Does it really matter where you finish in the play-offs? "We've all heard it said that the teams who finish one place below the automatic promotion places always lose out to teams who finished 20 points back in the play-offs, but what are the actual records of teams in each spot?" wonders Nathan Walker. Time for some good old-fashioned statistical analysis, Nathan, meaning a delve into the record books, or www.rsssf.com as we like to call them. To get a fair answer to this question we need, of course, to analyse the data from when the play-offs - in their current format - began: 1988-89. Since then, there have been a total of 51 promotions via the play-offs in the Championship, League One, and League Two (and their equivalents). If we rank the teams from one to four in a seeding system based on play-off positions in which they finished the regular season, we arrive at the following figures:
Championship (and equivalents): No1 seed: four promotions (23.5%); No2 seed: four promotions (23.5%); No3 seed: five promotions (29.4%); No4 seed: four promotions (23.5%). _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist
