The purple 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 Blue line is the cumulative version of the purple line ie our all time record to that point
The 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 our all time 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.
How far are we from our all time high ?
Very close.
We closed 2007 at 38.23%, and if we were to win our next 8 games (or have 8 more wins than losses in 2008) then we will pass that 1976 high water mark.
When will we hit the 40% barrier ?
To achieve that we would need to win about 63 more games (or accrue 63 more wins than losses) so that would require quite a few years of consistent success.
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 44.4% since he took over in 61
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 47.7% (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 47.4% (covering 68 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
Then our Match rate in the 63 years not covered by these periods is a very respectable 49.6%
Could we reach 50% in our lifetime ?
Not unless you are into cryogenics.
If you define a goodish average season as say 14 wins and 10 losses.
Then it would require 109 consecutive goodish average seasons before we reached 50%, so bookmark 2116.
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 purple 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.
Questions
Can we surpass our all time peak next season ?
When can we reach the 40% threshold ?
Will Lyon be a Mountain, a Hill or a Valley ?
