Just posted this on the Bradford forum, and since most Championship fans here pass by there or here at some point I figured you folks should get a look too.

I thought it might be interesting to look at home and away form separately so I've produced league tables as if each club had only played their home fixtures so far, and another for if they'd only played their away fixtures so far.

We have won every home game (in the league) for the past 3 years. We just need to carry that form into the middle 8's.

LSV is really starting to feel like home now. I will always miss Hilton Park but if we have to move on then the LSV is as good a place as any to do so.

I have grown very attached to my seat in the West Stand and attending week in week out with my Dad and my Grandad. Then moving to the North Stand for the atmosphere in the "Big" games with my brother.

Slowly growing to love the place.

Still miss p*****g against a brick wall and all over my shoes at Hilton Park though

Our away form is more than favourable seeing as the fixtures we`ve played.

Yeah, I haven't looked at strength of schedule at all with this. That is no doubt true about your fixtures so far though. If I get chance I might take a nosey at that during the week.

Me too Nozzy !

Once had a Pee outside, next to Alex Murphy....a moment to treasure !

Still miss changing ends at half time due to dreaded 'elf and safety, and still don't understand why every other ground I have visited this season (including Super league Warrington) have cash turnstiles. I don't know how many late walk-up fans we lose, when they see the queues at the ticket booths, especially if it's raining. Surely the club should make it as easy as possible for non-season ticket holders to get in by having at least 2 cash turnstiles? Customer is king!!

The discussion on the Bradford forum led me to check out individual referees. I wish I could find it now but I once read a study about home advantage in soccer where a number of top flight referees called a game on screens. Half had the sound turned off, half had the sound turned on. The results were overwhelmingly in favour of the home side with the sound on compared to off.

This is just from CH and L1 games over the last ten years so I guess a lot of them will be more familiar to you folks than they are to us. Still, many names at the top have disappeared and others still 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.



Moral of the story: shout at the ref with confidence and gusto.

I thought this was a thread about Aussies Soaps

the music haunts me,You know we belong together.

That was me last night. It has since morphed into the closing music for Prisoner Cell Block H.

He used to send me roses...

Moral of the story, teams tend to win more games at home than away and as a consequence most referees will officiate over more home wins than away. Chicken & egg.

Logic soundly applied Reffy

I too believe that there's no reason for it and that it just is, reffy.

Not quite. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but if you are correct that most teams tend to win more at home than away, and I'm inclined to think that you are, there are a number of factors that contribute to that, and referee influence [umay[/u be one of them. Vbfg's data, however, doesn't quantify that influence or indeed prove its existence.

Lots of factors for sure, but given the paucity of data made available by the RFL (and that for fantasy league purposes, not informing the public) this is what we have.

On home wins v away:

Championship this year: 61%
Championship since 2006: 55%
SL this year: 55%
SL since 1996: 56%

The big four in the US

NBA Basketball: 62% (many more games than RL, and the crowd is right on top of you)
MLB Baseball: 54% (many, many more games than RL)
NFL: 53%
Ice Hockey: 55%

I don't have data for soccer but I understand from a bit of research last night that it's about 63% in the Premier League.

We're in the same ball park as other major sports.

Because I was curious though (I'm a very curious person) I decided to look in to penalty counts. I only have that data in the SL, and only from 2007 onwards.

Several problems with this data. It's raw penalty counts overall for one thing. There is not context associated with it at all. We don't know when the penalties were awarded, what for, what the score was at the time or anything like that. All of that would be very useful to know. (I have started stealing the data from the disciplinary site though, so I may be able to add *some* context on how "dirty" a game overall it was once I get that into a shape I can work with).

There is also nothing here about penalties that should have been but were not, errors spotted or missed, etc. It's not a complete picture, but it is still in my view a revealing picture.

Anyhow, on with the show. There's a slight change with this table in that HomeConc refers to penalties conceded by the home side. AwayConc is similarly those conceded by the away side. This isn't penalties 'won', which is typically how we refer to them. The final column shows the average number of penalties that are in the home side's favour.



There is, even amongst the best referees we have, a tendency for the home side to win the penalty count.

But if we assume, and I agree that it's an assumption that this is the cause, that the home crowd has an effect on the referee's performance then it also makes sense to look at the degree to which that happens amongst different teams. Different grounds, different ways sound echoes around the place, the sophisticated and cultured nature of some team's fans (Bradford, for example) compared to the uncouth, slavering at the mouth vernacular swearitude of others (Leeds, say).

This one is how much teams benefit from the referee by being at home:



And straight away we see that those teams with the smaller crowds, who may even be often outnumbered while at home, benefit the least from the referee. RFL bias against smaller teams? We've thought that at one time or other but I don't believe it. Interesting teams at the top though, right? I certainly wouldn't have predicted those.

What if we flip that on its head and see which teams are at the biggest disadvantage on the penalty count away from home:



Again, Crusaders and Salford. Do we say that these are the two dirtiest teams in Super League since 2007? Because I absolutely do not believe that. And there's Catalans. Quite the advantage at home and nailed to a tree as an example to others away from home. That's what you get when most of your away support are hipsters from Leeds who pretend to be French at weekends.

I think a good number of SL fans would predict that Wigan would be the side who should be penalised the most. Whether by false impression or not it's hard to say, but I think they are probably the most complained about in terms of 'gamesmanship' and the extent to which they walk the line in the tackle. Solidly mid table both away and at home though.

Large home crowds, large travelling support. Same for Leeds (albeit less commonly thought of as an edgy team). Does it explain the difference?

That's up to you. I think so though.

(Apologies for the long post. And apologies for the odd colours too - I don't actually know what I'm doing).

FWIW, I do not *at all* think that the referee is the sole cause of home advantage. There are so many intangibles involved here it's not possible to measure everything that's going on. I couldn't put a value on the extent to which teams aren't used to the bottom corner at Mount Pleasant on a rainy Sunday afternoon in February. The normal human psychology of referees, which is all I believe this data to represent, is for sure a big factor though.

You seem to be pitching a PhD proposal

. A lot of interesting data, that does seem to indicate that referees may have differing relationships with the home and away sides. Probably still not causation in terms of the outcome of matches, though? (I am no statistician). I wonder what changes when matches are played at neutral venues?

We could never call this causation, it's just highly suggestive.

My main point here is shout at referees. Call everything forward, everything high and the referee bent whenever you can. Bugger what the oppo' fans think of you.

My next project is the NRL and its ever reducing number of suburban grounds and the shift to big multi team stadia. I am very curious about that now but I've never looked into it, and I haven't seen anyone else do it either. There must be someone over there who's thought of it but I've never seen the results.

Kinda curious to see what if any change two referees brought too. If this does boil down to psychology and the need for some, however slight, kidn of reassurance when there's the briefest hint of ambiguity then maybe that extra ref serves as a support mechanism.

Well we now only have one Home match between now and the 12th of June, as well as 5 away games + Summer Bash.

If we can push through that period with strong results then we have a decent run in with 5 of our last 7 games at home.

Is the LSV pitch being relayed again as we have so many away fixtures bunched together?

Wouldn't mind the throw-away turf, if it is!! My lawns are rubbish - and I would love to watch the LSV grass grow, all day long!

It gets six weeks off every season for scarifying and re-seeding. The price we have to pay for having the best pitch in the league.