I have taken on board some feedback from last year and reformatted the graph slightly.
And updated the commentary.
The graph basically tries to encapsulate the history of the StKFC.
LYON Mountain, LYON Hill or LYON Valley ?
The red line shows the Match % each year.
The match % = (Wins + Draws/2) / Games in season
So if you win 10 and draw 1 in a 20 game season your Match % = 10.5/20 = 52.5%.
The Black line is the cumulative version of the red line ie our all time record to that point
The dotted Black line is a trend line (line of best fit using linear regression) to illustrate the long term trend.
It is somewhat misleading as it's steep upward gradient is more due to the influence of our dismal first 15 years
Conclusions
A bleak start to our VFL career saw us sitting on 0% until our 4th year
It took till 1905 before our cumulative Match % reached 10%.
By 1908 we reached 20% before dipping back to 18%
It took till 1929 to pass the 30% barrier
We hit a high of 38.46% in 1976 in the last year of Allan Jeans' reign.
After the "lost decade" of the 80s we dropped back to below 36% in 89.
Under Sheldon, Alves and Thomas we have steadily recovered ground.
Under Lyon we have hit our all time high.
So what is our all time high ?
In 2008 we passed the old mark of 38.46% and finished on 38.43%
2009 saw it rise to 39.00%.
We finished 2010 at 39.36% - our all time (year end) high.
When will we hit the 40% barrier ?
To achieve that we would need to win 24 more games (or accrue 24 more wins than losses).
So it will take 3 very good seasons with 16-8 results (net gain of 8).
To put that in perspective in 2010 we had a net gain of 10 (17W 2D 7L).
Selective viewings of history ?
Pre and post Jeans
If you define StK in terms of the influence of Allan Jeans then
- our record before Jeans commenced coaching in 61 was 32.3%
- and 46.3% since he took over in 61
His personal record was 58.1% with 196 wins and 1 draw in 338 matches
His influence can never be understated.
The "Modern" era
If you define the modern era as commencing with Kenny's manifesto in 1990, then
- our record since Sheldon took over is an impressive 51.3% (and that includes Watson/Blight)
The Four Decades of Shame
In many ways we are still recovering from our dismal dark days prior to 1910, the 40s, the 50s and the 80s
- excluding those 4 decades of shame our overall rate is 48.7% (covering 70 years)
- or conversely those 4 decades of shame produced a rate of only 23.0% (covering 43 years)
It is no surprise that we won 20 of our 26 wooden spoons in those periods
And of the other 6 spoons, the one in 1910 and the two in the late 70s would roll into the decades of shame if I was slightly more flexible in defining those dark periods.
(For completeness sake the other 3 spoons consisted of two in the 20's and the Watson spoon in 2000).
Or Three eras of Shame
In fact if I add 5 more years (1910-11, 1977-9) into our three eras of shame to become 1897-1911, 1940-1959, and 1977-1989
Those three dark eras cover 48 years and 23 wooden spoons, during which our win ratio was a dismal 22.7%
Then our Match rate in the 66 years not covered by these periods is a very respectable 50.9%
What is the "Pass mark" for a successful club?
50% is probably the "pass" mark as it is the point above which you have won more than you have lost.
Could we reach 50% in our lifetime ?
Not unless you are into cryogenics.
We need another 467 (net) wins to reach the 50% benchmark.
That would take almost 19 consecutive "perfect" seasons (25W 0L)
If you define a goodish season as say 14 wins and 10 losses.
Then it would require 117 consecutive goodish average seasons before we reached 50%, so bookmark 2127.
Basically it will take many many many more respectable decades to obliterate the impact of those three unsuccessful eras.
The stand-out feature of the graph is the impact of Allan Jeans
His reign from 1961 to 1976 is obvious from the red graph.
His impact is also obvious in the form of a distinct lump in the cumulative curve.
I have called this phenomena "The Allan Jeans Mountain".
The impact of other coaches can also be seen.
Sheldon, Alves and Thomas were also consistently above average.
And the impacts of coaches Watson and Gellie is obvious to see, I have named valleys after them !
From earlier eras George Sparrow and Ansell Clarke had spikes, whilst Allan Hird and Les Foote had dips.
Indeed prior to Allan Jeans we only had 4 coaches who coached for more than two consecutive years (Minogue, Clarke, Froude and Killigrew) and they each managed only 3 years.
ie before Jeans no-one coached us for more than 3 consecutive years.
So the StK coaching position was pretty much a revolving door prior to Jeans, making it hard to name spikes or dips after individual coaches.
Note that prior to McNamara in 1913 we did not have a coach, just a captain as per the custom of that era.
Lyon
Ross has had 4 years in the job.
His average so far in 98 games is an extremely impressive 66.84%
In that time he has lifted us 1.28% from 38.08% to 39.36%
Already we can see the cumulative curve starting to turn upwards.
Questions
Will Lyon take us to beyond the 40% threshold?
Will Lyon be a Mountain, a Hill or a Valley ?
Alan Kohler ffs LMFAO! - fond of a good graph our man alan
