A discussion of requirements
Small leagues may be run as a single Division but as the number of teams increases, the length of a season may beome too long -- after all it is, in the main, a summer sport. When this happens, the league must be split into one or two divisions. In what follows, I have assumed that the league or division will have fixture lists allowing each team to play each other team on a Home and away basis.

Fixture lists should aim at having no more than 2 consecutive Home or 2 consecutive Away matches. Insistance on playing Home and Away matches alternatively will lengthen the season by 2 weeks. a luxury I have never been allowed! I'm sure I have the original code to produce such fixture lists -- but they'll be on floppy disk (& not even "stiffies"!) Remember them? Possibly. But still be able to read them!

So when I started I spent a lot of time developing programs which would produce fixture lists meeting all the requirements here described. Actually there are not that many possible number of teams to consider. Four is clearly the minimum and twenty teams would result in an excessively long season.

Templates
The season's play is determined by "Templates". In each, teams are assigned numbers and each fixture to be played is described in the form " 5 V 10" where Team#5 is Home to Team#10. It is believed that all templates given for leagues under Templates for a Season meet the "Max 2 Home/Away consecutive games" aim.

Odd numbers of teams
If there is an odd number of teams in a league/division, one team will have a bye each week. The fixture list should have an extra team (simply called "Bye") added so as to produce an even number. However, where a division has a team (or teams) playing byes, the "Max 2 Home/Away consecutive games" aim may not be met.

"Buddy Teams"
Two teams are said to be Buddy Teams when they share a home terrain and cannot both play home matches on the same night (except when they are scheduled to play each other). In all the templates given for a season's fixtures, each team can be "Buddied" with another. Thus in the template for a league/division of 8 teams, teams numbered 1 and 5 will never have clashing home matches. Similarly Teams #2 & #6 are buddies, etc.

"Buddy Teams in different divisions or leagues"
Teams may be "Buddied" when they play in different divisions or leagues provided the divisions or leagues have the same number of teams.

Click for Home Page - - Click for History & Help?