Some obscure stats from this season

Normally I would put this on the VSC site (and I will do when it reappears) but just for Hoola I thought I would put them up here

By the way I was trying to imagine how Brentford fans must be feeling, and the nearest I could get was the Arsenal league cup tie. So yesterday has more than erased all the pain of that day

So here are some obscure facts from this season

2012-13 Dutch Uncle Season comments

Football League records
• First club to win 7 Championships at Level 3 and 4
• First ex Conference club to become champions at Level 3
• Top ex Conference club for 5th consecutive season
• First ex Conference team to win promotion to Level 2 on two occasions - still only the second team after Colchester to achieve three promotions from Conference to Level 2

Club league achievements
• Highest League Championship Rovers have ever won beating the three won at Regionalised Level 3 and the three won at Level 4

• To put into context, if one makes a fair comparison giving 3 points for a win in all our 86 league and Conference seasons in the club’s history, it is the 4th best points tally ever.

• A new club record of 12 away league matches unbeaten was set. The two previous occasions were as a part of the club record 20 league game unbeaten run in 1968-69, and the first 11 away games of the incredible 1946-47 season when we won 18 of our 21 away matches in the league. Actually we were unbeaten in our last 6 away matches of the last full season before the war – 1938-39 – so there is a case for saying we were unbeaten away in 17 games, although on the other hand 2 away games were lost in the aborted 1939-40 season - these results being annulled.

• Second best away record in the club's history behinds the Football League all-comers record we set in 1946-7 when we won 18, drew 1 and lost only 2 of our 21 away matches.
o Interestingly the two away losses that season were at second placed Rotherham and at bottom placed club Halifax - so maybe our loss at Bury was not as surprising as might be thought at first.
o Second most away wins in a season after 1946-7, beating the previous second best of 11 in 2002-3 in the Conference.

• It is only the 5th time in those 86 seasons that we have had a better record away from home than at home, and of those 5 seasons, this season has by some way the largest difference. Two of the other 4 seasons with a better away records were also championship winning seasons (1946-7 and 1949-50). On two occasions we have had equal home and away records (counting with the old 2 points per win) the most recent being the season we won the Conference playoffs.

• First time in history achieved staying up at a level higher than lowest possible in the Football League pyramid (i.e above Division 2/Level 4 this season) for a guaranteed 10 successive seasons - the previous best was the 9 seasons from 1950-51 to 1958-9 in old Divisions 2 and 3.

Goalscoring achievements
• First time since 2003-4, and only second since 1989-90 that we had two or more players scoring more than 10 league goals in a season

• Chris Brown joins 3 elite lists players who have scored for Rovers in:
o 3 different league levels - the 8th player joining Jimmy Fletcher, Alick Jeffrey, Greg Blundell, Paul Green, Mark Albrighton, Steve Foster and Ron Walker
o 3 different cup competitions in the same season (and thus with the League in four competitions) - the 5th player joining Graeme Jones, Colin Cramb, Mark McCammon and Brian Stock. James Hayter also scored in the League, 2 cups and the playoffs in 2007-8.
o 6 or more competitions - the (Football League Tiers 2,3 and 4, FA Cup, League Cup and now Associate Members' Cup). The other two are Brian Stock (Football League Tiers 2 and 3, FA Cup, FL Cup, AMC and Football League Playoffs) and the overall leader Paul Green with 7 competitions (Football League Tiers 3 and 4, Football Conference, FL Cup, AMC, Conference Playoffs and Football Association Trophy).

• When Billy Paynter scored two goals at Crewe this was the first personal double for Rovers in 59 league games, the previous double being Mamadou Bagayoko at Leeds last season. This is the second longest such sequence in the club's history, the longest being the 66 matches between Steve Richards' double at Halifax in 1992-3 until O'Neil Donaldson's double against Colchester in 1994-5.

Attendances
• The 23 Home league matches attracted a total of 166496 spectators at an average of 7239. The highest was 12785 against Sheffield United and the lowest was 5411 against Crewe. This is a little lower than the average of 7978 during our last promotion season in 2007-8.

• This means since we returned to the league in 2003 we have had 10 successive seasons of attendance averages over 6000. The last time this was the case was back in the 1950's.

• The 23 Away league matches attracted a total of 151536 spectators at an average of 6589. The highest was 17925 against Sheffield United and the lowest was 3229 at Carlisle.

Internationals
• Iain Hume & Dean Furman Rovers first internationals for Canada & South Africa (i.e. earning a cap whilst at Rovers)

Miscellaneous
• When Michael Woods entered the pitch as a late substitute in the FA Cup tie against Bradford Park Avenue he joined his two non-related namesakes Gary and Martin, thus providing Rovers with three players of the same surname on the pitch at the same time for the first time since Geoff, Jimmy and Ron Walker played in a Division 2 League match at the County Ground in Nottingham on 26 March 1955, the last of 6 occurrences. The only other occasions were in the 1920's when brothers Tom and Harold Keetley played twice with brother Joe and 15 times with brother Frank.

• The first time in our history that we have finished a league season higher than Portsmouth. The only other teams we have never finished higher than at the end of a season are Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn, Liverpool, Middlesboro, Manchester City, Newcastle, Stoke, Sunderland and WBA. Chelsea and Tottenham were not league clubs in 1901-2 when we played our first league season, but since they came into the league we have never finished higher than them.

• James Coppinger ended the season with 319 league appearances putting him in 7th position on the Rovers all-time list behind leader Fred Emery with 417, and 363 in all competitions putting him 6th place behind leader Colin Douglas with 468.

Not a lot to do over here in Holland......................

Dutch Uncle wrote:Normally I would put this on the VSC site (and I will do when it reappears) but just for Hoola I thought I would put them up here

I'm new on here so I'm not sure if that's a tongue in cheek comment or not but I'll bet there's plenty of folk (and I'm one) who don't post much but just read the posts, and I really enjoy yours, I love a good Rovers stat and you've got loads.

Hi Mr B

Not exactly tongue-in-cheek - more apologetic to Hools from my side. Hools asked me to put some stat based posts on here, but basically I have usually been so locked into VSC that I often forgot to come on here.

Many thanks for the kind comments btw

One thing certain, it took longer to compile that than some marriages last. Good stuff. Well done DU.

Irish Contingent wrote:One thing certain, it took longer to compile that than some marriages last. Good stuff. Well done DU.

Certainly not in my case Irish - but then I have a truly wonderful Irish wife

By the way, much of the above has already appeared in various issues of the Popular Stand Fanzine which is fantastic value for 1 pound, either hardcopy on matchday or online from Viva Rovers

Brilliant DU how on earth do you manage to collate this stuff

btw welcome Mr B

Dagenham Rover wrote:Brilliant DU how on earth do you manage to collate this stuff

5 minutes a day for the last 5 decades - clearly getting to pay-off time these days.

Simples

Dutch Uncle wrote:

5 minutes a day for the last 5 decades - clearly getting to pay-off time these days.

Simples

Understatement of the year

Dagenham Rover wrote:

Understatement of the year

Well I suppose the tools learned in my day job of being an Operational Analyst for 30+ years until I retired a couple of year ago may have helped a little.......

Dutch Uncle wrote:Hi Mr B

Not exactly tongue-in-cheek - more apologetic to Hools from my side. Hools asked me to put some stat based posts on here, but basically I have usually been so locked into VSC that I often forgot to come on here.

Many thanks for the kind comments btw

Brilliant post DU you are to be congratulated on your work. Thanks for posting these stats on here for everyone to see and it just shows that 2012/13 was a great season for us.
Now you have remembered where we are , we hope to see more from you when you can spare the time.
In the meantime for anyone who may have missed it.........................

WE ARE THE NEW CHAMPIONS OF DIVISION 1, WELL DONE TO THE TEAM , CLUB, MANAGEMENT AND SUPPORTERS OF THIS GREAT CLUB