Fixtures Scheduling
To quickly get past the mathematics, the LMS system utilises the rotating polygon algorithm for calculating fixture lists. For anyone interested there are 2 references at the end of this page which describe the algorithm.
The LMS uses a combination of system calculated fixture lists and an editting tool to alter these lists. At the two ends of the spectrum the system allows
- Full system fixture scheduling where the user needs only check and edit fixture dates and team allocation.
- Manual fixture scheduling used in conjunction with realtime symmetry statistics to guide one.
The online statistics give guidelines as fixtures are selected of symmetry and 'eveness' of number of home and away games for all teams. The maximum number of contiguous home and away games is also presented. This allows the production of a half round of well formed fixtures. The remaining fixtures are produced as a mirror image of the first set.
The following is the help file for this screen and gives detailled instructions for this screen.
References
Richard A. DeVenezia Round Robin Scheduling. http://www.devenezia.com/index.html
Many mathematical solutions to numerous problems. http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
Fixtures Program
A new Windows program 'Fixtures' is available for download. This program is considerably more capable of fixture calculations than can be provided as an online service.
The 'Fixtures' program produces a season's fixture list. A good fixture list should have the following properties.
Each team must play each other team. Also the norm is that each team plays each other team twice, once at home and once away.
The season is split into 2 halves, the second is the mirror image of the first half.
The number of consecutive home or away games should be minimised. For small leagues 20 or less the maximum should be 2 while for larger leagues this is also the aim but tends to increase to 3.
For the first 2 games and the last 2 games in the first half of the season each team should play one home game and one away game.
It is expected that there will be teams, which come from the same city, who will require to play all there games out of phase of each other. That is when Manchester United play at home Manchester City will play away.
For more Information visit theFixtures Dedicated Site Fixtures