Well, there goes November 2024 – and, for one reason or another, we only managed to tick off two more league matches in the month. Both, as you’ll also recall, ended as draws. This means Boro’ have failed to move the needle much in the space of 30 days either. That said, the month just gone did deliver FA Cup progress at the hands of the mighty Guiseley (just). And another dull international break spared us a likely tonking at Birmingham City.
So, let’s be grateful for what we have – eh?
League One comparison at this stage
The reason for doing these comparisons on a Games Played basis is down to the fact we’re not able to source league tables by date for a lot of our non-league days. Well, perhaps we could try and dig out programmes to help with that. But our experience of a) finding those programmes and b) them being much use is not universally positive. And it’s a huge reason for still having gaps missing in our line-up data.
We could always manually count things up, to be fair. We don’t really need the league table to do all that. Now we’re asking ourselves why we didn’t think of it. Ah well, too late for this season. Maybe next. But we will count up a few selected seasons just to see if 16 fixtures by the end of November is way off piste – starting with previous League One efforts. And, yeah, by the end of November last season alone we’d got through four more league games.
It was 19, 20 and 19 fixtures respectively for 2011, 2012, and 2013.
FACT:
Gary Smith’s 2012-3 side were still riding high in third place – just two points off the summit after 16 fixtures of that particular season. Meanwhile, Graham Westley’s team were teetering on the edge of the drop zone; keeping their heads above water on goal difference at the 16-match stage of the 2013-4 campaign. And, yeah, while Boro’ have never let in fewer goals at this stage of a League One season, we’ve comfortably scored fewer too.
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | GD |
| 2012-3 | 16 | 9 | 5 | 2 | 23 | 17 | 32 | 6 |
| 2023-4 | 16 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 22 | 17 | 26 | 5 |
| 2011-2 | 16 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 22 | 17 | 23 | 5 |
| 2024-5 | 14 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 16 | 19 | -5 |
| 2013-4 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 10 | 15 | 26 | 14 | -11 |
Are there any notable lookalike seasons?
We have two lookalike seasons to compare with at this stage. We don’t want to labour what is becoming a long-running sore point, but there’s actually no comparison when it comes to Goals Scored. Conference or otherwise, Boro’ were approaching the 20-goal milestone by the time 16 matches had been completed in 1997-8. Mark Stimson’s side, meanwhile, had scored for fun in their opening 16 fixtures of the 2006-7 campaign.
FACT:
It was mid-October by the time Boro’ had wrapped up 16 league assignments for the 2006-7 season. Still, we only added four more come the end of November due to the FA Cup.
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | GD |
| 2006-7 | 16 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 29 | 29 | 19 | 0 |
| 1997-8 | 16 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 19 | 22 | 19 | -3 |
The best and the worst after 16 games
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | GD |
| 1993-4 | 16 | 13 | 2 | 1 | 39 | 15 | 41 | 24 |
| 1990-1 | 16 | 12 | 3 | 1 | 47 | 14 | 39 | 33 |
| 1991-2 | 16 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 33 | 16 | 38 | 17 |
Now, having alluded to the fact that we’re somehow behind in our assignments this season, the early 1990s are here to bust that myth. In both 1990 and 1993, we were a mere one game further along at the end of November than we are currently. In 1991, meanwhile, we’d ended the month on 16 fixtures as we have this year. The similarities end there, however, as you’re clearly able to see that we were flying in each of those campaigns. One defeat in 16!
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | GD |
| 2015-6 | 16 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 19 | 30 | 14 | -11 |
| 2021-2 | 16 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 28 | 14 | -16 |
| 2020-1 | 16 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 11 | 16 | 13 | -5 |
| 2019-20 | 16 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 21 | 12 | -9 |
In contrast to the early 1990s, our lowest returns in terms of points after 16 fixtures all have recent feels to them. The three worst-performing campaigns are within the last five seasons, which tells you a lot. There’s also Teddy Sheringham‘s managerial career captured in here, if you were interested. We’d also pay close attention to our goal record in 2020-1 – which is the last time Revs managed us from the start of the season: For, 11. Against, 16.
It’s just a little bit of history repeating…
Main photo: Jim Steele/Stevenage FC
