Celebrating a new milestone: Untold goes where no one’s ever been « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Walter Broeckx
As promised in the Untold Ref Review of the game between Arsenal – Newcastle I told that I would explain why I would open a virtual bottle of champagne to celebrate something.
Because this ref review has been the 100th review our ref reviewers have done this season.
Yes that is right 100 reviews of games in the EPL this season. I think an appropriate time to stop for a moment and think back at how it all came this far.
When I started doing the first reviews at the end of the season 2009-2010 I could only dream of doing the Arsenal games. And that is what I did in the season 2010-2011. Only doing Arsenal games.
We then got some people saying that we could not draw any conclusions based on such a small number of games. I did some 50 games in total last year on my own but as said before only Arsenal games. And only 38 games in the PL. And we then asked if there was any other referee that would like to help us. And so we now have a team of 3 ref reviewers here at Untold.
So I would like to take this moment to thank my colleagues ref reviewers. I know what it takes to review a game. I know how much time you have to put in to it. And I would like to apologise for all those times that I came up with a new model that we had to use. And from the rather simple model we used at the start of the season we know have a model that is even wider than most computer screens. I ask the impossible from them but they are doing their best to keep up with my demands. And if you would complain about it I can always point my finger at Dogface who is also very much responsible for what you get to see when a review is published. But later more on our favourite Dog.
I can tell you that our reviewers take their job very serious and that we communicate on things when we have doubt or disagree. And thinking back about those 100 games I think we could say that we agreed on about 95% of the games and reviews without any comment or remark. Sometimes it was just a remark on the method we should use to give points to a certain decision but we also had a few things when we didn’t agree on the decision. And then we did what democrats do and take the majority of votes and that was the decision we used in the review. But the longer the season has gone the less moments we needed to discuss things in fact.
And as this is an Arsenal blog I must also mention that it hasn’t been easy for the ref reviewers all the time. Hard to believe it maybe but we also had our injury troubles. One of our ref reviewers was out for a few weeks but is now getting back. I can also imagine that the wives of the reviewers will have asked to them: what are you again watching football? So let me tell to you my dear reviewers: don’t let the reviews get between you and your wife too much. I know it can be like a virus at times where you want to start or finish a review but we should always remember it is a hobby and not something that should take over our normal live.
But I really thank you my ref reviewers for the hard work. For all that time you have sacrificed for this Untold project. I whish I could do something back to you to show my gratitude but the only thing I can come up with is inviting you to a drink when I come to the game against Aston Villa next week.
Another word of thank should go to the man who goes through live on the internet with the name Dogface. We all have known him from his amazing refwatch articles on Untold where he comes up with the most amazing numbers about a game even before a ball has been kicked. This is the man responsible for the current look of our ref reviews and I think we all agree that it looks so much better than what we had at the start.
Dogface is also working on more things to come that we can use at the end of the season where we should be able to give you more details, graphics, numbers about teams, refs and maybe we could see some links between some teams and refs. And by seeing I don’t just refer to seeing it on the field but also seeing it in some numbers.
So thank you Dogface for helping me out with this and for helping when I need to import some things in to a ref review like images or videos. And for learning me the difference between a database and an Excel file. And for explaining it again when I use the words wrong. And again. It’s all the same for me but then again I just know how to work with it, never mind I even try to understand how it all comes to that. But a big thank to you Dogface for you commitment for the cause. And the invitation to have a drink goes to you too of course. Hope to see you next week.
And last but not least a thank you to the man who without him this would never have happened. I mean no other than Tony Attwood. The man who came up with the idea of Untold is also the founding father of the Untold Ref Review. Not that I think he knew about it when he started Untold. He wanted to start something different. And my boy did he made something different.
I don’t know if he envisaged anything as big as we have today but it was his initial work and his articles that drew us to the Untold Arsenal website. And from the one thing came another and now we have a website that is very unique in the Arsenal blog world. Even in the darkest hours of our Gooner being we can find here a source that will cheer us up. Bring a smile on our face. Make us angry about yet another ref screwing up. On a scale between 0 and 10 this Untold Arsenal blog is having a score of around 50 in supporting the players, the club and of course our manager. And on that same scale we score around -40 when it comes to our feelings for the “authorities that run football”. A bit of anarchists on the internet when it comes to that.
People can look at us, laugh at us but we will carry on doing what we think are good at: being Untold.
At a time like this we should look to the future. And once again we should try do better next season. I hope by the end of the season that we will have something around 130-150 ref reviews. (I still do have a lot to catch up with to be honest) and then we will try to analyse all the data in the Dogface database and look for the hidden things. (Did I use the words correct Dogface?)
But when we think of next season we will try to go further once again. With rather a few people from other clubs coming to our website lately and I would like to thank those who came over in peace and with reasoned comments. Maybe this could be the start of referees who support other teams to join us. Just imagine that one day we would be able to review all the games in the EPL. I know there are refs out there who would join us if they knew about us. The problem is for them to find out about us. So maybe this is something we should be working on towards next season. And if those visiting supporters know a ref just give them a note so they can apply for the job to become a ref reviewer.
So many thanks to all who have helped us. Many thanks to all the people who have asked us questions after the reviews. Because your input as a reader has been of great value for developing the ref reviews. Many thanks once again to the ref reviewers themselves. Many thanks to Dogface and Tony. And finally a very big thank you for the PGMOL, the FA and the refs. Because without those last 3 it wouldn’t be as interesting as it is now.