for Reading Football Club, I will always remember Elm Park.
Getting back in the car, I drove as fast as the traffic would allow to the Mad House. During the Bournemouth game, I shouted myself hoarse. After my experience earlier at Elm Park, there was so much raw emotion inside me that I just had to let it out! The match was pretty good considering, although I think we did enough to have won. If I’d have been anywhere near the cheating bastard Stein when he dived for the penalty, I swear I’d have killed him with my bare hands! How dare he cheat to deny my Reading of the win they rightly deserved, this day of all days!!
It’s only a game? FUCK OFF!! If you think football’s only a game, you simply don’t understand it.
COME ON YOU RRRRRRRRsssssss
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