305 – Thank You Jon Macken – Post 47

After 3 minutes of the game at Hartlepool on Saturday, Jon Macken scored a penalty for Walsall to put them one nil up and, in tucking away – indeed in that instance, in taking – the spot kick, do something that no Walsall player had done for 681 days. That left Huddersfield Town, 329 days after Gary Roberts put the seal on the 4-2 victory against Yeovil Town that sent them top of the league, as the team who have the longest penalty drought in the country.

Firstly, I wanted to know about the penalties Town had scored, but I wanted a little more than that. Hopefully this will enlighten me about the 12-yard phenomenon that I dreaded as a taker, but loved as a goalkeeper. The first thing I learnt was that the next time a Town player scores a penalty, it will be the 306^th penalty Town have scored in the Football League, which is 5.49% of the total tally (which is about right to me – one out of every 20 goals has been a spot-kick).

The current run, though, is nothing like as long as previous long runs without penalties; I knew we’d had at least one entire season without before, I remember the fuss when Paul Dalton broke the duck, but it turns out that this is the 16^th longest run (today is 334 days since Town went top against Yeovil, exactly 1 month shy of a year) without scoring a penalty. The longest ran for 735 days (that’s over 2 years, by a few days) and ended in a 2-2 draw at Portsmouth on 8^th Nov 1930; we’d have to go another 13 months without a spot-kick being converted to match that – 22^nd September 2012; which is a Saturday, so it could happen – I’d assume the dynamic runs of McDermott, Ward Hunt and Roberts would probably garner one by then, though.

The run that the 2-5 win at Crewe (Paul Dalton, as above) ended was the 3^rd longest run – see the first table here (the top 10 – end dates on the left, and take note of the game venues, of which more later) – and there’s been no shortage of occasions where Town have been whole seasons without penalties, something that the 2010/11 vintage have not yet accrued.

There was a few other things I wondered about when I was working through the statistics for this. One thing that I’d just always assumed, but never really known, was that there are more penalties now than there used to be. The game is quicker than it was, and players are far more likely to go to ground (lazy point, I know, but true) as well as referees far more likely to award spot-kicks. So yes, although the 2000s weren’t a golden era for Town converting penalties, there’s enough of a trend (black line) to suggest that there’s been a slow but gradual increase in the number of penalties awarded (well, certainly in the amount scored – I haven’t got figures for penalties missed outside the last few seasons), which looks set to continue for a while.

The other divides that are immediately apparent from the table I constructed were the disparity between penalties at home and away from home and, more strikingly, the results of the matches that penalties are scored in.

Town’s record in matches in which they’ve score a penalty is as follows. Played 298, Won 181, Drawn 69, Lost 48. That would be good for 612 points, at an average of 2.05 points per game. It pays, then, to get penalties awarded to you. (This much is obvious, though. This is a list of games in which Town have scored at least one goal – it makes sense they’ll have lost fewer) – that said, the most common of those penalty containing results are 2-1 victories (29) and 1-2 defeats (28), there’s only been 15 penalties that have been the only goals in Town victories, most recently Valentine’s Day 2006, when Chris Brandon scored at Blackpool. At Blackpool.

At Blackpool, then, being one of 97 penalties awarded away from home, compared to the 201 at Leeds Road/the McAlpine – just about double the amount. I thought it might be more than that, but certainly that confirms what you might think of penalties. A baying away end is far less likely to be rewarded than a baying three stands.

There’s a couple other curios I’d like to draw to attention. Penalties, if we were doing a Family Fortunes (Family Feud, for my US Readers) of what they mean, sometimes crop up as a nice way of completing a hat-trick for those players who have already netted twice. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing the order of goals, but there’s been five occasions when Town players have netted hat-tricks containing penalties, so honourable mentions to Jack Malam (8-0 v Liverpool, 10^th Nov 1934), Peter Butler (4-1 v Scunthorpe Utd, 31^st Dec 1977), Joey Jones (4-0 v Cardiff City, 28^th April 1984), Dale Tempest (4-3 v Millwall, 17^th August 1985) and Phil Starbuck (4-5 @ Cambridge Utd, 26^th April 1994). Notably, and happily, all those games were won.

Secondly, there was a spell from 26^th November 1955 to 17^th December 1955 when Town scored three penalties in four games – the best such run in the club’s history. Vic Metcalfe got them all.

 Finally, I think you’ll like this, I certainly do. It’s a graph – big one – of the differences in days between when Town scored each penalty. Click on it for full-size appearance. So many thanks for Sam Parkin for breaking Walsall’s 681 day duck, and hopefully Huddersfield’s will be the next one to go. I’d plump for Lee Novak, I think.

184 – Not On The Spot Update – Post 18a

With Huddersfield missing another penalty yesterday at MK Dons, the drought stretches on and the numbers get worse. Now only one team have failed to score a penalty more recently than Huddersfield Town. Take a bow, Walsall. First Everton, then Manchester Utd, then Shrewsbury, then Macclesfield all wiped their slates clean with spot-kick goals; only the Saddlers to go.

Now its taken 5 scored 2.

Walsall, if there’s any fans reading this, haven’t scored a penalty since 29th September 2009; some 572 days ago. That was converted by Darren Byfield, in the 66th minute of a 2-1 win against…Huddersfield Town. Strange.

157 – Not On The Spot – Post 18

Huddersfield Town do not play their game against Notts County until Sunday, by which point, there will have been 157 days since they last scored a penalty. This is a pretty long time, to be honest. 66 League One penalties have been converted since then, by a combination of 22 other teams – there have even been four instances of teams converting two penalties on the same day. Not Huddersfield Town. Since Gary Roberts netted in the 75^th minute of their game against Yeovil, not a single spot kick has been dispatched by a Terrier.

Why?

Well, they’ve not been taking loads and missing them (though penalties have been missed during this time, most recently Jordan Rhodes at Bristol Rovers), but the 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation that has been played for much of the season doesn’t lend itself to people running with the ball in the box, which in turn doesn’t lend itself to those people being fouled. Gary Roberts himself, evidenced by his booking for diving last week, seems to be getting a reputation, and Anthony Pilkington, on the other flank, is far more likely to shoot at goal, as we saw last post out. So its not just bad luck or bad judgement, Town’s play isn’t penalty-favourable, particularly (though I’d still expect one more, at least, before the end of the season).

But it could be worse. Walsall, alone in League One, haven’t scored a penalty all season.

I’ve done a bit of checking over the football pyramid and, in the top four divisions in England, only one team that has scored one or more penalties, only one team’s last one was longer ago than Town’s. That team sit atop the Premiership at the moment, so its good company to be in.

There are, as comfort to any Walsall fans reading in, four teams without a single penalty goal all season; Walsall themselves, Shrewsbury, Macclesfield and Everton.

I ought to, also, mention here that 157 days is nothing compared to the penalty drought of almost two years that encapsulated the entire 1996/97 season, and was broken at Crewe, in a game I mentioned as one of my 5 Favourite Town games in Post 1b of the 30 Day Football Challenge.