Still miss changing ends at half time due to dreaded 'elf and safety, and still don't understand why every other ground I have visited this season (including Super league Warrington) have cash turnstiles. I don't know how many late walk-up fans we lose, when they see the queues at the ticket booths, especially if it's raining. Surely the club should make it as easy as possible for non-season ticket holders to get in by having at least 2 cash turnstiles? Customer is king!!

The discussion on the Bradford forum led me to check out individual referees. I wish I could find it now but I once read a study about home advantage in soccer where a number of top flight referees called a game on screens. Half had the sound turned off, half had the sound turned on. The results were overwhelmingly in favour of the home side with the sound on compared to off.

This is just from CH and L1 games over the last ten years so I guess a lot of them will be more familiar to you folks than they are to us. Still, many names at the top have disappeared and others still are notorious.

33 altogether. Trundle on down to number 24 before you see an even split and the poster child for even handedness, Joe "Last word in fairness" Cobb.

Poorly named columns. That is of course home wins and away wins. I count draws as "half wins", hence all the .5s you see.



Moral of the story: shout at the ref with confidence and gusto.

I thought this was a thread about Aussies Soaps the music haunts me,You know we belong together.

That was me last night. It has since morphed into the closing music for Prisoner Cell Block H.

He used to send me roses...

Moral of the story, teams tend to win more games at home than away and as a consequence most referees will officiate over more home wins than away. Chicken & egg.

Logic soundly applied Reffy

I too believe that there's no reason for it and that it just is, reffy.

Not quite. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but if you are correct that most teams tend to win more at home than away, and I'm inclined to think that you are, there are a number of factors that contribute to that, and referee influence may be one of them. Vbfg's data, however, doesn't quantify that influence or indeed prove its existence.

Lots of factors for sure, but given the paucity of data made available by the RFL (and that for fantasy league purposes, not informing the public) this is what we have.

On home wins v away61%
Championship since 200655%
SL this year55%
SL since 199656%

The big four in the US

NBA Basketballhttp://i.imgur.com/TOCWr1S.png" >

There is, even amongst the best referees we have, a tendency for the home side to win the penalty count.

But if we assume, and I agree that it's an assumption that this is the cause, that the home crowd has an effect on the referee's performance then it also makes sense to look at the degree to which that happens amongst different teams. Different grounds, different ways sound echoes around the place, the sophisticated and cultured nature of some team's fans (Bradford, for example) compared to the uncouth, slavering at the mouth vernacular swearitude of others (Leeds, say).

This one is how much teams benefit from the referee by being at homehttp://i.imgur.com/J3H3xnx.png" >

And straight away we see that those teams with the smaller crowds, who may even be often outnumbered while at home, benefit the least from the referee. RFL bias against smaller teams? We've thought that at one time or other but I don't believe it. Interesting teams at the top though, right? I certainly wouldn't have predicted those.

What if we flip that on its head and see which teams are at the biggest disadvantage on the penalty count away from homehttp://i.imgur.com/SZuWAvw.png" >

Again, Crusaders and Salford. Do we say that these are the two dirtiest teams in Super League since 2007? Because I absolutely do not believe that. And there's Catalans. Quite the advantage at home and nailed to a tree as an example to others away from home. That's what you get when most of your away support are hipsters from Leeds who pretend to be French at weekends.

I think a good number of SL fans would predict that Wigan would be the side who should be penalised the most. Whether by false impression or not it's hard to say, but I think they are probably the most complained about in terms of 'gamesmanship' and the extent to which they walk the line in the tackle. Solidly mid table both away and at home though.

Large home crowds, large travelling support. Same for Leeds (albeit less commonly thought of as an edgy team). Does it explain the difference?

That's up to you. I think so though.

(Apologies for the long post. And apologies for the odd colours too - I don't actually know what I'm doing).

FWIW, I do not *at all* think that the referee is the sole cause of home advantage. There are so many intangibles involved here it's not possible to measure everything that's going on. I couldn't put a value on the extent to which teams aren't used to the bottom corner at Mount Pleasant on a rainy Sunday afternoon in February. The normal human psychology of referees, which is all I believe this data to represent, is for sure a big factor though.

You seem to be pitching a PhD proposal . A lot of interesting data, that does seem to indicate that referees may have differing relationships with the home and away sides. Probably still not causation in terms of the outcome of matches, though? (I am no statistician). I wonder what changes when matches are played at neutral venues?

Well we now only have one Home match between now and the 12th of June, as well as 5 away games + Summer Bash.

If we can push through that period with strong results then we have a decent run in with 5 of our last 7 games at home.

Is the LSV pitch being relayed again as we have so many away fixtures bunched together?

Wouldn't mind the throw-away turf, if it is!! My lawns are rubbish - and I would love to watch the LSV grass grow, all day long!

It gets six weeks off every season for scarifying and re-seeding. The price we have to pay for having the best pitch in the league.