Greenhough, J., Birch, P.C., Chapman, Sandra C. and Rowlands, G. (George). (2002) Football goal distributions and extremal statistics. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Vol.1 (No.4). pp. 615-624. ISSN 0378-4371

Preview

PDF WRAP_Chapman_Football.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader Download (208Kb)

Abstract

We analyse the distributions of the number of goals scored by home teams, away teams, and the total scored in the match, in domestic football games from 169 countries between 1999 and 2001. The probability density functions (PDFs) of goals scored are too heavy-tailed to be fitted over their entire ranges by Poisson or negative binomial distributions which would be expected for uncorrelated processes. Log-normal distributions cannot include zero scores and here we find that the PDFs are consistent with those arising from extremal statistics. In addition, we show that it is sufficient to model English top division and FA Cup matches in the seasons of 1970/71–2000/01 on Poisson or negative binomial distributions, as reported in analyses of earlier seasons, and that these are not consistent with extremal statistics.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure Q Science > QA Mathematics
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Physics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Football, Soccer, Statistics -- Data processing
Journal or Publication Title:	Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
Publisher:	Elsevier BV
ISSN:	0378-4371
Date:	29 June 2002
Volume:	Vol.1
Number:	No.4
Page Range:	pp. 615-624
Identification Number:	10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01030-0
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (Great Britain) (PPARC)
References:	[1] Moroney, M. J. 1956, Facts from Figures (Penguin Books, London) [2] Reep, C., Pollard, R., & Benjamin, B. 1971, J. R. Statist. Soc. A, 134, 623 [3] Maher, M. J. 1982, Statistica Neerlandica, 36, 109 [4] Dixon, M. J., & Coles, S. G. 1997, Appl. Statist., 46, 2, 265 [5] Dyte, D., & Clarke, S. R. 2000, J. Opl. Res. Soc., 51, 993 [6] Dixon, M. J., & Robinson, M. E. 1998, The Statistician, 47, 3, 523 [7] Norman, J. M., in Bennett, J. 1998, Statistics in Sport (Arnold, London) [8] Malacarne, L. C., & Mendes, R. S. 2000, Physica A, 286, 391 [9] http://www.SportingData.com [10] http://www.rsssf.com/histdom.html [11] Fisher, R. A., & Tippett, L. H. C. 1928, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc., XXIV, 180. [12] Gumbel, E. J. 1958, Statistics of Extremes (Columbia University Press, New York). [13] Sornette, D. 2000, Critical Phenomena in Natural Sciences (Springer-Verlag, Berlin). [14] Bury, K. 1999, Statistical Distributions in Engineering (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) [15] Chapman, S. C., Rowlands, G., & Watkins, N. W. 2001, Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, submitted [16] Bak, P. 1997, How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organised Criticality (Oxford University Press, Oxford) [17] Mantegna, R. N., & Stanley, H. E. 1999, An Introduction to Econophysics: Correlations and Complexity in Finance (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) [18] Stanley, H. E., Amaral, L. A. N., Gabaix, X., Gopikrishnan, P., & Plerou, V. 2001, Physica A, 299 (1-2), 1 [19] Stanley, H. E., Amaral, L. A. N., Gabaix, X., Gopikrishnan, P., & Plerou, V. 2001, Physica A, 302 (1-4), 126 [20] Solomon, S., & Richmond, P. 2001, Physica A, 299 (1-2), 188 [21] Bramwell, S. T., Holdsworth, P. C. W., Pinton, J.-F. 1998, Nature, 396, 552 [22] Bramwell, S. T., Christensen, K., Fortin, J.-Y. et al. 2000, Phys. Rev. Lett., 84 (17), 3744 [23] Aji, V. & Goldenfeld, N. 2001, Phys. Rev. Lett., 86 (6), 1007 [24] Bramwell, S. T., Fortin, J.-Y., Holdsworth, P. C. W. et al. 2001, Phys. Rev. E, 63, 41106 [25] Zheng, B., & Trimper, S. 2001, Phys. Rev. Lett., 87 (18), 188901 [26] Bramwell, S. T., Christensen, K., Fortin, J.-Y. et al. 2001, Phys. Rev. Lett., 87 (18), 188902 [27] Granger, C. W., & Orr, D. 1972, J. Am. Statist. Ass., 67, 275 [28] Kon, S. J. 1984, J. Finance, 39, 147 [29] Clarke, S. R., & Norman, J. M 1995, The Statistician, 44, 4, 509
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/591

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item