Points Draw prospects ...

By Follow the Swans6/1/2017 09:40Fri Jan 6 09:40:01 2017

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Christmas and the New Year is often said to mark the halfway point in the race for league honours. However, for us at Staines Town, we are in the unusual position of having played more games than any other club in the Ryman League Premier Division. At the time of writing (5th January 2017 – Christmas’s “twelfth night”), we have played 29 of our 46 league games: no-one else has played more than 28, a figure shared by Dulwich, Lowestoft, Grays (whom we beat on Monday), and our next opponents Kingstonian.
At the start of the season, many of our supporters entered the Final Points Draw competition, paying their entry fee and then being randomly allocated a number between one and 138, representing the possible points tallies that we could attain come the end of our last fixture at Hendon on 22nd April. The winner will receive a fantastic cash prize of £500, with the two runners-up (one point either side) will get £250 each. The 16 entrants who ended up with numbers 1 – 16 (points tallies that, thankfully, we have long since surpassed) and those with numbers 122 – 138 (already well out of reach) will be entered into a further draw at the end of the season for a bottle of ‘bubbly’.
So now that we are almost two-thirds of the way through our fixtures (63%, to be more accurate), who is still in the running?
Well, our playing record currently reads
• Played 29
• Won 11
• Drawn 5
• Lost 13
• Points 38
Which means that everyone who drew numbers 36 and below is out of the running. I nearly wrote ‘sadly out of the running’, but I am sure we are all glad that we are not languishing on too lowly a points tally!
It also means that we have so far dropped 49 points, and so the most we can obtain, by winning every one of our remaining 17 fixtures, is 89 – so I’m sorry to say to everyone with numbers 91 and above that there’ll be no cash prize for you this year.
But that still leaves 53 potentially prize-winning numbers, everyone from Steve McCarthy (37), who’ll get a runner-up prize if – heaven forbid – we lose every game from now on, up to Hilary Denning, who will similarly pocket £250 if we extend our winning run – currently standing at two games – all the way up to 19!
More realistically, though, we will probably be looking somewhere in the middle for those winners. Can we narrow it down a little more, then?
Well, our present rate of picking up points is 38 from 29 games, or 1.31 points per game. If we continue that until the end of the season, the mathematics suggests that we should end up with 60 points after playing all 46 matches. And if we do, it’ll be Dean Brewer (60) who’ll be laughing all the way to the bank with a ‘monkey’ to his name, with Sally Payne (59) and Pete Wilson (61) not in the next queue to pay in their £250 each.
The Football Web Pages website uses a rather clever algorithm for predicting a final league table. Rather than simply take ‘points per game’ as above, they recognise that some games are more winnable than others, and so they factor that into their calculations, both in terms of the teams you’ve already met, and those you still have to play – with an adjustment for home and away games, too. By their calculations at the present time, Staines Town are on course for a rather more healthy 70 points – and an 8th place finish, just where we are now. If that prediction comes true, then it’ll be Kerry Wainwright (70) who’ll be sitting pretty, with Dom Weir (69) and Tony Turner (71) sitting – well, slightly less pretty but still very happy I’m sure with their 250 quid apiece.
Out of those 53 possible, there are probably still a couple of dozen people with a realistic chance of taking home a cash prize, and a handful of others who might yet cash in if we put together a fantastic run in the latter part of the season – or if we implode.
Here is a summary of all the possibilities. Players with more than one entry are shown in the most favourable bracket, and those in the consolation draw are marked *:
FANCY THEIR CHANCES (average of between 1 & 2 points per game earned between now and the end of the season):
Dan Norris (54 & 58)
Dean Yates (55)
Paul Clark (56)
Mark Court (57; also 124)*
Sally Payne (59; also 32)
Dean Brewer (60; also 113)
Pete Wilson (61; also 99)
Bev Anglis (62)
Christopher Barclay (63)
Roger Marsden (64; also 6)*
Alan Pugh (65)
Rob Gunning (66)
David Brown (67; also 121)
George Payne (68)
Dom Weir (69)
Kerry Wainwright (70)
Tony Turner (71)
Keith Tunnicliffe (72; also 21)
Glen Gulyás (73)
LONG SHOTS (less than 1 or more than 2 points per remaining game):
Steve McCarthy (37 & 88)
Dave McDonald (38; also 27)
Michael Burgess (39; also 18)
John Symons (40)
Dave Wilson (41)
Nichola Lewis (42)
Andrew Ashley (43)
Rhianna Shipman (44)
Kim Sherwood (45)
Christine Harberd (46)
Dave Wright (47)
Andy Jones (48)
Clive Stevens (49; also 118)
Martyn Espley (50; also 116)
Ashley Blair (51)
Ron Windsor (52; also 2)*
Jessica Espley (53)
Jim Smith (74; also 105)
Toby Payne (75)
Norman McNichol (76; also 123)*
Dave Norris (77; also 28)
Kirsty Hatton (78)
Bob Sherwood (79)
Lynden Overy (80)
Denise Williams (81)
Barbara Moss (82; also 97)
Dave Tott (83)
Lloyd Turberville (84)
Daniel Lunn (85)
Lee Perkins (86)
Harry Robson (87)
Helen Espley (89)
Hilary Denning (90)
BETTER LUCK NEXT SEASON (those marked * still have a shot at the consolation prize bubbly):
Staines Town Juniors (1 & 22)*
Stuart Hatton (3)*
Amanda Boon (4)*
Patrick Nixon (5)*
Peter McVeigh (7 & 110)*
John O'Mally (8)*
Pete Moss (9)*
Graham Gould (10)*
Vanessa Cox (11)*
Chris Shipman (12)*
Pat Stacey (13)*
Michelle Yates (14)*
Harry Payne (15)*
Joe Blair (16)*
Lauren Boon (17)
Aaron Norris (19)
Robbie Atkins (20)
Dave Ward (23)
Simon Gough (24 & 127)*
Cindy Blair (25)
Mark Martin (26)
Darren Cox (29)
Dave Quinn (30)
Mike Holland (31)
Gary Carter (33)
Alex Gunning (34)
James Winslade (35)
Michael Wright (36)
Chris Wainwright (91)
Brian Wright (92)
Mark Warren (93 & 106)
Roger Thompson (94)
Thomas & Billy Kerslake (95)
Liam Gunning (96)
Max Angliss (98)
Ken Williams (100)
Matthew Boon (101)
Bill Baker (102)
Rachel Boon (103)
Dave Espley (104)
Angie Payne (107)
Arthur Kerslake (108)
Gordon Harberd (109)
Hayden Wakefield (111)
Charlie Lewis (112)
Trevor Lunn (114)
Pat Nixon (115)
Millie Cox (117)
Bruce Miles (119)
Natalie Thompson (120)
Felicity Espley (122)
Jessie Richards (125)*
Oliver Blair (126)*
Sally Warren (128)*
Andy Talbot (129)*
Gary Frost (130)*
Cheryl Wright (131)*
Alan Wright (132)*
Steve Parsons (133)*
John Blair (134)*
Emma Hodgkins (135)*
Trevor Lunn (136)*
Laurence Wakefield (137)*
Adam Gordon (138)*

[Sec: SP]