Entertainment For Lively Minds
Fixture List
Posted by Simon Hoyle on 17 June 2009 - 10:12am.
For those members of the Word Massive interested in football (and I believe there are a few !), this is on the BBC site at the moment - how they actually put the fixture list together.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2009/06/secrets_of_the_fixture_c...
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I think they need a new computer
I was slightly surprised that distance betweeen clubs was not part of the program and having read one persons reply to explain the statistics involved in doing that, I'm still none the wiser...
Mind you, supporting a northern team like Hartlepool and finding out that your 'local' rivals for the season are Carlisle (180 mile round trip) & Leeds (146 mile round trip), it's a long season ahead.
I see the BBC
have rights for Championship games as well as Sky, let's hope they don't mess up the fixtures with ridiculous timings.
It will be interesting to see the amount of those games that actually kick off at the time published after all the bloody TV schedules are sorted.
Ah, those were the days...Saturday afternoon 3pm kick offs.
I've never seen the problem with variable
kick off times. I know people don't like being at the sway of tv companies but other really early in the morning what's the problem? The only exception I can see is the last games of the season where the simultanious conclusion adds to the excitement.
I think it's the away fans...
... that suffer from this sort of thing (especially for Sunday games). Being told that you have to travel several hundred miles to see your team kick off on a Saturday afternoon at 3 is fine and do-able - but then when that gets changed to 5pm on a Sunday afternoon, meaning getting back home after the game (especially by public transport) becomes nigh on impossible.
I see your point
I'm a part time fan so I only go to "away" matches (in London) so getting homes not too bad!
Silly
Two of the more ridiculous decisions last season were to schedule Portsmouth away at Newcastle on a Monday evening (27 April, if you're interested) and then to have Middlesbrough travel down to Portsmouth on another Monday a couple of weeks later (18 May).
I know that those switches were at Sky/Setanta's request rather than being drawn up by the fixtures computer, but still...
Computer has no idea of distance
I don't think the compilers do either. Otherwise how do they explain putting Everton at Sunderland on Boxing Day a few years back.
Amazingly the new fixtures don't put Everton at Spurs in the first couple of weeks of the season as has tended to happen most years.
and by the wonder of hyperlinking
that led me to discover that Bertha was programmed by one Ted Turner. I guess he had to find something to do between Wishbone Ash gigs
http://www.thechestnut.com/bertha/bertha.htm
Home to Rochdale
Be still my beating heart. At least Vale don't have Torquay away on a tuesday night which used to be the norm.
In the good old days
In the good old days I believe they made sure that promoted teams had a plum home game to start them off. So for example Brum might be at home to ManU, Burnley at home to Chelsea etc. I recall Palace having a plum home start to Liverpool a few years back. Sadly we lost 1-6.
Such niceties are no longer in play and, for example, Brum start away at ManU.
NEW BROOM
With the demise of ITV involvement in The Championship the BBC will utilise more of the technology available this season. This means more on the red button and BBC website presentations.
For example, all Carling Cup tie highlights will be shown over the internet.
There will also be coverage of at least 10 'LIVE' games which means the current advertised starting times will dramatically change as soon as SKY and the BBC cherry pick the games for consumption.
No doubt the first of these is likely to be the season starter at the Hawthorns - West Bromwich Albion v Newcastle Utd..