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Originally Posted by countygump

Given that the NL is stronger now than it's ever been, you would expect that stat to even out over the coming years.

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So long as we have single match home advantage, I wouldn't expect that to happen.
If it was to do with a strengthening of the league balancing things out over time to make it more of a lottery, then we'd be seeing an even spread in tiers 2-4 where home advantage is reduced to being at home in the 2nd leg.

2nd tier winners
3rd: 13 4th: 8 5th: 9 6th: 5

3rd tier winners
3rd: 14 4th: 8 5th: 6 6th: 8

4th tier winners
4th: 14 5th: 5 6th: 8 7th: 8

Lower placed clubs undoubtedly have a chance of winning but there's a clear indication here that the play offs are not a lottery, be that because the highest placed team's superiority over the season is often carried over into the play offs and/or that home advantage in the 2nd leg increases their chances of going on to reach and win the final.

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

For it to be a lottery, you'd expect to see an even spread of winning teams across the positions.

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It is something of a lottery, but not an equal lottery. Look at it this way:

2nd & 3rd get three tickets
4th & 5th get two tickets
6th & 7th get one ticket

Anyone can win it, but the more tickets you have the more chance you have.

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

Luton had 3 play off failures also, the only champions to have lost that many, two were finals having finished 2nd, 3rd and 5th, they then missed out altogether before recovering in their 5th NL season to take the title.

Champions with number of play off failures

Stockport - 1
Sutton - 1
Barrow - 0
Orient - 0
Macc Town - 0
Lincoln - 0
Cheltenham - 0
Barnet - 0
Luton - 3
Mansfield - 1
Fleetwood - 1
Crawley - 0
Stevenage - 2
Burton - 1
Aldershot - 2
Dagenham - 1

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Has anyone had three play-off failures and not subsequently gone up? Because if not it is surely our year? ;)

Other thing with these is that they’re not that useful because the format only changed a year or two before we came down, so there’s an extra two teams in the play-offs each year. One of the reasons why no one tends to go up from sixth or seventh - they’ve only had the chance for five seasons or so.

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Originally Posted by jacobncfc

Has anyone had three play-off failures and not subsequently gone up? Because if not it is surely our year? ;)

Other thing with these is that they’re not that useful because the format only changed a year or two before we came down, so there’s an extra two teams in the play-offs each year. One of the reasons why no one tends to go up from sixth or seventh - they’ve only had the chance for five seasons or so.

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Stats are never useful if they do not back up the point you're trying to make, but you can certainly take those stats as a positive in that both Grimsby and Luton got out after three failures, which proves it is possible to recover from a multiple set back - immediately in Grimsby's case and after one season of missing out altogether in Luton's.

Edit: Wrexham have had 5 play off failures.

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

Stats are never useful if they do not back up the point you're trying to make, but you can certainly take those stats as a positive in that both Grimsby and Luton got out after three failures, which proves it is possible to recover from a multiple set back - immediately in Grimsby's case and after one season of missing out altogether in Luton's.

Edit: Wrexham have had 5 play off failures.

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I'll take it.

Thank you :)

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

Stats are never useful if they do not back up the point you're trying to make, but you can certainly take those stats as a positive in that both Grimsby and Luton got out after three failures, which proves it is possible to recover from a multiple set back - immediately in Grimsby's case and after one season of missing out altogether in Luton's.

Edit: Wrexham have had 5 play off failures.

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Haha of course, forgot about Wrexham, bless them.

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

If you ignore what those stats were posted in response to, the assertion that teams at this level regularly lose in the play offs before making it over the line, then yes, they won't mean very much.

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5 teams lose, 1 team wins.

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

For it to be a lottery, you'd expect to see an even spread of winning teams across the positions. Over say 100 years, that may yet turn out to be the case, but as of now, there's a very strong indication that the higher placed teams have the advantage.

5th tier final position and number of play off winners
2nd: 6 3rd: 8 4th: 5 5th: 0 6th: 0 7th: 0

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I don't disagree with that, the way the NL play-offs are structured the higher placed teams do have an advantage, so the higher you finish the better your chances. For all leagues though, after 46 games the teams finishing highest would appear to be the strongest and would therefore also be expected to have a better chance - but in any given season, in any given play-off game any team could win it!

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

Appreciate you pointing this out, that I'm not a miserable old git by default.

The double whammy of Notts losing to Grimsby in the way they did and Fword going up has sent me into a tailspin.

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Just for the record I was bitterly disappointed too, particularly about Notts, but not anywhere near to the point of giving up hope. I've felt far worse about our future prospects in the past.

I think we've seen a couple of new signings in the past couple of days alone that give plenty of cause for optimism, similar to the recruitment of Cal Roberts. We're signing young(ish) up-and-coming players who probably have their best years ahead of them and will be full of ambition, on wages we can presumably afford.

I can accept that any club's ownership, management model and philosophy (if they have one) will never be universally popular with all fans, and message boards like this will always be a forum for those who aren't convinced, but surely if you're going to criticise or even dismiss the current approach then the next step is to set out what you want to change, otherwise it's all a bit meaningless.

What's your vision of the right model or approach? What needs to change, and how? Playing style? Recruitment? Type of manager? The owners? We know what some posters are against, but what are they agitating for?

As I've said before, I'm happy with the owners and broadly happy with the overall set-up of the club. I think there are greater levels of professionalism throughout the club today than we saw in the past. My only criticism is that, on the pitch, we dropped some stupid points away from home and looked too much of a soft touch too often, but that can be addressed by adding the right type of steely players to what we already have, and adopting a slightly more pragmatic style of play without abandoning the idea of an attractive football philosophy. That's my constructive criticism. What do others want to see change?

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Originally Posted by jackal2

Just for the record I was bitterly disappointed too, particularly about Notts, but not anywhere near to the point of giving up hope. I've felt far worse about our future prospects in the past.

I think we've seen a couple of new signings in the past couple of days alone that give plenty of cause for optimism, similar to the recruitment of Cal Roberts. We're signing young(ish) up-and-coming players who probably have their best years ahead of them and will be full of ambition, on wages we can presumably afford.

I can accept that any club's ownership, management model and philosophy (if they have one) will never be universally popular with all fans, and message boards like this will always be a forum for those who aren't convinced, but surely if you're going to criticise or even dismiss the current approach then the next step is to set out what you want to change, otherwise it's all a bit meaningless.

What's your vision of the right model or approach? What needs to change, and how? Playing style? Recruitment? Type of manager? The owners? We know what some posters are against, but what are they agitating for?

As I've said before, I'm happy with the owners and broadly happy with the overall set-up of the club. I think there are greater levels of professionalism throughout the club today than we saw in the past. My only criticism is that, on the pitch, we dropped some stupid points away from home and looked too much of a soft touch too often, but that can be addressed by adding the right type of steely players to what we already have, and adopting a slightly more pragmatic style of play without abandoning the idea of an attractive football philosophy. That's my constructive criticism. What do others want to see change?

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Pretty much sums up where I am, I have seen us completely control games, and in fact the Carlisle fella I was with at home to Eastleigh was bored because it was so one sided, but also I think a tad too slow. We can fix that without a change in philosophy too, quicker tempo from back to front, instead of just the final third. We do need to have a spine, by that I mean a beast at the back, a box to box battler in midfield, and a target man who is also a handful... give me those and I think we are pretty much done. Unless we need to replace Chicksen.

More than happy with owners, the way it is run, especially happy we don't have twitter/ forum posting owners. The whole club seems to be benefitting from the way things are... and yes I am almost always glass 3/4 full... apart from Grimsby, where I didn't feel we could get over the line, something just wasn't right.