football predictions since 1979
FPA RECORDS
Historic Records

ALL TIME WINNERS' BOARD

The All Time Winners' Board is being compiled and will appear soon. This will show all titles and other information, like how long members have been predicting so what their success rate is compared to their time in FPA.

Seven members have achieved 'Classic Status', winning the 6 classic/historic titles of 2 leagues (JPSL, RL) and 4 cups (FAC, JPLC, EC, DBGT), and the years they were achieved:

CLASSIC STATUS
1997M.PHILLIPS
2000M.GRUNWELL
2006J.PHILLIPS
2007G.GRUNWELL
2009F.GRUNWELL
2012M.WILLING
2017E.GRUNWELL

We look forward to having some more join this exclusive club!

Mark Grunwell is the only person to have won every major top flight title of 4 leagues (JPSL, RL, ESL, MCL) and 4 cups (FAC, JPLC, EC, DBGT). This is known as 'Super Classic Status'.

SUPER CLASSIC STATUS
2017M.GRUNWELL

This is the most exclusive club of all, currently with only one member! However there are six others who are close.

7 out of 8
Others chasing Super Classic Status of the 8 established titles:

Mike Phillips, Glen Grunwell, Fiona Grunwell need the ESL
Elliott Grunwell, Matt Willing need the MCL
Daniel Grunwell needs the EC, which would give him both Classic and Super Classic status


OVERALL WINNERS

TOP 10 All-time Title Winners

Here are the top 10 all time title winners of combined leagues and cups. Obviously some have been predicting longer and others are no longer predicting (passed away or retired from FPA). Mark Grunwell is the all-time highest title winner with 60 leagues and cups.

1M.Grunwell60
2M.Phillips34
3F.Grunwell29
4G.Grunwell20
5J.Phillips14
6M.Willing13
7E.Grunwell10
D.Grunwell10
8B.Roberts-Jones6
9D.Boston5


LEAGUES

TOP 10 League Winners - Top Tier Only*

1M.Grunwell33
2M.Phillips21
3G.Grunwell12
4F.Grunwell 9
5D.Grunwell7
6J.Phillips 6
7E.Grunwell4
B.Roberts-Jones 4
The Sun 4
8M.Willing 3

* FPA Premier League, not including the former FPA Division One (Tier Two)

TOP 10 League Winners - All Leagues*

1M.Grunwell33
2M.Phillips21
3G.Grunwell12
4F.Grunwell 10
5D.Grunwell7
6J.Phillips 6
7E.Grunwell 5
M.Willing 5
9B.Roberts-Jones 4
The Sun 4

* FPA Premier League and the former FPA Division One (Tier Two)

127 amateur and professional members have attempted to win a league:

SL/JPSL 38 seasons, 14 members have won; 13 amateurs and 1 professional
RL 35 seasons, 13 members have won; 9 amateurs and 4 professionals
ESL 11 seasons, 8 members have won; 7 amateurs and 1 professional
MCL 9 seasons, 6 members have won (amateur only league)


League Double Winners: Standard League and Results League, same season

1M.Grunwell5
2M.Phillips3
3J.Phillips2
B.Roberts-Jones2
4E.Grunwell1
G.Grunwell1
F.Grunwell1

For the former FPA Division One Standard and Results Leagues, Matt Willing was the only person ever to win the double.

League Winners in a Debut Season

J.BurrluckStandard League Premier1980-1981
D.BostonStandard League Premier1988-1989
B.Roberts-JonesStandard League Premier1990-1991
B.Roberts-JonesResults League Premier1990-1991
K.MorganStandard League Division One1996-1997
N.KeohaneResults League Division One1996-1997
E.GrunwellStandard League Division One1999-2000
F.GrunwellResults League Division One2000-2001
M.WillingStandard League Division One2001-2002
M.WillingResults League Division One2001-2002

Note that the MCL is a league based on qualification from the previous season's performance in the Standard League/Joyce Phillips Standard League. This means this league cannot be won in a debut season.

Everyone is entered into the JPSL, Results League, and European Super League, so these leagues could be won in a debut season.


Success in Europe
Mark Grunwell is the only member to have won both European titles - the EC and ESL - in the same season. In fact he has done it twice.

Three other members have won both European titles but in different seasons:

Jason Blackford
Elliott Grunwell
Matt Willing

As the ESL is a relatively new title, now running for 11 years, we expect more members to join this additional exclusive FPA club.


Here are all the Professional league winners. Though we sometimes do enter professionals into cups to make up the numbers, no Professional has ever won an FPA cup. This table then is only league titles. Premier League titles have priority over the former FPA Division One.

TOP Professionals


1The Sun (UK Newspaper)4
2News of the World (UK Newspaper)2*
3Sunday Express (UK Newspaper)1
Sunday Mirror (UK Newspaper) 1
Daily Mail (UK Newspaper) 1
Mark Lawrenson (UK BBC Commentator) 1
4Predict Z (Online Tipster) 1**
5Poolswinner Gold (Algorithm/Software) 1*

* FPA former Division One RL (Tier Two)
** ESL


CUPS

TOP 10 (13) Cup Winners

1M.Grunwell27
2F.Grunwell19
3M.Phillips13
4J.Phillips8
G.Grunwell8
M.Willing8
5E.Grunwell5
6A.Springate4
K.Mowad4
7D.Springate3
D.Grunwell3
S.Almudaris3
M.Crossley3


98 amateurs and 2 professionals have attempted to win a cup:

18 amateurs have won the LC/JPLC
13 amateurs have won the EC
18 amateurs have won the FAC
20 amateurs have won the GT/DBGT


Cup Winners in a Debut Season

M.OliverGroup Trophy1990-1991
P.SlaterLeague Cup1992-1993
M.WillingLeague Cup2000-2001
J.GrunwellGroup Trophy2004-2005
T.BammekeFA Cup2020-2021
J.KnightGroup Trophy2021-2022

Note that since the League Cup/Joyce Phillips League Cup is now qualification only, based on the previous season's cup performance, it is not possible to win this in a debut season anymore.

Note also that for many years the European Cup was a qualification cup based on titles won in the previous season, and now it is based on qualification from the ESL. This is why no-one has ever won it in their debut season, and will not be able to do so in future.

Only the F.A.Cup and Group Trophy/Dave Boston Group Trophy can be won by a debutant.


Results League Performance and Analysis
This refers to the FPA Top Flight league only, i.e. old First Division pre-1992, and Premier League from 1992

TOP 10 Results League Finishing Percentages

There have been over 100 finishing performances achieving the benchmark 50% success rate. Here are the top 10 all-time scores, with the season year. Updated May 2023.

1M.Grunwell59.032016-2017
2M.Phillips58.052013-2014
3M.Grunwell56.931989-1990
4E.Grunwell56.892007-2008
5M.Grunwell56.572018-2019
6M.Phillips56.442007-2008
7M.Grunwell56.042013-2014
8M.Phillips55.892018-2019
9The Sun55.852016-2017
10J.Phillips55.682005-2006

Mark Grunwell's amazing title-winning 56.93% in the 1989-1990 season looked like it would never be beaten or even challenged, however in 2007-2008 Elliott Grunwell almost did it, when he won the Results League title with 56.89%, just 0.04% behind Mark's record. The magical 57% looked like it would never be beaten and Mark's figure stood for nearly a quarter of a century.

Then in 2013-2014, Mike Phillips not only passed this milestone but demolished Mark's 24 year old record, with 58.05%. That looked like a record that might stand for another quarter century, but within three seasons Mark finished with 59.03%, pushing the figure up by almost a whole percent and reclaiming his top spot as the highest all-time Results League finish.

These top 10 are quite impressive and hard to achieve, all at 55.68% or over. Mark Grunwell has four entries in this exclusive table; Mike Phillips has three. The other amateur entries are Elliott Grunwell and Joyce Phillips with one each. Only one Professional makes the top ten with one entry, The Sun; The Sunday Mail was pushed out of the top ten in 2018-2019.

Complete list of all 50% scores to follow.

Most Seasons Achieving 50% or More

1M.Phillips16
2M.Grunwell15
3F.Grunwell13
4G.Grunwell12
5E.Grunwell10
6The Sun9
7D.Grunwell8
M.Willing8
8Sunday Express6
9M.Crossley5
J.Phillips5
10K.Mowad4
B.Roberts-Jones4
11S.Almudaris3
F.Khalid3
M.Lewis3
I.Milligan3
R.Salter3
M.Starling3
Sunday Times3
W.Hughes3
12D.Boston2
J.Grunwell2
Daily Mail2
Sunday Mail2
Sunday Mirror2
K.Morgan2
D.Thompson2
T.Bammeke2
W.Hughes2
J.Knight2


The following have all achieved one season of 50%:
J.Blackford, A.Foster, M.Hayas, M.Konfektov, D.Sancto, Foot Stats, Rezilta

Most Consecutive Seasons Achieving 50% or More

1F.Grunwell7
M.Grunwell7
2D.Grunwell6
Sunday Express6
3J.Phillips5
4M.Crossley4
M.Phillips4
5G.Grunwell3
M.Lewis3
K.Mowad3
Sunday Times3
M.Willing3
6E.Grunwell2
F.Khalid2
I.Milligan2
Sunday Mirror2
R.Salter2
S.Almudaris2
T.Bammeke2
J.Knight2


All Time/Career Averages
All Time Average is naturally enough based on the number of completed seasons in the top flight (old Division One and current Premier League) Results League. You need two completed seasons to acquire an average.

The problem with the all-time averages method is that for those who have only ever competed in the minimum number of seasons to qualify, they may have an artificially low or high career average.

For example, the 1980s and the early 1990s produced a number of low scoring RL percentage seasons, even for the 'top' predictors, whereas in the 2000s there have been many higher scoring years.

Take as an example, Sami Almudaris who currently has an excellent career average based on five complete seasons from 2016-2017, with 51.28% - in fact, Sami is now number 1 on the all-time career averages of 59 predictors since 1980-1981, both amateur and pro, who have completed more than one season. Members also have to have predicted to within 3 weeks' worth of the end of the season. This adjustment removes all those percentages from members who stopped predicting early in the season or missed too many weeks, giving them an artificially high score.

The earlier years of the FPA, especially the 1980s and 1990s, produced very low Results League percentages, whereas the 2000s, especially the last 5-10 years, has produced much higher percentages - except for these last two seasons affected by the global pandemic.

Compare Sami Almudaris to Mark Grunwell, who has 35 seasons of top flight finishes, and an all-time average of 49.94. But for the same five year period as Sami, Mark''s average is higher at 53.88, because all the low score years from the 1980s-1990s, a disadvantage to long standing member averages, have been removed. It is certainly not an exact science.

Here are all the all-time (formerly called career) averages for amateur and professional predictors who have completed more than one season in the top (Premier) Results League (some members may have spent some of their career time in the former Division One, based on Championship games). Bear in mind the comments as above with the comparison between Sami Almudaris and Mark Grunwell. See all the section below on Four Year Averages.

All Time Averages - percentages and number of completed seasons in brackets (to May 2022 - to be updated in 2024):

1Mark Crossley51.22(7)
2Khalid Mowad50.57(6)
3Sami Almudaris50.30(6)
4Fiona Grunwell50.10(21)
5Mark Grunwell50.00(36)
6Misha Konfektov49.80(2)
7Rob Salter49.54(5)
8Matt Willing49.42(20)
9Tope Bammeke49.30(2)
10Elliott Grunwell49.16(22)
11Sunday Express (UK Newspaper)49.14(12)
12Moteb Hayas49.05(4)
13Daniel Grunwell49.02(16)
14Mike Phillips48.94(36)
15Matthew Starling48.72(6)
16Sunday Mail (UK Newspaper)48.70(14)
17Danny Thompson48.56(8)
18Ian Milligan48.44(11)
19Rezilta (Online Tipster)48.14(3)
20Sunday Mirror (UK Newspaper)48.124(5)
21Mark Lewis48.121(8)
22Foot Stats (Online Tipster)47.98(8)
23Barry Roberts-Jones47.90(11)
24Glen Grunwell47.76(34)
25Joseph Grunwell47.74(5)
26Alan Foster47.52(5)
27Fakhar Khalid47.39(7)
28Daily Mail (UK Newspaper)47.28(12)
29Joyce Phillips47.12(23)
30Jason Blackford47.01(7)
31The Sun (UK Newspaper)46.97(35)
32Will Hughes46.84(7)
33Tina Keen46.20(3)
34PredictZ (Online Tipster)46.13(7)
35Sunday Times (UK Newspaper)45.60(16)
36Mark Oliver45.40(3)
37Daily Express (UK Newspaper)45.25(6)
38Sunday Telegraph (UK Newspaper)44.883(8)
39Dave Boston44.875(24)
40Daily Mirror (UK Newspaper)44.58(10)
41Dave Sancto43.952(5)
42Arron Springate43.945(6)
43Khalid Aldhamen43.92(5)
44Rob Slater43.36(3)
45Ted Phillips43.33(3)
46The Telegraph (UK Newspaper)43.30(7)
47The Sunday People (UK Newspaper)43.06(9)
48Ken Morgan43.03(19)
49Richard Wellings42.68(6)
50News of the World (UK Newspaper)42.55(10)
51The Independent (UK Newspaper)42.33(4)
52The Times (UK Newspaper)42.30(5)
53Darren Sherman41.38(3)
54Darren Parker40.97(2)
55Paul Burch40.73(4)
56Ian Humphries40.27(4)
57Mike Sherman39.99(5)
58Dennis Springate39.85(10)
59Evening Standard (UK Newspaper)39.12(4)
60Crossfire (TV Tipster)38.98(2)
61Oracle (TV Tipster)38.38(5)
62Vic Hatherley38.12(4)


The qualification criteria is two complete seasons. Why are there only 62 names when FPA has had over 120 members across all the seasons? Because firstly some members only predicted one season or less (partial season) then left the FPA. Secondly, some members only participated in our lower tier division, in the era when we had a two tier league system (1994 to 2002), never were promoted to the top flight, and left the FPA before we reverted to just one division/league based on EPL only. The 62 names you see above is anyone who completed two years in the top flight, predicting the former Division One and the current Premier League.

Vic Hatherley (Black Horse era) has the lowest all-time career average of both amateur members and all members, with 38.12% from 4 seasons.

Dennis Springate, second from bottom of the amateurs with 39.85% from 10 seasons was on 50% in his comeback season but did not complete the year (due to his son Arron leaving the FPA, and he used to collect Dennis' predictions), else his average would be higher - at least, into the low 40s.

The lowest all-time career average for a professional is Oracle (a former TV teletext-style pundit, along with Crossfire another TV predictor, the second worst professional), with 38.38% from 5 seasons.

It should be noted that Vic, Dennis, Oracle and Crossfire were all active in the late 1980s to the early 1990s, a period when average percentages were much lower than today.

To improve your all-time average, you obviously need to score a higher percentage in a current season than your overall average listed here.


Updated for 2021-2022, to be updated for 2022-2023
A better way to look at overall predicting performance is to attempt to standardise finishing year percentages (or 'normalise' in scientific terms) and there's more than one way to do this.

The first way to do a more realistic comparison is to take everyone's results percentage for the last number of consecutive years when new members joined.

For example, we had some new members join FPA in the 2020-2021 season, but they have obviously only completed two seasons so will only have an average based on just the last two years.

So we go back two seasons for the last influx of new members, since two is the minumum we can average for. If no new members joined in the future seasons, we'd compare averages going back the number of seasons that we can compare. Example: let's say the last new FPA members joined five years ago; we could then run a five year average comparing everybody's last five seasons of averages.

Currently two is the furthest we can go back then. The table is smaller since it can only show those who have predicted the last two seasons, but it now looks quite different:

Current Two Year Average (to 2022-2023):
1D.Grunwell52.36
2M.Grunwell51.86
3E.Grunwell51.56
4K.Mowad51.50
5F.Grunwell51.23
6G.Grunwell50.78
7J.Knight50.77
8M.Phillips50.47
9T.Bammeke50.39
10W.Hughes50.08
11M.Crossley49.96
12R.Salter49.47
13M.Willing49.27
14M.Starling48.77
15A.Foster46.26
16J.Blackford45.85
17Predict.Z42.95



The second method is to take the two best high scores for each member from all their FPA complete seasons, and compare those with the those who have only completed two years - since apart from the 2021-2022 season, where two new members joined (Jacob Knight and Will Rajan), all current members have predicted two seasons or more. Note that some former member members will show in this table, if they predicted a minimum two seasons

Best Four Seasons Averaged (to 2017-2018): This is still showing old data for four years average and is due to be updated for 2022-2023 season end
1Mark Grunwell57.98
2Mike Phillips57.25
3Elliott Grunwell56.23
4Joyce Phillips55.40
5Glen Grunwell55.21
6The Sun (Newspaper)54.81
7Fiona Grunwell54.63
8Sunday Mail (Newspaper)54.29
9Matt Willing54.05
10Sunday Express (Newspaper)52.78
11Ian Milligan52.64
12Khalid Mowad52.50
13Danny Thompson52.32
14Sunday Times (Newspaper)52.28
15Will Hughes51.21
16Daniel Grunwell51.14
17Joseph Grunwell50.96
17Sunday Mirror (Newspaper)50.96
19Sami Almudaris50.73
20Dave Boston50.72
21Mark Crossley50.71
22Daily Mail (Newspaper)50.69
23Barry Roberts-Jones50.66
24Ken Morgan50.34
25Rezilta (Online)49.84
26Foot Stats (Online)49.28
27Fakhar Khalid49.24
28Dave Sancto48.52
29Predict Z (Online)48.31
30Daily Express (Newspaper)48.30
31Sunday Telegraph (Newspaper)47.70
32Daily Mirror (Newspaper)47.56
33Tina Keen47.42
34Matthew Starling47.35
35Arron Springate47.03
36The Telegraph (Newspaper)47.00
37News of the World (Newspaper)46.60
38Jason Blackford46.50
39Ted Phillips46.33
40Sunday People (Newspaper)46.31
41Mark Oliver46.14
42The Times (Newspaper)45.59
43Richard Wellings44.32
44The Independent (Newspaper)43.90
45Dennis Springate43.16
46Mike Sherman42.90
47Ian Humphries42.41
48Vic Hatherley42.29
49Darren Sherman42.17
50Paul Burch41.79
51Oracle (TV)41.77
52Darren Parker40.97
53Evening Standard (Newspaper)40.70
53Crossfire (TV)39.98


A familiar pattern begins to emerge with many of the same names appearing in the top 10 of the last two tables which more accurately reflects overall performance, rather than merely two good seasons of predicting. Now all the long standing members are more accurately compared to those who have predicted only the more recent higher scoring years.

Of course, over time, given enough seasons for the newer members, their averages should equalise, since not every season will be a high scoring (say 50% plus) one.

These latter tables also give a chance for former members with a good predictions history (title winners or regular high placings) such as Joyce Phillips, Barry Roberts-Jones and so on, to be better represented.

As mentioned above, recent seasons, certainly since the 2000s, have been 'easier' to achieve a higher season's score, evidenced by all the 50%+ years. This puts good predictors no longer with us (either left the FPA or passed away) at a disadvantage as they can obviously never improve their average; likewise, current members who predicted through many 'lean' seasons of the 1980s and 1990s need a better way to be compared with more recent members to the FPA who have had two or more good years.

This means there are past predictors who were very good at it (such as Barry Roberts-Jones and Joyce Phillips) still come out poorly in any comparison with today, even using two year averages.

The best way to compare then is not in absolute values but in relative ones. A better indicator of how good someone's RL season was is to work out the average for the Results League for each table of the last day of each season. Then work out how many % above the average the winner was. We can get an overall average of a member's average above or below the background average. This would give us a 'standardized' way to compare past and present member performances regardless of whether it was a higher or lower scoring season. These stats will appear here in time.


Finally, this one is more for fun and interest. Instead of individuals, all family/related winners grouped, including husband/wife 'teams'. Obviously there needs to be a minimum of two family members, and a minimum of one title win, to get into this table.

TOP Families

1Grunwell126
2Phillips49
3Springate8
4Wallbank 3
5Williams 1
Sherman 1
Keohane/Slater 1

1: Mark (60), Fiona (24), Glen (20), Elliott (10), Daniel (10), Joseph (2)
2: Mike (34), Joyce (14), Ted (1)
3: Arron (4), Dennis (4)
4: Matt (3), Mark (0)
5: Tony (1), Neil (0)
5: Darren (1), Mike (0)
5: Nina Keohane (1), Rob Slater (0)





HISTORIC RECORDS

Here are all the competitions for each season:
(currently we only have a sample from a few years, but over time all the seasons' records will be added here)








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