Media Bob's Stats - The Free Kick Table For Season 33

Tonga Bob · Jan 31, 2022

Yo nerds, guess what?

[unrealistic pause for a reply that will never come]

I may be with captaincy this season, but that's not gonna stop me from getting back on my bullshit by giving you the stats that you neither requested nor craved. That's right - the Free Kick Table returns for season 33 thanks to the good person at Bob's Statistics (a division of Bob's Shitpostsᵀᴹ)!!! Here's the now customary explanation for those who came in late:

"Free kicks are a very emotive topic in football, however it seems that the 'random' nature of qootball displaces that emotion from umpires to the sim. One way to look at this is a free kick differential, which aggregates free kicks over a period of time and shows which teams receive more than others.

My Free Kick Table takes this one step further, and aggregates the impact of free kicks on a game-by-game basis to see who won the free kick count in each game. So pretty much what would happen if you replaced goals and points scored with free kicks received and conceded."

"Yeah but what do they play for, Bob?"

Great question Bob, you're sure on the ball this season! As always, the team that finishes the home and away season on top of the Free Kick Table wins the coveted Silver Whistle Trophy like the Furies did last season:

or the Roys in seasons 29 & 31 (and probably many more prior to then, I just haven't been arsed looking that far back):

or the Gumbies last-to-first fairytale in season 30:

Maybe you're not fussed about team success and are more of an individual glory seeker. Well Sir, we've got you covered. There's the Little Spoon Trophy for the player with the most free kicks received, which is currently held jointly by StFly & Pugsley.

If you're more of a giver than a receiver however, then the Big Spoon Trophy may be what you're after. The award for the player who concedes the most free kicks in a season, this is also currently shared by two players - Bradesmaen and Brick Loosener

Think you've got what it takes to make your mark in the heady world of randomly assigned qumpiring decisions? Then stick around over the course of the season as I chart the progress of both teams and players as they strive for immortality, infamy and imaginary trophy attainment.

Tonga Bob · Jan 31, 2022

Here's a reminder of who has won what in the four seasons that I've been running this:

Loonerty Elton Johns Wig RobR MannumPower Millky95 Cap Pugsley StFly Bradesmaen Brick Loosener

Tonga Bob · Feb 9, 2022

It may be a new season but it seems as though f*ck all has changed. Hi nerds, it's Bob here to take you through the opening round of free kicks. Check it out:

The reigning Silver Whistle holders had the biggest win in round one against the almost wooden spoon having Bears, who received double the number of free kicks than their opponents. Two time winners the Roys are second after comfortably accounting for perennial ne'er-do-wells the Dragons, while other noted qumpire fanciers the Bombers and Wonders easily accounted for the Royals and Demons respectively. The only kind of surprise was that last season's wooden spooners the Swamprats managed to draw with the Phoenix, while the Gumbies and Warriors had the highest aggregate free kick count of the round as they fought out a 22-all stalemate.

Check this out though - here's a comparison between the ladder standings in season 33 (albeit one round old) on the left and the overall ladder standing from the beginning of season 29 until now on the right:

Really makes you think, hey?

Now let's turn our attention to the individual rankings. Again it's still early days but worth a butcher's:

Some familiar faces in here as well, even though some of the names have changed. Former Mobbs Medallist GWS Goose was kissed on the ~~pen-~~ beak to receive seven free kicks, as was the Hypercolour T-shirt of the Sweet FA in CrimsonViolet from the Furies. This is more than a lot of players receive in a whole season! A pair of Bombers in Bovo and The Greatest Ava were the next best with five frees for, while a host of players picked up four including DenieD Love Marlowe pantskyle Rodney Dangerfield SSwans2011 Zevon and season 31 Little Spoon winner Millky95.

The players who caught the attention of the qumpires for the wrong reasons were Swamprat GotTheGoodes and newly-minted Bear chief Muddiemoose who were pinged five times last week. One conceded free behind them are Ulahoopski serial_thrilla crazywildhorse and Hate, whose relationship with the qumpires last week was somewhat bipolar in nature.

Well that's it for this week. Stay tuned over the course of the season to see whether the plot diverges from the well worn path or whether David Byrne keeps shaking his sweaty bespectacled head. Or not, idk.

Tonga Bob · Feb 18, 2022

Howdy nerds, and welcome back to the original and best analysis of all things qumpiring decisions. That's right, it's time to look at the free kick table after round two. Roll the tape, Bob.

Thanks Bob.

Still early days, but it's the same characters at the front of the bus as both the Roys and the Bombers have a perfect record. They are equal top in frees for and either equal bottom (for the Roys) or one off the bottom (for the Bombers) for frees against. The other undefeated team are the Phoenix who have a win and a draw from their two games.

Meanwhile at the other end of the table there's four teams who are yet to have a win - the Gumbies, Swampats, Warriors & Bears, with the Las Vegans the only team with two losses. Despite having the equal most frees for, it's the Warriors who are head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to conceding free kicks. Giving away 18 more free kicks than both the Roys and the Furies after only two rounds, along with the free kick differential of -14 for the Bears after two games, is the kind of shithousery that we love to see here at Bob's Statisticsᵀᴹ.

Let's go to the individual tallies now.

CrimsonViolet backed up his 7 frees for in round one and has gone and repeated the dose to streak away to an early four kick lead over GWS Goose Bovo and Zevon, who gained six frees last week. Marlowe rounds out the top five with five of his own in round two.

GotTheGoodes retains his lead in the Big Spoon, enjoying a one kick advantage over the chasing pack of crazywildhorse Muddiemoose Ulahoopski and Zoops. Fun fact about Zoops - if he concedes a free kick from outside the 50m arc it's actually worth 9 free kicks. Wild huh?

That'll do for now nerds, I need to have a lie down after off of this statistical brilliance. Until next week...

Tonga Bob · Feb 24, 2022

[INSERT WELCOME REMARKS HERE]

Round Three table:

Hot takes:

Bombers have the only perfect record after Roys lost to Mt Buller;
Swamprats & Gumbies both winless;
The hippodrome has the loudest affirmation noises;
Bombers, Roys & Royals have most positive correlation between qumpiring decisions and qooty victories, while the Bears & Gumbies are doing well on the qooty field despite the qumpires not liking them.

Individual stats:

Little Spoon:

CrimsonViolet still in the lead with another 5 frees for, but the 6 that Zevon received edges him closer;
Bovo Millky95 GWS Goose and Marlowe also kissed on the peen.

Big Spoon:

Same old - GotTheGoodes leading from Muddiemoose
Five campaigners in joint third position, being crazywildhorse JackNah_8 moginie SM and Ulahoopski

[INSERT INVITATION TO COME BACK NEXT WEEK]

Random weird yet topical gif:

Tonga Bob · Mar 8, 2022

Well this is awkward. Not even the empty void is replying. Good thing I'm only doing this for my own benefit.

THE SWEET FA:

* audibly sobbing * What the hell do you know, Bill Nye? SHUT UP AND GO TO THE ROUND FOUR FREE KICK TABLE.

DON'T LOOK AT ME!!!!

Four qooty victories, four free kick wins. The Faceless Men have been looking after the Bombers by the looks of it;
The Roys bounce back after a shock loss, while the Royals continue their rise after obliterating the Bears 21-11;
The Gumbies also enjoyed an extra 10 free kicks in their 85 point victory over the Demons;
Despite not having a free kick win, the Swamprats are not on the bottom of the table. Their two draws and superior percentage are enough to jump over Las Vegas, and draw ever so close to the Wonders;
Just like magpies and shiny objects, the qumpires can't stop looking at the Warriors. They have both the most frees for and frees against.

Now to the individuals:

While CrimsonViolet retains the Little Spoon lead despite not receiving a free kick the big movers in round 4 were hotchilli who collected seven frees for to jump to third place, sandwiched between Bovo in second and Zevon in joint third, both of whom received four frees for. GWS Goose & Marlowe round out the top 5 after both received three frees.

It's still tight at the top of the Big Spoon, as Muddiemoose joins GotTheGoodes in the lead. The Moose's teammate kane249 was the big mover here, conceding three frees to join crazywildhorse and moginie one kick behind the leaders.

Got any free kick questions? Send them into Bob's Mailbag and I'll dig out an appropriate answer for you.

Fire up, nerds!

Tonga Bob · Mar 11, 2022

I'll tell you what's happening, Diogo. We're going to take a look at how the qumpires saw round five of the Sweet FA's 33rd season. There were some surprises, a couple of old favourites and four BIG scores. Please consider...

Here's some Hot Takes:

The Royals become the fourth team to top the table this season after they saw off the Demons;
Baghdad drop to second in both the free kick and qooty table after the Faceless Men conspired to hand Coney Island shock wins in both categories;
The Warriors still lead the way in frees for and frees against. The 29 free kicks that they received in round five is the highest single game figure that I have seen since I started in season 29, and the most given to one team in a single game since the Royals received 30 frees against the Demons in round 10 of season 25;
While that is the first of today's BIG scores it is nothing when compared to the Swamprats/Furies game of round 5 season 06. The Furies received a Herculean eighty-nine (89) free kicks in that game, yet they still lost the qooty match. "How the heck do you get 89 frees and still lose?" I hear you ask. Well, it happens if you concede 94 free kicks. That's right, the Swamprats got NINTY-FOUR free kicks in one game!!! As my good friend Hate described it when he generously provided these facts: "Season 06 was pretty wild for the sim... The sim had NOS suped up to it." Sound like the Qast & the Qurious alright!!!
The Battle of the Basement saw the Bears claim a one kick win over the Swamprats to jump from 12th to 10th, leaving the Sin Citizens back on the bottom as the only team without a win. The Bears still have the lowest percentage however;
Only two teams (the Furies and the Dragons) have a positive home vs away differential, so it looks as though the qumpires are blocking out affirmation noises from home town crowds really well, however a massive seven teams (Wonders, Bombers, Royals, Demons, Roys, Furies & Phoenix) have a double digit positive qooty victory vs defeat differential which shows that a lot of the qooty results are affected by free kicks.

As an added bonus this round I'll give the first update of the squiggly line position graph!

Now it's time for the individual results for round five, and that means it's also time to open:

damicky said:
Waiting for Round 5 update

Well wait no more, my wondering wandering wheel of Wensleydale...

Young damicky was keen to see this here update as he was the recipient of the second of round 5's four BIG scores, as he received nine frees to come from absolutely nowhere to land in second spot on the Little Spoon table, two frees behind incumbent leader CrimsonViolet. A group of five players are one kick further back from damicky, including Bovo Chipmunk hotchilli GWS Goose & Marlowe.

The final two BIG scores of the round came in the race for the Big Spoon. Now individual frees against figures are usually smaller by nature, but this round had some whopping tallies. moginie was the first to roll the qumpire dice and landed on a 6, which propels him into a two-kick lead. It would have been a four kick lead as the previously leading pack of GotTheGoodes & kane249 (both on 11) and crazywildhorse & Muddiemoose (both on 10) conceded four frees between them. However the last of the BIG scores came from Bomber The Greatest Ava who contributed a Rubenesqe eight (8) of the 29 free kicks that the Babylonians conceded last round. This puts Ava second on the Big Spoon table.

Well nerds I'm sorry to say that we're all out of BIG scores for this week. Stick around and see what the qumpires do in round six, and I'll be back around this time next week to shitpost about it. Until then...

Tonga Bob · Mar 18, 2022

Yeah sorry nerds.

Although it wasn't a huge margin between the Wonders & Warriors, both teams have seen the biggest movement on the table. The Wonders go up to 6th while the Warriors have dropped to 9th;
The Roys has another loss and are now in 5th place, which is the lowest they have been on a free kick ladder in seasons;
The Royals, Bombers & Furies retain their top three positions;
At the other end, the Swamprats jumped to 10th after defeating the Demons, putting the Bears back on the foot of the table.

Here's what the Spoons are doing:

CrimsonViolet picked up another five frees for to consolidate top spot in the Little Spoon race, with the majority of the leading group of chasers in Chipmunk damicky hotchilli GWS Goose Marlowe & The Filth Wizard all earning 3-4 frees apiece. The bolter though is reigning Mobbs Medallist TheInjuryFactory whose seven free kicks propelled him to outright second.

Despite donutting, Demon moginie remains atop the Big Spoon tally. The Greatest Ava is one conceded kick behind in second with GotTheGoodes and kane249 a further two frees behind. Rounding out the top 5 are newcomers eDPS and tigs2010, who join JackNah_8 & Muddiemoose on 11 frees against.

Great work once again Bob, you deserve a drink.

Thanks Bob.

Tonga Bob · Mar 25, 2022

[Pictured: the qumpires calming down a Furies player after conceding a dubious free kick to philreich ]

Welcome back nerds to another round of free kick hijinks. We're almost halfway through the season, so next week will be a special edition of the Free Kick Table with numbers akimbo, but for now let's see what happened in round seven.

Here's some more of those Hot Takes that you know and ~~love~~ ~~like~~ tolerate:

The Royals & Bombers cement their spot on top of the table with their fifth wins of the season apiece;
A late free kick to the Swamprats saw them rise to a season high eighth place, while at the same time dropping the Furies down a couple of spots;
Same situation in the game between the Dragons and the Warriors. Despite the qooty result ending in a draw, the extra five frees for that the Dragons received see them rise to a season high third place. They began the season in 11th place, which is where the Warriors now find themselves;
The Roys keep capitulating, losing their third game in a row thanks to a free kick differential in that time of -18;
The biggest story of the round though was in the game between the Gumbies and the Wonders, where the 22-10 free kick score has give the plasticine people the highest free kick margin of the season and has seen them jump from 11th place two rounds ago to fourth now. Remarkable shithousery!

And here's how the Spoons are looking:

Frontrunning Furie CrimsonViolet continues to lead the way in the Little Spoon, however TheInjuryFactory has cut his lead to a single free kick. The two have put a gap between themselves and third placed Chipmunk while the trio of GWS Goose Marlowe & Millky95 are also near enough if lucky enough.

Mount Buller's moginie is three conceded free kicks ahead on top of the Big Spoon table. Second-placed The Greatest Ava donutted in round 7 which allowed JackNah_8 to catch her thanks to three frees conceded. GotTheGoodes is one kick back in fourth place, while eDPS & kane249 have been joined by Warriors winger A Swallow in a tie for fifth.

That's all for now, all these stats are making me thirsty. Strap yourselves in for next week though, as I'll get into how each team are travelling at the halfway point. Come get some!!

Tonga Bob · Apr 1, 2022

Well nerds I thought we were half way there but actually we're not. That means the Free Kick Table Half Time Show will be next week. We do however still have round 8 to dissect, so without any further ado let's ado the needful...

The Royals and the Bombers keep doing the business, with the former only just getting it done despite losing the qooty while the latter maintained their 100% free kick win to qooty victory correlation intact;
The mid-table bouts saw the Phoenix beat the Furies in a match where the qumpires put away their whistles, and in a classic case of compensation the Wonders thumped the Dragons 26-15;
The Battle of the Battlers saw the 12th placed Las Vegans convincingly beat the 11th placed Coney Islanders. This allowed the Bears to leave the bottom of the ladder for the first time in four rounds, with the Warriors becoming the third team to befall the fate of being on the bottom of the Free Kick Table and, for the second week running, will compete in another Battle of the Battlers as their opponents this week (the Demons) have slipped to 11th spot;
Only three teams (the Dragons, Wonders & Furies) have a positive home vs away differential, meaning the affirmation noises from home ground fans is not helping much across the league;
Ten of the twelve teams have a positive qooty victory vs defeat differential though, with eight of those greater than +10. This shows that in season 33, qumpiring decisions are having a massive influence on qooty results. This is also the reason why the average variation between teams' positions on the Free Kick table vs the Qooty table is only 2.17.

Now to the Spoons standings...

The reign of CrimsonViolet atop the Little Spoon table has come to an end, as the five frees for obtained by TheInjuryFactory sees the reigning Mobbs Medallist overtake the Furie. Wonders enigma damicky picked up six frees for to join long-time friend of the frees Millky95 who received five of his own to form a third place that's choc-a-block full of lactose, while Phoenix mascot-slash-captain Chipmunk rounds out the top 5.

moginie is still sitting pretty on top of the Big Spoon table, one conceded kick ahead of Royboy JackNah_8 who was the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) performing of the upper echelon thanks to his four frees against. GotTheGoodes remains in third, one ahead of The Greatest Ava with the pair of A Swallow & crazywildhorse tied in 5th place.

Now unless anybody tells me otherwise, we'll be halfway through the season by this time next week so I reckon it'll be time for the H1 reviews as my manager likes to call them.

Tonga Bob · May 31, 2022

Tonga Bob · Aug 3, 2022

Has the suspense killed you yet?

Well wait no longer nerds, here's the free kick table after the home & away rounds for season 33.

Here are the key points:

The Bombers have won their first Silver Whistle Trophy after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in season 30;
Perennial qumpire targets the Dragons bucked the trend in the second half of season 33 to come home with a very wet sail. They won seven of their last eight free kick counts and drew the other to fall four points short of the Bombers. That this run coincided with them winning their last seven qooty games must surely be pure coincidence right? Right?
A strong start (winning seven & drawing one of their first ten free kick counts) was not enough for the Royals to finish higher than third place. Their last seven counts had 3 wins/1 draw/3 losses which saw them broke even in that time, but the Bombers & Dragons were too good... or should we say too loved;
Even though they finished fourth, season 33 would be considered a failure for the Roys. It was the first season in living memory that they ended up with a negative free kick differential, albeit finishing on -1. I guess they'll just have to find consolation in whatever other second rate competitions they may have won;
Last season's Silver Whistle winners the Furies had a Barry both with the qooty and with the free kicks (and the permabans...), ending up in ninth place;
Finally the Demons picked up their first wooden spoon after ending the season stone motherless. They received the eighth most free kicks in season 33, but conceded the most of all teams.

Congratulations Bombers, here's your miniature novelty trophy!

Tonga Bob · Aug 3, 2022

Next up is the Little Spoon. I know one person has been hanging out for this to be presented.

Here's the final leaderboard:

In 10th spot was Phoenix rodent Chipmunk on 53 frees for. If he had've got one more then he would have joined The Filth Wizard TheInjuryFactory hotchilli and Zevon in equal 6th place.

Whoever said "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" was a f*cken liar, and here's proof. Proper Gander ended up fifth on 55 frees for, which is not as good as GWS Goose who received 56 frees to finish in fourth.

Now for the podium. In third was the eye-crossed lover from Baghdad, Bovo who finished on 57 frees for. And, for the second season in a row, we have joint Little Spoon winners. Not only that, we have our very first multiple recipient!! Your winners nerds, on 59 frees for, are damicky from the Wonders and Millky95 from the Bears!

Congrats fellas, here's your miniature novelty trophies.

[what's awesome with a multiple winner is getting to use stock pictures! Huzzah!!]

Tonga Bob · Aug 3, 2022

Now it's Big Spoon time, for the battlers of Sweet. The ones that concede the most free kicks. Here's the final leaderboard:

There was a pretty big log jam in tenth place, where crazywildhorse Moz Zoops and the previously-mentioned damicky sit with 23 frees against. In sixth place on 24 frees conceded is another bunch of miscreants & ne'er-do-wells in Electronic_Renaissance GotTheGoodes Hate and the recently-retired Riviat (RIP in pieces). Equal fourth were the Roy twins Cats_R_Cool_4_Ever and tigs2010 who ended up giving away 25 frees.

In third place is somebody looking for prison bars, and if he keeps giving away free kicks like this he may find them, Swamprat VC GremioPower

Then there's a jump from Grem in third on 26 frees to our top two, who are separated by one singe conceded free kick. The runner-up, on 33 frees against, is JackNah_8 from the Roys, which leaves moginie from the Demons as our Big Spoon winner for season 33! Very deserving too as he led for much of the season.

Well done mate, here's your miniature novelty trophy.