Pollard was one of several people inspired by Reep's work to visit his Plymouth home, a pilgrimage that usually involved long afternoons of tea, sandwiches and football discussion.īy the time of Pollard's first visit in the mid-1960s, Reep had accumulated hundreds of matches worth of data detailing passing moves, attempts at goal or where teams won and lost possession. Reep was the first data analyst to work directly with a professional football club, starting at Brentford in 1951 and finding great success with Wolves later in the same decade. Like other fledgling analysts of the 1960s, he'd read the earliest published works of Charles Reep (1904-2002), seen by some as the Godfather of modern football analysis. This is how match analysis was carried out by a top-level English club in the 1980s - trusting the only tape recording of a game to long-distance airmail, having the analysis done by hand and then returned over 12 months later.īy the mid-1980s, Pollard had already been fascinated by football data for over two decades. The letter was from Watford manager Graham Taylor, who politely asked for the cassette to be returned to England "together with an analysis in due course". The tape contained recordings of Watford matches against Chelsea in the First Division and Crewe Alexandra in the Milk Cup. Inside was a VHS videocassette and a letter.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |