What is the best way of working a fixture list for a 12 team league. home and away eg A v B, C v D,E vF etc?

You cannot have the perfect result for every team to be home and away all the way through the 22 fixtures but what is the best outcome

What is the best way of working a fixture list for a 12 team league. home and away eg A v B, C v D,E vF etc?
If you are planning a simple home and away schedule, it is impossible not to have a "perfect" outcome.





HOWEVER, what I think you mean is that every team cannot have alternating home and away games throughout the season. This would be true, but I can't do the mental math to figure out quickly how close you can get.





You can of course download freeware that allows you to schedule a league season (just google it), but if you want to do it by hand, the matrix suggestion is probably the easiest method. What you should is to fill out the first team's games with a true alternating schedule (so you would have all even weeks in their row of the matrix, and all odd weeks in their column, or vice versa), then fill in all the other teams' dates against that team based on that schedule, and continue on through the teams in like fashion. The last team should be filled out based on every other team's schedule. Then transpose that to one line per team (which would be HAHAHA... for team one) to see how unbalanced your schedule ended up. Then monkey with it from there to even it out as much as possible.





EDIT:


Doh! Wait a minute - of course you can have a perfect alternating home and away schedule. Don't know what I was thinking. Here's how you can set it up:





X A B C D E F G H I J K L


A - 1 X 3 X 5 X 7 X 9 X 11


B X - 2 X 4 X 6 X 8 X 10 X


C X 11 - 1 X 3 X 5 X 7 X 9


D 10 X X - 2 X 4 X 6 X 8 X


E X 9 X 11 - 1 X 3 X 5 X 7


F 8 X 10 X X - 2 X 4 X 6 X


G X 7 X 9 X 11 - 1 X 3 X 5


H 6 X 8 X 10 X X - 2 X 4 X


I X 5 X 7 X 9 X 11 - 1 X 3


J 4 X 6 X 8 X 10 X X - 2 X


K X 3 X 5 X 7 X 9 X 11 - 1


L 2 X 4 X 6 X 8 X 10 X X -





This will be much easier to read when transposed to a spreadsheet. The letters represent the 12 teams. The dashes represent the points where each team crosses with itself in the matrix. X is an empty cell in the matrix. The numbers are the weeks of the first half of the season - 1 through 11. Each letter, dash and number goes in its own cell. Each row represents home fixtures for that team; each column the away games. So, for example, Team A plays Team B at home in week one, and plays Team L in week 2 away.





Now, since we've only done half the season, when you map out all the games, you will see that every team has an alternating schedule, but that some teams have 6 home games and the others only five. Well, all you have to do for the second half of the season is to keep the same schedule, but reverse the home and away teams. So, not only will you have an perfect alternation, you will also keep every team's games against all 11 other teams 11 weeks apart.
Reply:Why cant you have a perfect fixture result?





6 games per game day, two sets of 11 games. If you had an odd number of team then it would be problematic, but an even number is not.





Use excel as a tool to set it up... Team A x Team B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L and then Team B x Team A, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L and so on... don't worry about away games, they take care of themselves... Each team is only ever playing one other team per game day and no team is playing no one... should be doable.





Team A has 11 home games set up and will appear as the away team in the 11 other team games, producing 22 games per season.





Am I missing something?








Hmmm... ok, someone doesnt understand what I've written (why the thumbs down?)... try this then... write out on a piece of paper a matrix (table)... A to L along the top and A to L down the side. Fill the A x A, B x B (leading diagonal) with "x"'s so you dont play any null games... now you have to fill each space with a date... I would just put the numbers 1 to 22 in there... and then you can change the numbers for actual dates at a later date. You need to make sure each set of down and across for A, B, C, D etc only have 1 occasion of 1 to 22 each. Very do-able.. lot of pissing around going back and forth, checking each but do-able.








@John F: thank you for proving this... dunno who the dumbfucks are that are handing out the thumbs downs? but glad you proved it... I thought about it for a while but really couldnt be arsed!!! Especially after the thumbs down... nice one fella! You get my vote as and when it comes up for a vote.
Reply:Your last 6 fixtures with the 12 teams should draw a ballot at the start of the season with 6 balls away and 6 home balls in a bowl and they draw lots. If the league continues next year then the teams that got 6 home games 1st year then they get 6 away following year. Hope this helps.
Reply:hope this works, cos think this is what me dad does, name each of your team after a football team, an use there fixture, if u get what i mean, if not, it might give u an idea how best to do yours. good luck