A&H

New Football League 1888

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The source is the actual EFL marketing department! How much closer to home would you like @one . If it’s wrong then we’re all knackered! 😂
 
one said:
Look at those with 0 points. It looks random. Is the source of it reliable?
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How does it look random? It's the table after the first week of the season, with the results as shown at the top of the graphic. Those teams that had lost their only game of the season so far, or had not played yet, had 0 points, I don't see how it could be any other way.
 
Peter Grove said:
How does it look random? It's the table after the first week of the season, with the results as shown at the top of the graphic. Those teams that had lost their only game of the season so far, or had not played yet, had 0 points, I don't see how it could be any other way.
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It's about ranking on the table. Where do you rank teams if they have equal points? The claim was that goals conceded prevailed over goals scored for ranking teams (compared to current system of order: points, GD, GS). This claim does not seem to be the case. That is clearly evident looking at teams with 0 point.
 
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Here's an actual newspaper clipping for that time, they were actually listed in alphabetical order and any actual listing system hadn't been invented

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By December a points system had been invented....
 
one said:
It's about ranking on the table. Where do you rank teams if they have equal points? The claim was that goals conceded prevailed over goals scored for ranking teams (compared to current system of order: points, GD, GS). This claim does not seem to be the case. That is clearly evident looking at teams with 0 point.
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It can't be alphabetical obviously.
It can't be goal difference, because Derby or Preston would be top (depending on 2nd criteria)
It can't be goals for, because Derby would be top.
It can't be goals against because Everton would be 2nd

I'm fairly sure it's done on the ratio of goals for and against. In 1st place, we divide 2 by 0 and get infinity, so WBA go top. for 2nd, divide 5 by 2 and get 2.5 goals scored for each conceded. Both 3rd and 4th have a ratio of 2:1, Derby go over Everton I'm guessing on goals scored.

It's likely that this logic has been applied to the 4 losing teams as well, as they are in the reverse order of the teams they must have lost to - but they do also fit alphabetically too, so it could coincidentally be either system!

There's also a clear divide between those who have lost and those who haven't played - despite them all being on 0 points, they display in two distinct groups.
Where teams haven't played or have identical records (ie one draw), even today we would still list those alphabetically, with the expectation that over the course of 38 games there will end up being some kind of difference once you dig down far enough. If somehow the season ended with two teams on exactly identical records, that is when you'd get to either drawing lots or having a play-off game, but there's no point doing that just for the sake of a league table 1 match in.
 
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Good theory, plausible but it sounds too complex in practice. Having randomness (or order games were played in etc) after using points and GD is also plausible.
 
Most readers of this forum will not recall that football in England replaced goal average with goal difference as late as 1976, following Scotland where it changed five years earlier. Caused a lot of discussion and heated debate at the time, even before online forums!
 
one said:
It's about ranking on the table. Where do you rank teams if they have equal points? The claim was that goals conceded prevailed over goals scored for ranking teams (compared to current system of order: points, GD, GS). This claim does not seem to be the case. That is clearly evident looking at teams with 0 point.
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OK, I see what you mean now. You're talking about how they rank the teams with the same number of points. You're right, there doesn't seem to be a system to it.
 
I see it now - I hadn't forgotten about goal average, it's just that my mental arithmetic is not that great so I had discounted it (wrongly, as it turns out). Once I plugged the numbers into a calculator, it all made sense.
 
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