Calculate Fixtures

On the opening screen select the Group / Division by clicking on the number to the left of the group


1. A Single round means one team plays each other team once only. Terminolgy used is a single round is

  • Single round
  • Round 1
  • half round (this is the terminlogy used)

Most leagues work on a double round principle of each team playing each other team twice, home and away. A double round is

  • Double round
  • Rounds 2
  • Normal round
  • 2 half rounds (this is the terminlogy used)

All other rounds are expressed as a number of normal rounds + (0 or 1) half rounds.

2. A half round consists of N(N-1)/2 games or more usefully of N-1 fixtures of N/2 games where there are N teams in adivision..

A halfround of N-1 fixtures of N/2 games
    N/2 games per fixture round
F 1.Sept 4 Arsenal v Bolton Man Utd V.... Middlesborough v ..
i 2.Sept 11 Bolton v Aston Villa ...  
x        
t        
u x. Oct ..      
r        
e        
s N-1 Dec ..      



3. The normal round, 2 half rounds, is the main goal of this process. The principle of achieving this is to break the process in 2 and deal with 2 half rounds seperately. The 2 half rounds are usually mirror images of each other and a lot of the system works in this direction but at any stage you can manually enter or alter suggestions from the system.

4. System works in 2 half rounds. While operating on the first half mode, the system and you have more choice and freedom in assigning fixtures i.e. the fixture list is empty. The 2nd half round is constrained by choices made in the 1st half. If the first half is made in a logical symetrical manner the 2nd half can be produced by inverting the first half. This is the general principle of solving the full problem.

4. The system allows manual input of all fixtures with real time statistics to help in measuring its symmetry. This is feasible for small divisions but soon becomes difficult. Important, not all entries will produce a full round of fixtures.

5. The system can suggest a half round fixture that is nicely balanced. At the simplest level you can accept the suggested fixture list for the 1st half round and its inverse for the 2nd half round, problem solved.

6. Between the totally manual and the fully automatic lies the following. Accept the fully automatic fixture list and manually edit this fixture list. When this process is complete on the first half round ask the system to invert the first half round to produce a starting point for the 2nd half round. Now manually edit the 2nd half mode. This only makes sense if the suggested mode is in some sense nearly correct.

Who likes algebra? I do, but I suspect I am in a minority. So let us replace our N above to be 6 and use this to describe our detals. We wish to produce 2 half rounds of fixtures. This requires us to find 10 fixture rounds of 3 matches, this is split into finding 5 fixture rounds of 3 matches for 2 half rounds. Construct a small division of 6 teams to follow the following instructions.

Fixture Grid

This style of fixture grid is used extensively in the LMS system. Teams on the left hand side are the home team in matches and the teams on the top represent the away teams. There intersection represnts the details of this fixture, primarily where and when.

Quick Instructions

Click on "Load Suggested Fixtures".

Scroll down to Selected fixtures and alter the dates to your liking and the click on "Load Dates".

Scroll down to "Statistics for Current Selection" and alter the teams to your liking. Click on "Load Teams".

Notice that for team 1 in the statistics there is an entry 6 in "Play Opposite" column. This means that team 1 and 6 are out of phase, if 1 is at home then 6 is away and if 1 is away the 6 is at home. If you have Manchester United and Manchester City in your league then you assign one to team 1 and the other to team 6 . Due to symmetry you will see that row 6 has the same information.

Now click on "Load Inverse Into Other Half"

Scroll down to Selected fixtures and alter the dates to your liking and the click on "Load Dates".

Finally but most importantly store the results by clicking on "Commit To Database ". Process complete. Now go to the "Enter Fixtures" screen to make any small alterations such as a match being played on a Friday as against a Sturday.

Details

The following will be entered

  1. 1v2 3v 4 5v6
  2. 4v1 6v3 2v5
  3. 1v6 3v5 4v2
  4. 5v4 3v1 6v2
  5. 1v5 4v6 2v3

with the occasional mistake to see what happens.

Starting with manual selection click on the button labelled 01-02. Notice how the system now colors red all the games which can not occur on this fixture round. The button selected is now green, to show curren selection, and displays under it "1/1 9-23", this means fixture round 1 on the first half round and this will be played on the Sept 23 . Scroll down the screen and see that this fixture has been added to the selected fixtures, also notice that under statistics for Current Selection have started to change. Next click on "03-04" and notice the red area increasing. In fact we only have 2 choices left so lets choose "05-06", click on it. This now completes one fixture round and all the red dissappears ready for the next round. Also note that the mirror images of our selection have been paled. To preserve symmetry the mirror images are not allowed to be selected.

Choose "03-01" and then "04-02", note there is no where legal for the last game. This is an example of how easy it is to manually enter values which are inconsistent and a full round of fixtures can not be produced.

Click on "Addilion mode --> Deletion Mode". Choose "03-01" and then "04-02", this will be deleted from our choices. Click on "Deletion --> Addition Mode" so as to build up our choice. This leaves the system at the end of the 1st round of choices, so scroll down to Selected Fixtures and click on the button "02"

Now choose "04-01" "06-03" , this leaves "02-05 or "05-02". Consult the statistics that team 2 has not played a home game and that team 5 has not played an away game, so lets choose "02-05".

Now choose 01-06 03-05 and 04-02.

Notice team 4 has had 2 home games and team 5 has had 2 away games. This value should as low as possible but 2 is a normal value but 3 should not be acceptable. Let us make another mistake and choose 03-01 and 04-05. The number of continuous home and away games has gone into the red.

Click on "Addilion mode --> Deletion Mode". Choose "04-05", this will be deleted from our choices. Click on "Deletion --> Addition Mode" and then choose 05-04, and the statistics stay in the blue. Choose 06-02.

From the statistics team 2 has played only 1 home game and team 3 has played only one away game. This is easily solved as we choose 02-03 , 01-05 and 04-06

Note: that all the statistics are in the blue .

Notice that for team 1 in the statistics there is an entry 6 in "Play Opposite" column. This means that team 1 and 6 are out of phase, if 1 is at home then 6 is away and if 1 is away the 6 is at home. If you have Manchester United and Manchester City in your league then you assign one to team 1 and the other to team 6 . Due to symmetry you will see that row 6 has the same information.

Now scroll down to selected fixtures and study the dates and change these to your likings, enter only the dates 2004-10-10 ignoring Saturday which is only shown as a guide. When happy click on "Load Dates". If a game is to be played on a different day than the round date this must be altered manually from the "Enter Fixture" screen.

If this half is complete then proceed to the next half by clicking on "Next Half Round".Notice the new color scheme, selections from the first half are now shown in pink. The process can now proceed as before.

When both halves are complete the "Commit To Database" button appears. Complete the whole process by clicking it.