Does the following situation sound at all familiar?
You record a bunch of Premier League games on a Saturday and Sunday because you’re too busy (or too asleep) to watch the games live. You avoid the results. You find some time later in the day to watch one or two of the games you’ve recorded. You sometimes end up watching a sucky game – a 0-0 draw for instance. You look at the other results and realise that you had a much better game sitting on your recorder unwatched.
If you’re nodding you’re head right now, I created the website that will come to your rescue.
CleverFootball.com has a page that will give you a rating for each Premier League game, calculated just after the game is finished. You can use this rating to decide which of the recorded games to watch. You can go to CleverFootball.com/ratings safe in the knowledge that you won’t find out any scores from the games – just the ratings.
For example, you may think that Arsenal v Newcastle is going to be the pick of the games this Saturday. But you take a look on the site and see that it only got 5/10, and against all odds, West Ham v Blackburn was rated as an 8. As long as you recorded both games, you can switch your plans and watch the thriller from Upton Park.
This is just the first feature of the site that I’m developing. In the future it will feature innovative news delivery, stats like you’ve never seen, and something special that will make betting on the games more enjoyable – less work and better decisions. Sign-up for the newsletter on the site to be the first to hear about new features and get invite-only access to new parts of the site.
loading...
loading...
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s a fantastic idea Phil and it’s a feature I’ve already used to great success and will plan on using throughout the season for those times when I can’t watch games live.
How is the match ratings calculated? Is it done manually or is it automated – and if the latter, is this something you’ll be revealing (somewhat similar to the algorithms that Google uses for its search engines)?
Congrats Phil on a revolutionary idea.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
loading...
loading...
Cheers, Gaffer.
The ratings are completely automated. The method is fairly simple right now – it just looks at the number of goals and how close the game was. I can refine this over the course of time.
loading...
loading...
I think this is a great idea. I won’t have to resort to asking my girlfriend or friends to give me a vague idea if I should watch the match. If you do this for Champion’s League matches too, I’ll give you my first born.
I’m definitely going to check this out.
loading...
loading...
I’ll definitely see if I can add Champions League matches. It shouldn’t be difficult.
Hey…I think you should sign-up for the mailing list, so I can let you know if it’s available.
loading...
loading...
Great idea….count me in…I’m heading over there to sign up right now…plus I’ll send your link to my football forum mates an all..nice one
Dave
loading...
loading...
Good idea…now I just need the channels that actually carry the games!
loading...
loading...
Fantastic idea. I’ve read epltalk for years, never wrote here, but this is a great tool for determining which game to watch that doesn’t involve your team and with Murphy’s rule going strong, I always seem to pick the wrong game on DVR. Can’t wait to use it! Well done. Cheers.
loading...
loading...
Though I have no means of taping matches, if I did, I would use this website! Kudos on an excellent idea!
What about adding a second score, a user score, for each game? Particularly as you build a fan base, your readers can vote on the strength of the games they’ve seen by the same scale. That way your readers will get the objectively derived score, and the user score, both of which could be useful, but tell you something different. Anyway, best of luck with the continued development of your site!
loading...
loading...
my only concern is i try and over think these things. i dont even like someone telling me it was a good game, because if its 2-0 in the 75th minute, i know somethings about to happen. if i see man utd v hull is rated an 8 does that mean united scored 5 goals or it was a thrilling 1-1? what is the standard ya know? either way, excellent idea and i hope its successful
loading...
loading...
Want to add…
The purist in me is shocked that I would agree that something like this is good…after all, I have been telling my American naysayers that some of the best games of football I have watched over the years have been 0-0 or 1-0 games (ie to an american LOW SCORING)
BUT
with 3 kids and coaching games on the weekends…the trouble and strife gives me the evils sometimes when I disappear for the Saturday or Sunday afternoon to watch 3 games and there she is outside in 100 degree weather, 8 months pregnant and mowing the grass….nahhh just kidding…it was only 98 in the shade
loading...
loading...
What a fantastic idea. I do like the idea that jm added of a user score. If you’ve seen a match, log in and rate it yourself. More info can only help. I’m signing up immediately. I frequently record several matches in one weekend and want to see the most entertaining one, in addition to the Pompey match. Adding Champions League matches would be great too. I always record those and watch them that night.
loading...
loading...
User ratings is something I’ll add in the future when this hits a critical mass.
The problem is that if very few people vote, the ratings are not very useful – mostly colored by whether your team won or not! It would be hard to give an 8 or 9 to a game where your team lost a two goal lead in the final minutes.
But a human element would be great to help differenciate between boring or enthralling low-scoring games.
loading...
loading...
So I guess Bolton will be getting 2s and 3s forever?
loading...
loading...
Phil,
Any chance of expanding this idea to La Liga and Serie A also? This way, football fans can look across all of the major leagues on telly and pick and choose which would be the best matches to watch.
Cheers,
The Gaffer
loading...
loading...