Fixtures program for League

[Mick Norris]

The MCF has decided to investigate buying a software program to assist with doing the fixtures for the Manchester League (we have 5 divisions and 4 Trophy competitions at present - 16 clubs with some having 6 teams spread across the divisions)

We would need this for August 2015

Any sensible ideas or recommendations are welcome

[Roger de Coverly]

Any sensible ideas or recommendations are welcome

The "do it yourself" approach would involve mechanising the Berger tables
http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html? ... w=category

I suspect that works best if you work on the basis of getting everyone together at a fixtures meeting with an outline of dates and then a haggle. If the person doing the fixture list is expected to set all the dates and deal with all the individual club quirks and requests, it's a lot more work.

[MartinCarpenter]

Goodness knows. Those basic tables would be easy to do of course, but then you've got various clubs with different dates/venues and quite a few with multiple teams.

Chorlton in particular must be a serious headache for the fixture sec! About 7 teams but no more than 2 or so at home at once, some of the teams not on the same day etc etc. I'd be a little surprised if you found anything off the shelf that can sensibly cater for those and programming anything with them would need rework every time they changed....
(Especially as you'd probably find there isn't a single fixture list meeting every restriction at the same time so have to haggle )

[Mick Norris]

Thanks

Our Fixtures Meeting only sets out the Divisions, and does the draw for the first (and preliminary) round of the Trophy competitions - we don't invite clubs to the meeting

The Fixtures Secretary then goes away and prepares the Fixtures, based on information submitted in advance by the clubs - we don't have a meeting with clubs where they can haggle

This is how it is supposed to be done:

MEMORANDUM FOR MCF FIXTURES ARRANGEMENTS


So far as possible fixtures for both league and trophy games shall be arranged to fulfil the following conditions:

1. No team shall have more than one match in the same week.

2. No club shall have consecutive teams playing matches in the same week, except for cup matches played after Christmas when no club shall have consecutive teams playing cup matches on the same night.

3. Consideration will be given to special difficulties or requests notified by clubs at the time entries are made.

4. No matches shall be scheduled between 22nd December and 3rd January inclusive or on any public holiday. Clubs may advise other dates when they do not wish to be scheduled any fixtures.

5. All fixtures shall be played before 31st May unless Council sanctions a later date.

6. Fixtures between the same two teams should alternate home and away from season to season.

7. During a season, a team should have an equal number of home and away fixtures. These should be reasonably spread over the season. Teams should have between two and four league matches scheduled before Christmas. Runs of more than three consecutive home or away fixtures are undesirable.

8. If an away team defaults a match, it shall be drawn away again if the same fixture occurs in the following season.

9. If a club has two or more teams in the same division, the fixtures between these teams must be completed by 31st Jan.

10. In trophy competitions, the fixtures secretary shall decide the pattern of home and away fixtures, but should try to exercise fairness by bearing in mind i) previous rounds ii) alternating the venue from the league match between the same two teams.

N.B. Clubs are asked to bear in mind that the job of the fixtures secretary is not easy. With so many divisions and the various trophy competitions it will rarely, if ever, be possible to fulfil all the above conditions, and the fixtures secretary often has to make difficult decisions. Please be tolerant and try to make the fixtures work as published. As a last resort, a club may ask to rearrange a fixture as per the League and Match Rules but please keep rearrangements to a minimum, since the knock-on effects can be disruptive.

Courtesy

Clubs are asked to do their best to fulfil all their fixtures. Not being able to field one's best team is not a valid reason for postponing or defaulting a match. When a team is unable to fulfil a fixture, or is unable to field a full team, it is courteous to inform and apologise to the opposing club with as much notice as possible.

[Roger de Coverly]

The Fixtures Secretary then goes away and prepares the Fixtures, based on information submitted in advance by the clubs - we don't have a meeting with clubs where they can haggle

Berger tables can deal with at least some of those constraints since they are round by round colour alternations. You set a two, three or four week period for each round and arbitrarily assign dates. You cook the problem of teams in the same division by giving them pairing numbers to ensure they meet in the first round or at least an early round.

It's where you get cross division constraints that makes life more difficult. Fixture lists for other local leagues can also be a problem, unless you set yours first and expect them to work around you.

[MartinCarpenter]

Lots of cross division constraints Even cross league constraints with the Stockport league for Chorlton/Marple....

Automated checking of the conditions, and flagging what has failed where/when, should be possible to program. Problem is, if they're 'always' broken you'd have to program in what the program should give up on first.

Might be best getting people to check it all? One easy thing that might well help would be something basic like the online calendars. Google etc. That'd make it a lot easier for the clubs people to comment on it.

[Roger de Coverly]

Lots of cross division constraints

Does Constraint 2 mean what it appears to say

No club shall have consecutive teams playing matches in the same week,

implying that you cannot have, say, both the first and second teams playing in the same week?

Provided you have reliable non-overlapping squads, that never bothers me, it's having them play on the same night, a necessity with two teams in the same division that becomes the worry. It's the lowest teams of the club where you have the most problems with not having enough players when regulars aren't available.

[Mick Norris]

Lots of cross division constraints

Does Constraint 2 mean what it appears to say

No club shall have consecutive teams playing matches in the same week,

implying that you cannot have, say, both the first and second teams playing in the same week?

Yes e.g. Harry Lamb plays for Bolton 2 as well as Bolton 1

[Roger de Coverly]

Yes e.g. Harry Lamb plays for Bolton 2 as well as Bolton 1

I'm more used to a system where, whilst allowed, a second team player only plays for the first team as a reserve and therefore no special treatment beyond avoiding matches on the same night should be conceded.

[Mick Norris]

Fixture lists for other local leagues can also be a problem, unless you set yours first and expect them to work around you.

We release our fixtures before the Stockport league fixture meeting for this reason - the other local leagues work around our fixtures too (apart from Heywood and the Central Lancs which always seem to come before ours)

[Malcolm Peacock]

I have built a fixture generator into my web based league management system (which you are welcome to try at your own risk)
http://sc.popmalc.org.uk/

This means I don't need to type the dates in manually once the fixtures are generated. It allows you to specify constraints such as certain teams not playing on the same night (e.g. adjacent teams in the same club - although you have to tell it which teams those are), limit on number of matches at a venue, dates when there are no fixtures ( e.g. valentines day ), dates when a team doesn't have fixtures (eg. when the captain plays bridge or is on holiday). You can also say that you want at least a week between fixtures or specify a minimum number of days till next fixture. It uses berger tables to generate the fixtures, and then takes each fixture in turn (alternating one from each division), and each date in turn until it finds a date which doesn't violate the constaints. You have to play with input parameters and repeatedly generate fixtures untill you get them spread out enough, but also finish before the time you want the season to end.

And then someone asks me why their team has no fixtures in January and I have no idea really.

There is probably a better way of doing this, such as assigning a score to each set of fixtures generated, and then chosing the optimum set of fixtures which satisfies all constaints, keeps home/away sequence, maximises spacing between fixtures whilst fitting them in the desired time frame.

[Roger de Coverly]

You have to play with input parameters and repeatedly generate fixtures untill you get them spread out enough, but also finish before the time you want the season to end.

It might depend on the starting point for the fixture list, but I suspect using the natural round by round structure of the Berger tables may help. So set a period of weeks during which the fixture is expected to be played and flex it from there. That might avoid convergence to a fixture set where a team has no January matches.

In some circumstances a club wants its adjacent teams playing on the same night, a local school prefers this as it enables one person from the school to supervise two matches in one evening rather than on separate evenings. Still these things are easier to do when you run the trading pit method of setting fixtures.

There are tricks you pick up with Berger tables. If you have an odd number of teams, always assign "bye" to the highest number. If you have A and B teams who are expected to play one another early in the season, assign pairing numbers so they meet in the first round. That also has the desirable effect that other teams mostly get one home and one away against that club.