No, no and Bradford

Well, Oldham didn't send their fans home overly happy on Saturday, only drawing 1-1 with their Yorkshire neighbours Huddersfield. Furthermore it seems a very poor turn-out from Huddersfield led to the attendance being only a paltry 7,000, as opposed to the 9,500 gate predicted. So that's a no and a no.

Moving on to Bradford, another Yorkshire neighbour, to whom Latics travel this afternoon. It turns out Latics have won their previous five matches against Bradford home and away, and given Latics occupy 4th position, and Bradford 22nd, one might reasonably expect a Latics win. Sure enough, my model suggests Latics have a 52% chance of winning, with Bradford only a meagre 23%. Of course, such models struggle to take into account the late season desperation which tends to surround matches involving sides in the relegation zone, and leads to them out-performing relative to their league position.

Given further that Latics have failed to win their previous two matches away against teams in or near the relegation zone, this suggests a draw. I'll be disappointed if that happens, but I can see it happening. Probabilities for individual scores run something like this: the most probable score is a 1-0 Latics win, with 13%, then a 1-1 draw following with a 12% probability. I'd go for that myself. There's a 2% probability on Latics repeating their 4-1 win at Bradford last season.

Come on Oldham!

Also, if Scunthorpe win their match away at Northampton today, and Nottm Forest fail to win at home to Rotherham, Scunthorpe will be promoted. A Scunthorpe win has a 47% probability, a draw or Rotherham win at the City Ground at 37%, suggesting that, assuming these two events are independent of each other (!), that there's actually only a 17% probability of Scunthorpe securing promotion today. By next week though I'm sure it'll be confirmed...

Is life a random walk? And Oldham's fortunes...

Yesterday, in his first Clarendon Lecture in the Economics Department at the University of Oxford, Peter Phillips suggested that a time series could provide the conclusion that life is a random walk. Well, I guess given he talked about estimating numbers for models on particular data series and questioned what these numbers mean, that in fact he wasn't really trying to substantiate in any way the claim that life is a random walk.

Of course he's fitting an econometric model to the world, and that doesn't necessarily shed any light at all on the true underlying data generating process. It was data on the number of species in exitence, going back 600 million years. Of course I don't think that life is a random walk, I don't for one moment believe that the various underlying processes generating this 600 million year data set really suggest everything is random.

Nevertheless, that's what people who deny the existence of God are forced to believe - it's all random. However, through the existence of a man who lived 2000 odd years ago we have God's revelation to a disbelieving world, captured in a book that's internally consistent as to exactly what this Jesus chap was up to. God isn't random, He has a plan, and He's made it known to His world. Will you take a look? Check out here if you want to.

On to Oldham Athletic. I was dissatisfied with my model, and applied an ad hoc solution, contrary to how I believe econometric modelling should take place, although consistent with the idea that the best ways to do econometrics are not the best ways to forecast. Originally the forecast was about 5,700, but with a variable to capture the visit of local rivals, the forecast was raised to 6,179, which I still thoughts too low. However, the model was giving forecasts in the right ball-park, whereas I was way out: the actual attendance was 6,001. Again much lower than I'd have expected, but continuing the trend this season.

But Oldham won 2-0 against local rivals, continuing their good form in the league now to 1 defeat in 12 matches, and 7 wins along the way. Surely soon, if this form continues, attendances will rise?

A local derby...

...provides another challenge for my Oldham Athletic attendance prediction model. Simply fired through, the model gives a prediction which my eye says is far too low: 5,696. Certainly, based on attendances in the league this season thus far, this seems too high - attendances have barely broken the 5,000 mark. However, Bradford travel only 22 miles to get to Oldham, and the attendances at the previous two matches between the sides at Boundary Park have been 9,381 and 6,982.

So what to do? Are Bradford a special case, counting pretty much as Oldham's closest rivals right now, with the absence of a Wigan or a Stockport in the same division? Unfortunately the tag of closest rivals actually goes to Huddersfield Town at 16 miles away. Furthermore, Huddersfield do appear to bring better travelling followings than Bradford, in my limited experience and memory.

Nevertheless, Bradford and Huddersfield do pretty much count as our only rivals this season, and are rivals that bring large visiting contingents - unlike, for example, Bury. As such, why not a Rivals variable?

Inserting that, and the model predicts a slightly more satisfying 6,179. I still think it's a bit low, but then this season gates have always been pretty low. Bradford aren't on the best of runs (although they've signed a very good player in Tommy Black this week), while the Latics head into this game unbeaten in seven home games and after two consecutive away victories. So maybe, all that accounted for, a gate not much over 6,000 is about right. We'll see.

Oh and while I'm here I might as well predict the result I guess. 3-1 Oldham. No rationale for it. Come on Oldham!