This will be the main thread for the Gasroom’s own 25 / 26 Attendance Prediction Competition. The results after each game will be posted on this thread.
As in previous seasons the game is to predict the total attendance for each of Wycombe’s League games. Each person gets a score for each match which is exactly the number that their prediction misses the actual attendance. So the lower your score the better you are doing.
To Win - Best ten predictions count:
The competition score is the average of predictions and there is plenty of opportunity to discard wayward predictions as the season progresses. When each person has reached ten predictions only their best ten predictions count and wayward predictions are gradually discounted. For the early part of the season over the first twenty matches your competition score is the average of roughly half of the number of matches played irrespective of the number of predictions made.
Who can play
Anyone is more than welcome to play. I don’t have a problem with individuals predicting for a single match or for half a season. In the first case you could recieve plaudits for the best prediction of that match but cannot win the overall competition and in the second case it is unlikely that you will win the overall competition but it is possible.
To make it more interesting
It amuses me, and maybe others, to have three measures for the crowd at each match. If everyone makes a prediction for the total crowd and then the away crowd, I, or rather the Google spreadsheet, can work out who was closest to the away crowd and the home crowd as well as the Total Crowd - which will count towards the season long competition.
So my preferred format for predictions is
Total Crowd: xxxx or xxxxx
Away Crowd : yyyy or yyy or maybe even yy.
Humour is always appreciated.
A Personal note:
For those who enjoy / are contemplating this competition I wholeheartedly recommend @DevC’s most excellent Score Prediction Competion elsewhere on the famous gasroom. @DevC very responsibly runs it as a charity competition and asks for a donation to a very worthy cause - the Samaritans.
After a scare and some chemotherapy I decided to use this platform to encourage potential competitors to seek a test for prostate cancer. The earlier it is detected the better are your chances and my view is that every Wycombe supporter is precious. Could I ask that those for whom such a test would be impossible or not necessary encourage someone important to them to take or ask for a test?
COMPETITION RULES
Deadline
All entries for each match close 1 hour before kick off.
Sell Outs
Entries close for the main competition if once I or @railwaybeth (my daughter) make a post after both clubs have declared a sell out. Any entries after that will be entered on the match spreadsheet but will not count in the season long competition.
Partial Sell Outs - the ‘pnl’ Rule
If one club declares a sell out some people will have a prediction of one set of supporters which is obviously wrong. As this first happened in a game against Oxford where there are three sides to every story people were allowed to alter their prediction, but only to change Oxford supporters into Wycombe supporters without altering the total. This seemed such a good rule that I have kept it ever since. Otherwise this rule holds:
The No Alterations Rule
The only exception is above. It is very easy for me to make mistakes and changing predictions would only encourage me.
Disputed Attendance Rule
It does happen occasionally that the ground announcer says something different to an official report. If so I use as official the figures published by the BBC. If they don’t publish the figures I will use the figures published by Paul Lewis the original Gasman on “Chairboys on the Net”.
A final note
I will be on holiday in mid September - Cambridge to Lisbon by rail is planned, @railwaybeth (my highly competent daughter) may well make some of the posts during this time and possibly some game outcomes could and competition updates may wait until I return.
Please watch out for the Bradford away prediction thread in Match Day section.
Happy predicting to all.