Finding myself having to do some Excel work today, and looking for some more interesting stats to distract me, I pasted in the Championship tables since the new tiering began 16 seasons ago (1992), so I could have some fun with unusual ratios and the SORT function in general.

We have, of course, been in the Championship for 11 of those 16 seasons.

Anyway, here’s some stuff concerning the 2007/2008 season.

Home Wins: Our 15 home wins this season has been bettered on 25 occasions, including three times by ourselves (we won 17 home games three years ago). But…

Home Defeats: Our single home defeat is only the 11th time that feat has been achieved (nobody’s ever gone undefeated at home). But we’re the first club to manage just one defeat at home and still finish outside the top four (half of the other ten ended up champions).

Home Points: 52 home points is good (joint 21st best ever) but lagging the 54 we managed three years ago and well behind the 60 achieved by Sunderland in 1998/9, Man City in 2001/2 and Reading in 2005/6.

Home Goals: Our 44 goals scored at home was good, but nothing special (joint 40th best ever, and a total we’ve beaten ourselves on five occasions, including 2002/3, 2003/4 and 2004/5 – ah, remember the BFJ years?). However, our 14 goals conceded at home was the joint 11th best by anyone ever, beating our previous best, the 1999/2000 promotion season, by 1. Our home goal difference of +30 was also comfortably our best ever, although a way off the +44 achieved by Man City in the season mentioned earlier.

Away Wins: Curiously, a team has had as few away wins as our 3 before and finished even higher (Sheff Utd, 6th in 1997/8). Three away wins is, unsurprisingly though, our lowest total ever. It’s worth noting that our second lowest total, 5, was last season, suggesting that an inability to perform on the road might be a bit of a Magilton thing.

Away Defeats: Similarly, it’s worth recording that we’ve only once before had 12 defeats away …and that was last season.

Away Goals: Our 21 goals scored was comfortably our worst ever – we managed 24 and 25 in the past two seasons, even though we finished in the bottom half of the table then. Our 42 goals conceded was also comfortably our worst ever: we only let in 30 last season and 34 the season before. Not surprisngly then, the away goal difference of -21 is also a stinker: only twice before has a top-half team managed such a bad figure (Notts Co in 1993/4 and Stockport in 1997/8).

Now we get onto the even more obscure stuff!

Our home points to away points ratio of 3.059 has only been bettered on five occasions, and always by teams finishing down the bottom. The difference in our home points and away points of 35 has only been equalled once before, by Reading in 1996/7 – they finished 18th.

Our home goals scored to away goals scored ratio (2.095) was our highest ever; our away goals conceded to home goals conceded ratio (3.0) was the second highest by anyone, ever: only Portsmouth in 1992/3 (4.1) can top that, which they did by conceding just 9 at home.

The ratio of goals scored to goals conceded used to be called the “goal average” in the good old days. Our home goal average this season was 3.143, comfortably our best ever, and only beaten on twelve occasions (that Protsmouth season again). No prizes for predicting that our away goal average (0.50) was our worst ever: although plenty of teams have done worse, only three have ever done so and still finished in the top half (Tranmere, extraordinarily, finished 5th in 1994/5 despite scoring just 16 away while conceding 35.

Anyway, if anyone else wants to use the spreadsheet to reveal some other trends, I’d be interested to see them. You can download it here.

Now, let’s see how Jim Magilton is doing.

If we were going to compare our three most recent managers, it’s probably fair to select this season (Jim’s second) and compare it to Burley’s 1995/6 and Royle’s 2003/4 campaigns, which were both their first full seasons, having each had half a season’s warm-up.

So how do they compare? Here are the headline figures:

• Burley 1995/6 – 7th (69 points)
• Royle 2003/4 – 5th (73 points)
• Magilton 2007/8 – 8th (69 points)

Chalk one up to BFJ then. It’s the home-versus-away stats which really distinguish them though. All three teams scored a similar number of goals at home (Burley 45, Royle 49, Magilton 44) but the goals conceded at home this season has been the real anomaly (Burley 30, Royle 36, Magilton 14). Away, this season is the odd one out more terms of goals scored (Burley 34, Royle 35, Magilton 21) than conceded (Burley 39, Royle 36, Magilton 42).

So whilst all three sides are comparable in terms of overall performance, Jim’s comparison season is distinguished by an extraordinary home defence and an appalling away strike-rate.

Looking at the overall records of their seasons in charge, Royle’s first three seasons are 1, 2 and 3 in the goals scored table, which is what we probably remember the era for most, but Burley’s average of 73 goals a season isn’t far behind Royle’s 76, and well ahead of Magilton’s 65. Burley also had the best defence by far (averaging 47 goals conceded) compared to Magilton’s 58 and Royle’s 65. The reason Royle’s teams didn’t sweep all before them was probably that the defence was nearly as inept as the attack was lethal, but Magilton’s defensive record is, sadly, closer to Royle’s than Burley’s. The average goal differences read Burley +27, Royle +11, Magilton +7.

When it comes to points, Burley had the most successful era by far, averaging 80 points per season over his 5 seasons. Royle averaged 71, a figure pulled down by a poor final season, but Magilton has managed to average just 66.