fixture list question

[ALG01]

In September we play
WBA
Sheff wed
wigan

the last three games of the season are the same three in the same order

Is that usual to have the same order maintained.. i think the rest of the list is a bit more mixed up.

[toshes mate]

The fixture lists were once simply two sets of fixtures with the home and away determined by being in the first or second half of the season.  In those lists there were adjustments made for fixtures around bank holiday times and some midweek matches with home and away games occurring over the shorter period.  These days the fixtures are organised into several sets of games (I think I read somewhere it is five) that recur over the whole season.   That's the theory before Sky get their way with it.

[aaronmcguigan]

They do come in sets . Usually it's 4. But they're usually always mixed up within that 4 for the return fixture. For example our first 4 last season was Palace,Tottenham, Burnley and Brighton. We played the same 4 in January but Burnley, Tottenham, Brighton and Arsenal
.

However fixtures 5-7 were Man City, Everton , Watford which return fixtures happened in March/April in the exact same order.
It must be in groups then the order is decided through liaising with police, tv companies, taking local rivals etc into account before switching games within that group

[ALG01]

gentlemen thank you. I never knew any of that and I have no idea why I spotted it this time.

[Burt]

From Planet Football:

-----------------------------

How the Premier League and Football League fixtures are compiled

There are complaints about the football schedule every year – and it may surprise some fans to learn that the fixture list is not compiled completely at random.

Fxture list compiler Glenn Thompson, of Atos, an international IT services company, spoke to the Premier League's official website in 2016 to shed some light on how the season's schedule is pulled together.

Thompson and co are tasked with scheduling 2,036 matches across the Premier League and Football League over a nine-month period, meaning it is impossible to conduct a random draw.

Once the dates for international fixtures, European club competitions and FA cup competitions have been considered, it is then down to Atos to solve the puzzle of sequencing.

Sequencing rules
– In any block of five fixtures, a team should play three matches at home and two away, or vice versa.

– A team should never have more than two-consecutive home or away fixtures.

– A club will never start or finish the season with two-consecutive home or away fixtures. It would be unfair for a team to finish with two away fixtures, especially if they are in need of points.

– At Christmas, if a club is at home on Boxing Day, they will be away on New Year's Day or vice versa.

Club requests
There are also a number of other stipulations which the fixture list must adhere to.

For instance, the majority of teams have "partner clubs" which they cannot clash home fixtures with. Manchester United and Manchester City, and Liverpool and Everton are obvious examples, although in London it is "more complex and less obvious".

In March, Premier League clubs are asked three questions: "Are there any dates they wish not to be at home? That is answered in conjunction with the local police. They will also be asked which club they want to pair with and whether there are any teams they do not wish to play at home on Boxing Day."

If all of a club's requests cannot be met, they are asked which is the highest priority, though Thompson insists more than 85% of requests are satisfied every year.

Once the make-up of all the clubs in the Premier League has been decided, they are placed in a pairing grid to determine which dates they will be at home and when they will be away.

The fixture computer then randomises the results according to this grid before a two-day review period to check there are no problems. If one match has to be moved, that can result in as many as 40 other fixtures needing to be altered.

Are fans considered?

According to Thompson, the computer is programmed to reduce long-distance trips on Boxing Day and New Year's Day, while they also try to avoid clubs from similar areas traveling on the same trainlines on the same day.

They also meet with a representative of the Football Supporters' Federation to go through all the key dates in a season, such as the opening day and the Christmas fixtures.

[ALG01]

From Planet Football:

-----------------------------

How the Premier League and Football League fixtures are compiled

EDITED TO KEEP SHORT

They also meet with a representative of the Football Supporters' Federation to go through all the key dates in a season, such as the opening day and the Christmas fixtures.

Thank you for that. I always knew it was a tough job and thankless. The main thing I hadn't realised was the blocks of five. I suspect the london fixtures are always problematic because of considrations of who is traveling where and that was covered in the article.

[toshes mate]

Any mention of Atos would not be fair without mentioning that it is also responsible for our GP booking services, some services to the Department for Work & Pensions (which I will refrain from commenting on), and any other lucrative contracts it can get in the public sector.  The comment 'meaning it is impossible to conduct a random draw' is frankly a lie since any computer algorithm can be set up to avoid situations such as Everton and Liverpool being selected at home on the same fixture set and still be random. 

I did have an old DOS program which I wrote (c.1988) which does the job for any league of any size up to fifty teams with seeding (up to ten groups of clubs).  It takes about ten minutes to calculate a season and can then run on to play the season out with suitable loadings input for each club according to strength (e.g. best 100 worse 25 etc) which takes about two hours to run and produces an output for the whole season in chart like fashion - tables, results etc.  It is gathering dust up in my loft somewhere on a floppy disk; perhaps I should dust it down and bid for services to the PL and EPL (I am dirt cheap)... but I fear the suggestion made that the fixtures cannot be random is because there is more money in a system that is fraught with worrying greed and self interest and run by someone called Atos.