Bizarre question that could only originate from Norfolk

[fenman]

Having been a fan of Wolves since the 1950's  I took the  very rare opportunity to watch them live at Norwich yesterday . Although I live within a few miles of Norwich's ground  they're probably the last team on Earth I would support so it was a great disappointment that they won . More disappointing was the fact that Wolves played so poorly and had their goalie sent off , I didn't see the incident that led to the sending off because everyone around me decided to stand up when the ball was near the goal and I couldn't see anything .

The point of my post is .....  Historically Wolves have very rarely played well or won at Carrow Road  and several teams seem to suffer the problem at various grounds in the country , " Bogey grounds I suppose is the term "  Suffering with great disappointment during the evening I was thinking of my own humble long career in football both as a player and manager . There are a few grounds that I have played  on and managed teams on where we've never played well on even though we might on rare occasions got some sort of result there . On the other hand I've been to grounds were the team have always played well and I myself have been lifted to play above myself . Can anyone explain why this bogey ground problem exists ?

Have you noticed the same situation exists with your team or yourself.?

[JENGLE]

Good question fenman. Every team out there has their bogey team if you like. But I ask the same question you do, why is this the case? It really is so bizarre.

[B Manning]

Strange , it must apply to referees as well, because from the comments I get from one of the teams on a Saturday is that I was very poor/crap etc etc and that's almost every ground I go to.

[TheolderIgetthebetterIwas]

3 hours ago, B Manning said:

Strange , it must apply to referees as well, because from the comments I get from one of the teams on a Saturday is that I was very poor/crap etc etc and that's almost every ground I go to.

That's because you  was 

[B Manning]

I have to agree with you older, well it must be true all the players keep telling me so and I do listen and believe what they tell me , although I do have a birth certificate.

[a little bit of a dinho]

It's just the human mind applying a narrative to a mathematical certainty.

The sample size is often too small to draw such conclusions but as humans we want to explain things with other reasoning. So you might have played 12 games vs a given team, but that is statistically insignificant in truth. It's too small of a number.

Add in the fact that edges between teams might be small, so they are fairly close to each other in terms of ability. Which then means it increases the "variance" or luck because it becomes more like flipping a coin. It's not impossible for you to flip a coin on heads 10 times in a row, but if you lose at a given ground 10 times you're much more likely to look for some other kind of reasoning than simply accepting it as a mathematical anomaly. 

Then if we take into account you might be playing vs a team who do have a slight competitive edge vs you which means they will win slightly more often. There could be other contributing factors that would slightly tilt things as well, maybe the size of the pitch or the psychological disadvantage of knowing about a negative record etc

It's this same kind of thinking that leads people to create all kinds of stories or superstitions, to gamble etc 

p.s. Also it depends on the edge a team has what kind of runs are possible. So where edges are small (similar standard teams) you will get a more even distribution of "weird runs" between both sides. But if the edge is huge for one side that will tell over time and if it is too great certain things would be very unlikely. But edges in Football especially a professional level are not that big. The bookies love Football because the favourites win much less frequently than in other sports.

We only have to look at this weekends results to see a prime example with Liverpool losing to Swansea  

 

[stevieb]

37 minutes ago, a little bit of a dinho said:

It's just the human mind applying a narrative to a mathematical certainty.

The sample size is often too small to draw such conclusions but as humans we want to explain things with other reasoning. So you might have played 12 games vs a given team, but that is statistically insignificant in truth. It's too small of a number.

Add in the fact that edges between teams might be small, so they are fairly close to each other in terms of ability. Which then means it increases the "variance" or luck because it becomes more like flipping a coin. It's not impossible for you to flip a coin on heads 10 times in a row, but if you lose at a given ground 10 times you're much more likely to look for some other kind of reasoning than simply accepting it as a mathematical anomaly. 

Then if we take into account you might be playing vs a team who do have a slight competitive edge vs you which means they will win slightly more often. There could be other contributing factors that would slightly tilt things as well, maybe the size of the pitch or the psychological disadvantage of knowing about a negative record etc

It's this same kind of thinking that leads people to create all kinds of stories or superstitions, to gamble etc 

p.s. Also it depends on the edge a team has what kind of runs are possible. So where edges are small (similar standard teams) you will get a more even distribution of "weird runs" between both sides. But if the edge is huge for one side that will tell over time and if it is too great certain things would be very unlikely. But edges in Football especially a professional level are not that big. The bookies love Football because the favourites win much less frequently than in other sports.

We only have to look at this weekends results to see a prime example with Liverpool losing to Swansea  

 

Bloody hell you should be on Mastermind  

[TheolderIgetthebetterIwas]

55 minutes ago, a little bit of a dinho said:

It's just the human mind applying a narrative to a mathematical certainty.

The sample size is often too small to draw such conclusions but as humans we want to explain things with other reasoning. So you might have played 12 games vs a given team, but that is statistically insignificant in truth. It's too small of a number.

Add in the fact that edges between teams might be small, so they are fairly close to each other in terms of ability. Which then means it increases the "variance" or luck because it becomes more like flipping a coin. It's not impossible for you to flip a coin on heads 10 times in a row, but if you lose at a given ground 10 times you're much more likely to look for some other kind of reasoning than simply accepting it as a mathematical anomaly. 

Then if we take into account you might be playing vs a team who do have a slight competitive edge vs you which means they will win slightly more often. There could be other contributing factors that would slightly tilt things as well, maybe the size of the pitch or the psychological disadvantage of knowing about a negative record etc

It's this same kind of thinking that leads people to create all kinds of stories or superstitions, to gamble etc 

p.s. Also it depends on the edge a team has what kind of runs are possible. So where edges are small (similar standard teams) you will get a more even distribution of "weird runs" between both sides. But if the edge is huge for one side that will tell over time and if it is too great certain things would be very unlikely. But edges in Football especially a professional level are not that big. The bookies love Football because the favourites win much less frequently than in other sports.

We only have to look at this weekends results to see a prime example with Liverpool losing to Swansea  

 

There's a gambler.

1 hour ago, B Manning said:

I have to agree with you older, well it must be true all the players keep telling me so and I do listen and believe what they tell me , although I do have a birth certificate.

Bar steward perhaps (?)

[a little bit of a dinho]

1 hour ago, stevieb said:

Bloody hell you should be on Mastermind  

Nah no chance! I can barely remember who scored for match reports on a Saturday evening, never mind reams of pointless facts.

49 minutes ago, TheolderIgetthebetterIwas said:

There's a gambler.

I have been known to place the occasional wager, yes. 

Also I had a quick check of the actual results between Norwich and Wolves. The last time Wolves won at Carrow Road was a 0-1 win in 06/07 so that's 10 years ago. Easy to see how fickle the mind can be if the last win was 10 years back and there are a series of defeats in the meantime - 4 defeats in a row and 1 draw. So a small sample.

The total record is Norwich win 13, draw 15 and lose 29. So Wolves have actually done quite well vs them overall. Probably because Norwich have been a worse team historically? 

Also nobody notices when a big team exceed their expected winrate vs a smaller team. So if Arsenal have a true winrate of say 60% vs Burnley but they end up winning 80%, nobody questions it. But in the reverse, if Bolton have a true winrate of say 45% vs Arsenal but end up winning 55% over a small sample (say 10 games which feels like a lifetime in football but isn't) then people label them a "bogey" side. Then it can have the psychological impact on players we mentioned before.

The best bit about all this is nobody can tell you definitively what edge a team actually has, it's all just a case of best guesses. Bookmakers are usually the best at these guesses but they offer you worse odds than the true chance of an outcome just to cover themselves in the event of an error.

Maybe we could run a small Cornish football book if the players weren't all so easily bought  

[TheolderIgetthebetterIwas]

2 hours ago, a little bit of a dinho said:

Nah no chance! I can barely remember who scored for match reports on a Saturday evening, never mind reams of pointless facts.

I have been known to place the occasional wager, yes. 

Also I had a quick check of the actual results between Norwich and Wolves. The last time Wolves won at Carrow Road was a 0-1 win in 06/07 so that's 10 years ago. Easy to see how fickle the mind can be if the last win was 10 years back and there are a series of defeats in the meantime - 4 defeats in a row and 1 draw. So a small sample.

The total record is Norwich win 13, draw 15 and lose 29. So Wolves have actually done quite well vs them overall. Probably because Norwich have been a worse team historically? 

Also nobody notices when a big team exceed their expected winrate vs a smaller team. So if Arsenal have a true winrate of say 60% vs Burnley but they end up winning 80%, nobody questions it. But in the reverse, if Bolton have a true winrate of say 45% vs Arsenal but end up winning 55% over a small sample (say 10 games which feels like a lifetime in football but isn't) then people label them a "bogey" side. Then it can have the psychological impact on players we mentioned before.

The best bit about all this is nobody can tell you definitively what edge a team actually has, it's all just a case of best guesses. Bookmakers are usually the best at these guesses but they offer you worse odds than the true chance of an outcome just to cover themselves in the event of an error.

Maybe we could run a small Cornish football book if the players weren't all so easily bought  

AH (!) a percentage gambler.

[fenman]

Eileen Drewery . What a co-incidence , I've only been reading  a chapter from one of Brian Clough's books this morning when he's talking about Hoddle and her .

The book itself is quite interesting , although it was written in the early 20000's  much of what he forecasts for the future of football is coming to pass .

[fenman]

He does mention something about it , he mentions Southampton's ground The Dell  where he says that teams hated playing there and it was worth several points a season to Southampton .

Like him or loath him  you have to admit he was a character , the like of which we'll never see again . None of the managers of the future will have been brought up to have the principles and dignity of that generation . The book is well worth a read its called " Cloughie walking on water "  . There's stories in there that could just couldn't see happening today . Such as when Derby played Benfica , he knew that foreign teams didn't like heavy pitches  so he sneaked into The Baseball ground in the early hours and turned the water system on .Unfortunately he fell asleep sitting on the terraces and  flooded the ground .In the subsequent enquiry by FIFA he said that parts of Derby were subject to isolated storms .

[Brianmooreshead]

On 12 February 2017 at 11:47, Keith B said:

Eileen Drewery thanks fenman. Strange encounter between that lady and Hoddle. Cost Hoddle his England job eventually though. I'd like to have heard what Brian Clough would have said about bogey teams and grounds.

Apparently Hoddle semi pressurised the squad to avail themselves of Mrs Drewerys services. When she sat down next to Ray Parlour who was sat in a low reclining chair he asked for a short back and sides