Newsletter #1845

An interesting trip to Merseyside awaits this weekend sadly without our flashing blade Sergio. Thankfully, worst fears about his injury in last Sunday’s game have not materialised but we are unlikely to see him for 2-3 weeks.

A chance for Mario and/or Edin to shine hopefully.

Today’s issue is brief with an interesting ‘And Finally’ for those statto’s amongst us (of which I’m one) concerning the regeneration of Tony Brown’s work of the past 20 years or so.

Enjoy the game if you are going and look forward to your reports next week.

ARTICLE: HUMOUR? A TALE OF TWO MATCHES

Playing an un-fancied side at home. Missing chances. Going 1-0 up. Lots of pressure and possession. Conceding to the first away chance of the game. Conceding another in short order. Stepping up a couple of gears and scoring two in quick succession.

Match 1 reaction: ecstatic celebration

Match 2 reaction: concern and bemusement

What a difference a summer makes 😉

HUMOUR

Fatman and Robin?

AND FINALLY… OF INTEREST?

The National Football Archive at http://www.enfa.co.uk/

What is it?

A complete database of English club football from 1888/89 season to the present day. It combines the match-by-match line-up and scorer databases of Tony Brown with the player database of Michael Joyce to ensure that every “John Smith” is correctly identified. The first phase product provides individual match details and the full player database.

The criterion for an entry in the database is that the games are played by clubs who are members of the Football League and Premier League in the season concerned. There are 400,000 line-ups, 600,000 goal scorers and 40,000 players.

In later phases we hope to include match videos, newspaper reports and photographs, all by arrangement with the copyright holders.

Is it free to use?

The results and dates of all English club competitions are free to access. Full match and player details require a £5 daily or £32 annual subscription. In later phases of development, items such as video highlights of matches will also attract an additional charge, on a ‘pay per view’ basis.

When is it available?

Phase one will launch in August 2012 (i.e. now).

What is included in the Phase One offering?

Unlike cricket, football has never had a definition of ‘first class’. The database designers have therefore created a number of ‘groups’ into which each game is classified. The phase one database includes groups A to G below. They are all viewed as ‘first-team’ games in organised competition (and therefore not ‘friendly’ games). By adopting this structure, we are able to extend the database to any other areas our readers may suggest (given time and resources of course!).

Group A: Football League and Premiership, excluding 1939/40 and clubs’ abandoned seasons (e.g. Wigan Borough, Aldershot).

Group B: FA Cup: Matches played by a Football League club (in the year in question) in any round (including qualifying and intermediate rounds). Includes 1945/46 season.

Group C: Football League Cup.

Group D: European club tournaments (but not Inter-Toto and Supercup/World club cup events, which are in Group G).

Group E: Play-off and test matches.

Group F: Full and Associate Members’ Cups (such as the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy).

Group G: Other official tournaments organised by FIFA, UEFA, the Football League and the FA. At present, these are:

• The Charity/Community Shield
• Anglo-Italian Cup (1970-73, 1993-96)
• Anglo-Scottish Cup
• Anglo-Italian League Cup Winners Cup (1970-72)
• Screensport Super Cup
• InterToto Cup
• World Club Cup
• UEFA Super Cup
• FIFA Club World Cup
• Third Division North and South Cups
• Watney Cup
• Football League Group Cup/Trophy (1982, 1983)
• Texaco Cup (1971-75)
• Mercantile Credit Centenary Trophy (1988)
• FA Cup third place games (1970-74)

There are many other groups that may be added in later phases:

Group H: “Commemorative games” (FL Jubilee Fund games, Empire Exhibition Cup, FL Centenary Everton vs. Bayern Munich, Festival of Britain)

Group I: Regional competitions not under the auspices of the FL (Alliance 1889-92, Combination 1888/89, Southern Professional Floodlit Cup, United Counties League 1893-95).

Group J: Pre-season tournaments (Makita etc.).

Group K: Charity cups (Bass Charity Vase etc.).

What details are provided?

For matches:

• Date and place of game
• Attendance (Football League official figures 1925/26 to 2001/02, andnewspaper reports)
• Competition
• League division or cup round
• The match result and half-time score if known
• The eleven starting players for each team, and any substitutes used
• The scorers, with goal times if known

The phase one project will be launched with some minor details omitted. We intend to provide more goal times, half-time scores, ‘which substitute replaced what player’, names of own-goal scorers and referees’ names as ‘on going’ projects by the database maintenance team.

For players:

• Full name and ‘name known by’
• Date of birth and year of death
• Place of birth
• Summaries of clubs, seasons played, with appearance, substitute and goal totals

Other features of the database:

• A calendar is provided, to show match results and league tables on any date.
• A ‘club v. club’ section allows games between any two clubs to be listed.

What is the work in progress?

The database is built from player details and individual match data. As part of the validation exercise, the seasonal appearance and goals totals from the player database has been compared with the totals calculated from the match data. We found around 2,000 differences. This may sound a lot, but it is actually less than 1% of the whole data set. We are steadily working through the list, making changes to the database as we go, but under controlled conditions and in hopefully consultation with club experts.

Also, we have 50 examples of scorers who are not in the line-up. This is usually because the line-up grid is incorrect, but correcting the game in which the problem arises is not always sufficient; other games may also be wrong.

RESULTS AND TABLE

22 August 2012

Chelsea              4 - 2  Reading              41,733

20 August 2012

Everton              1 - 0  Manchester United    38,415

League table as at 21 August 2012 inclusive

                    P  GD Pts
 1 Chelsea          2   4   6
 2 Fulham           1   5   3
 3 Swansea City     1   5   3
 4 West Brom A.     1   3   3
 5 Manchester City  1   1   3
 6 Newcastle Utd    1   1   3
 7 Everton          1   1   3
 8 West Ham Utd     1   1   3
 9 Stoke City       1   0   1
10 Arsenal          1   0   1
11 Sunderland       1   0   1
12 Reading          2  -2   1
13 Southampton      1  -1   0
14 Tottenham H.     1  -1   0
15 Aston Villa      1  -1   0
16 Manchester Utd   1  -1   0
17 Wigan Athletic   1  -2   0
-----------------------------
18 Liverpool        1  -3   0
19 Norwich City     1  -5   0
20 QPR              1  -5   0

MCIVTA FAQ [v1112.01]

[1] MCIVTA Addresses

Articles (Philip Alcock)         : editor@mcivta.city-fan.org
News/rumour                      : news@mcivta.city-fan.org
Subscriptions (Madeleine Hawkins): subscriptions@mcivta.city-fan.org
Technical problems (Paul)        : paul@city-fan.org
FAQ (David Warburton)            : faq@mcivta.city-fan.org

[2] What are MCIVTA’s publishing deadlines?

Deadlines for issues are nominally 6pm, Monday and Thursday evenings by email. Unfortunately we cannot accept email attachments.

[3] MCIVTA Back Issues and Manchester City Supporters’ home page/Twitter

http://www.mcivta.com/ is the unofficial Manchester City Supporters’ home page. Created in 1994, it is the longest running of the Manchester City related web sites. Back issues of MCIVTA are also hosted on the site. You can also follow on www.twitter.com/mcivta to get the latest updates.

[4] What is the club’s official web site?

The official club web site can be found at http://www.mcfc.co.uk/ and the official club Twitter page at www.twitter.com/mcfc. The club also has a facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/mcfcofficial

[5] What supporters’ clubs are there?

The Official Supporters’ Club and the Centenary Supporters’ Association have merged to become the Manchester City Supporters’ Club (http://www.mcfcsupportersclub.com/). The club also recognise the Manchester City Disabled Supporters’ Association (http://www.mcdsa.co.uk/).

[6] Where can I find out about Points of Blue?

The committee operates as an interface between supporters and the club. Points of Blue appears on the club website under the “Fans” heading (http://www.mcfc.co.uk/Fans).

[7] What match day broadcasts are available on the web?

Live match commentary can be found on the club website. The Radio Manchester pre- and post-match phone-in is available on the web at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/england/manchester/.

[8] Where can I find out if City are live on satellite TV?

http://www.satfootball.com/ provides a listing of Premier League games being shown on UK domestic and foreign satellite channels. A useful site for North American viewers is http://msn.foxsports.com/.

[9] Do we have a Usenet newsgroup?

Yes we do: uk.sport.football.clubs.man-city is our home on usenet. If you are not familiar with Usenet, a basic explanation is available here: http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definition/Usenet

[10] Do any squad members have their own web pages?

There are a number available and direct links can be found at http://www.mcivta.com/players/

[11] Do any squad members have their own Twitter accounts?

A list of genuine player accounts is maintained at http://twitter.com/#!/MCFC/players

[12] Where can I find match statistics?

Statistics for the current season are available from the club site, but for a more in-depth historical analysis try http://www.mcfcstats.com/.

DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in MCIVTA are entirely those of the subscribersand there is no intention to represent these opinions as being thoseof Manchester City Football Club, nor of any of the companies anduniversities by whom the subscribers are employed. It is not inany way whatsoever connected to the club or any other relatedorganisation and is simply a group of supporters using this mediumas a means of disseminating news and exchanging opinions.

Philip Alcock, editor@mcivta.city-fan.org

Editor: