Bonita Red wrote:
Is that right ?
I've never heard it explained like that before.
Cant you just have fixtures in the second half of the season,being a mirror image of the first half ?
Imagine a four team league. Here are your first four rounds of fixtures:
1st round
A v C
B v D
2nd round
C v A
D v B
3rd round
A v D
B v C
4th round
D v A
C v B
Where do you go now? A and B have fulfilled their fixtures against C and D, and C and D have fulfilled their fixtures against A and B. A haven't played B yet, and C haven't played D. In order to do that, one of A and B must play away in round 5 having already been away in round 4, and one of C and D must play at home in round 5 having already played at home in round 4.
In order for every team to have alternating home and away fixtures, you inevitably create two groups of teams based on where they play on the first day of the season. A and B are both at home on the first day and, thanks to alternating fixtures, away for their next matches, then home, then away...... Same with C and D. Teams in the same group can never meet because they will always be at home or away at the same time, so A can never play B, nor C play D. One way around it is to break the groups by switching teams between them, and doing that means they end up playing consecutive home and/or away games. (e.g., team A are in group 1, and group 1 are at home this week. Now we move them to group 2. Group 2 must have been away this week and therefore must be at home next week. As a new member of group 2, team A are now at home for the second week, their second home game in a row.) You could do it with partial midseason breaks too, but I think that would be less popular.
