[superdave]

I was watching the EPL review show, and thinking about Pompey. So I started to wonder about newly promoted teams.

I'd be interested in looking at how they fare in the first 19 games vs. the second 19. But I'd need an internet resource (or two) that a) list the newly promoted teams for every season and b) have each team's results for a season.

We've all been thinking about the "match" unit, but not about the "season" unit. There are interesting questions there, too.

[Kevin in Louisiana]

http://www.geocities.com/fapremleague/

Has all the tables, but you'd have to figure out who the promoted teams were for each season. I'll start working on it and post the promoted teams for each year in this thread.

[edit]--scrap the above link. Here's a better one:

http://rsssf.com/engpaul/FLA/league.html

[beineke]

A little Perl code is a dangerous thing

[No time to check what happened to 1996, though]

1947 1 MANCHESTER CITY
1947 2 BURNLEY
1948 1 BIRMINGHAM CITY
1948 2 NEWCASTLE UNITED
1949 1 FULHAM
1949 2 WEST BROMWICH ALBION
1950 1 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
1950 2 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY
1951 1 PRESTON NORTH END
1951 2 MANCHESTER CITY
1952 1 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY
1952 2 CARDIFF CITY
1953 1 SHEFFIELD UNITED
1953 2 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN
1954 1 LEICESTER CITY
1954 2 EVERTON
1955 1 BIRMINGHAM CITY
1955 2 LUTON TOWN
1956 1 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY
1956 2 LEEDS UNITED
1957 1 LEICESTER CITY
1957 2 NOTTINGHAM FOREST
1958 1 WEST HAM UNITED
1958 2 BLACKBURN ROVERS
1959 1 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY
1959 2 FULHAM
1960 1 ASTON VILLA
1960 2 CARDIFF CITY
1961 1 IPSWICH TOWN
1961 2 SHEFFIELD UNITED
1962 1 LIVERPOOL
1962 2 LEYTON ORIENT
1963 1 STOKE CITY
1963 2 CHELSEA
1964 1 LEEDS UNITED
1964 2 SUNDERLAND
1965 1 NEWCASTLE UNITED
1965 2 NORTHAMPTON
1966 1 MANCHESTER CITY
1966 2 SOUTHAMPTON
1967 1 COVENTRY CITY
1967 2 WOLVERHAMPTON WANDER
1968 1 IPSWICH TOWN
1968 2 QUEENS PARK RANGERS
1969 1 DERBY COUNTY
1969 2 CRYSTAL PALACE
1970 1 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN
1970 2 BLACKPOOL
1971 1 LEICESTER CITY
1971 2 SHEFFIELD UNITED
1972 1 NORWICH CITY
1972 2 BIRMINGHAM CITY
1973 1 BURNLEY
1973 2 QUEENS PARK RANGERS
1974 1 MIDDLESBROUGH
1974 2 LUTON TOWN
1974 3 CARLISLE UNITED
1975 1 MANCHESTER UNITED
1975 2 ASTON VILLA
1975 3 NORWICH CITY
1976 1 SUNDERLAND
1976 2 BRISTOL CITY
1976 3 WEST BROMWICH ALBION
1977 1 WOLVERHAMPTON WANDER
1977 2 CHELSEA
1977 3 NOTTINGHAM FOREST
1978 1 BOLTON WANDERERS
1978 2 SOUTHAMPTON
1978 3 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
1979 1 CRYSTAL PALACE
1979 2 BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBI
1979 3 STOKE CITY
1980 1 LEICESTER CITY
1980 2 SUNDERLAND
1980 3 BIRMINGHAM CITY
1981 1 WEST HAM UNITED
1981 2 NOTTS COUNTY
1981 3 SWANSEA CITY
1982 1 LUTON TOWN
1982 2 WATFORD
1982 3 NORWICH CITY
1983 1 QUEENS PARK RANGERS
1983 2 WOLVERHAMPTON WANDER
1983 3 LEICESTER CITY
1984 1 CHELSEA
1984 2 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY
1984 3 NEWCASTLE UNITED
1985 1 OXFORD UNITED
1985 2 BIRMINGHAM CITY
1985 3 MANCHESTER CITY
1986 1 NORWICH CITY
1986 2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
1986 3 WIMBLEDON
1987 1 DERBY COUNTY
1987 2 PORTSMOUTH
1988 1 MILLWALL
1988 2 ASTON VILLA
1988 3 MIDDLESBROUGH
1989 1 CHELSEA
1989 2 MANCHESTER CITY
1989 3 CRYSTAL PALACE
1990 1 LEEDS UNITED
1990 2 SHEFFIELD UNITED
1990 6 SUNDERLAND
1991 1 OLDHAM ATHLETIC
1991 2 WEST HAM UNITED
1991 3 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY
1991 4 NOTTS COUNTY
1992 1 IPSWICH TOWN
1992 2 MIDDLESBROUGH
1992 6 BLACKBURN ROVERS
1993 1 NEWCASTLE UNITED
1993 2 WEST HAM UNITED
1993 5 SWINDON TOWN
1994 1 CRYSTAL PALACE
1994 2 NOTTINGHAM FOREST
1994 4 LEICESTER CITY
1995 1 MIDDLESBROUGH
1995 3 BOLTON WANDERERS
1997 1 BOLTON WANDERERS
1997 2 BARNSLEY
1997 6 CRYSTAL PALACE
1998 1 NOTTINGHAM FOREST
1998 2 MIDDLESBROUGH
1998 4 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
1999 1 SUNDERLAND
1999 2 BRADFORD CITY
1999 5 WATFORD
2000 1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
2000 2 MANCHESTER CITY
2000 3 IPSWICH TOWN
2001 1 FULHAM
2001 2 BLACKBURN ROVERS
2001 3 BOLTON WANDERERS
2002 1 MANCHESTER CITY
2002 2 WEST BROMWICH ALBION
2002 5 BIRMINGHAM CITY
2003 1 PORTSMOUTH
2003 2 LEICESTER CITY
2003 5 WOLVERHAMPTON WANDER

[superdave]

OK, now all I need is a place to find out how, for example, Crystal Palace did in every match in '98.

Ideas?

[Kevin in Louisiana]

http://rsssf.com/tablese/eng98.html

Change the numbers to whatever year you want (the year in the URL is the season-end year, so the link is the 97-98 season).

Basically anything you want will be on www.rsssf.com

[sljohn]

This study sounds interesting. Any results to report yet?

[superdave]

So far I've done 2 seasons, and 4 of 6 teams have done better in the 2nd half of the season. At this point, that's pretty meaningless.

(I finally got some time at work to work on this. )

[superdave]

I've done 3 seasons so far. In those 9 trials, 3 teams have been better the first half of the year, the rest were better in the 2nd half. So you're probably thinking, OK, if a promoted team gets to the halfway point in decent shape, not far from 17th place, it would be smart to bet on them to stay up. This indicates that it takes these clubs a bit of time to get accustomed to the higher level of play in the EPL.

But guess what? Of the 9 teams, 6 were relegated. Of the 3 teams that stayed up, TWO of them were also among the 3 who were stronger in the first half of the year.

It's early, there are 8 more seasons to do, but to me, it looks like a manager of a promoted team should focus on getting off to a good start.

It'll be interesting to see if this holds up.

[Karl K]

Originally posted by superdave

It's early, there are 8 more seasons to do, but to me, it looks like a manager of a promoted team should focus on getting off to a good start.

It'll be interesting to see if this holds up.

Keep us apprised of what you do...this looks pretty interesting.

Bill James, the baseball sabermetrics guru, did a piece on the 84 Tigers -- the team that went, I think, 18-2 in their first 20 games and then went on to win World Series.

James told the anecdote about Earl Weaver, when asked by a reporter whether it's important for a team to get off to a good start, asked the question in response --

"What's a 'start'?"

It's a very very good question.

What James did in his study was look at the various probabilities based on the 1st 20 games of a season? The questions were framed thusly:

"What is the probabilty of a team that goes 15-5 in its first twenty games being a .650 team? A .600 team? A .550 team?"

What he found was that there was a threshold, a tipping point, at which it was clear that the '84 Tigers were just SOOOO much better than the rest of the league, and the likelihood of them playing less than .600 baseball was so remote as to be insignificant. If I recall correctly, it was when they went 17-1. At 16-1, there was STILL a reasonable chance that they would finish below .600.

Anyway, not to complicate your study, but it would be really interesting to see what the probabilites are for teams that win X number of games over the first X games in the season that they inevitably escape the relegation zone. This may entail looking at the results of EVERY team, not just the newly promoted ones.

[sljohn]

I know that in the EPL that each team plays each other home and home. Is the schedule such that after 19 games each team has played each other once? If so, that's one big difference between looking at an EPL start and a MLB start.

After 20 games in MLB (which is what, 15-20% of the season?), would a team have played each of the teams in their division yet?