Football Forecasts award photo

From http://bvetsfootballgroup.blogspot.com/

A little belatedly - and with thanks to Mr. Sharp - here's the published photo from last week's Deeside Piper:

Time flies and a new season is just about upon us once more, so it'll soon be time to make your forecasts for the 2012-13 season. There are no Euro or World Cup Finals next summer, so it's back to the usual format again. Traditionally, there have been 20 results to forecast each year and I think that's a good number and would propose we keep the same total again next season.

This would probably mean the 20 forecasts would comprise:

1. Scotland (7) - SPL winners & relegated, plus Divs 1, 2 & 3 winners and the 2 major Cups.
2. England (9) - winners of each of the 4 main leagues, plus the 3 relegated teams from the Premiership and the 2 main Cup winners.
3. Europe (4) - Champions & Europa League winners and runners-up.

That's the way it's usually been, but, if anyone has any suggestions for tweaking this a bit (whilst still keeping the total at 20), then please let me know as soon as possible.

We've been running the Football Forecasts competition for 4 years, so I decided to do a bit of summarising to see who the best forecasters were. The first year we did it, we only had a maximum of 8 results to predict, but since then it's been 20 each year, so the total for 4 years is 68.

Leading the pack is Andy Marshall with a total of 28 correct - a success rate of 41.2%. Close behind is Geordie Ziegler (despite a disastrous first year) and Dave Williamson with 26 each.

Of course, not everyone has taken part every year - for instance, Ewen Hay has only participated the last 2 years, but already has 16 correct - a success rate of 40%.

Here's the full list:

	No. of Forecasts	68	20	20	20	8
Order		4 year totals	2011-12	2010-11	2009-10	2008-9	Years entered	% success
1	Marshall, Andy	28	7	10	8	3	4	41.2%
2=	Williamson, Dave	26	8	10	6	2	4	38.2%
2=	Ziegler, Geordie	26	5	11	10		4	38.2%
4=	McRae, Ian	25	6	8	9	2	4	36.8%
4=	Paterson, Steve	25	6	9	9	1	4	36.8%
6=	Trimble, Tim	24	8	7	6	3	4	35.3%
6=	Black, Ken	24	7	8	7	2	4	35.3%
6=	Stewart, Ian	24	7	7	8	2	4	35.3%
6=	Kilgour, Colin	24	5	10	7	2	4	35.3%
10	Dunnachie, Rob	23	8	6	5	4	4	33.8%
11	Robertson, Andy	22	5	7	6	4	4	32.4%
12	Grant, Gary	21	5	8	6	2	4	30.9%
13=	Dickinson, Chris	20	5	7	8		3	33.3%
13=	Meany, Nigel	20	6	6	6	2	4	29.4%
15	Lodge, Malcolm	18		8	8	2	3	37.5%
16	McWhinnie, John	17	2	6	8	1	4	25.0%
17	Hay, Ewen	16	9	7			2	40.0%
18=	Sharp, Ian	15	7	3	4	1	4	22.1%
18=	Tyrie, Jeb	15		7	8		4	22.1%
20	Hay, Ryan	9	4		5		2	22.5%
21	Macindoe, Stewart	8			5	3	2	28.6%
22	Elgie, Colin	2	2				1	10.0%
23	Fitzpatrick, Brian	1				1	1	12.5%
		433	112	145	139	37	78	636.8%
	No.	23	20	19	20	19	23	33.8%
	Average	18.8	5.6	7.6	7.0	1.9	3.4	27.7%