Penalty Shootout Misery - Again!

Swindon's Woe

Posh's Joy

On Monday 17th February, Swindon Town failed in their bid to get to the  Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final for 2014 when they lost 3 - 4 in a penalty shootout to Peterborough United at the County Ground. There is a myth in this part of the West Country that the club's record in this aspect of deciding the outcome of a match is that they always fail at that particular hurdle, but what is the truth?

Alternative Method?

The excellent website, Swindon-Town-FC.co.uk, is, for me, the definitive source for all statistics and information on Swindon Town - I would go so far as to say it is probably the best "unofficial" website on the internet for any football club as a source of facts and figures, but you be the judge. From the Stat Attack page of the website, a quick glance at the table for Swindon Town's penalty shootout record (Swindon Town Penalty Shootout Table) shows that the club has a success rate of 47.8% in all competitions when it comes to winning the match through this mode of deciding the outcome of a game. With nearly a 50% success rate, this would suggest that, to save the long-suffering Swindon Town fans the stress of having to sit through this "lottery" at the end of a drawn match, both teams may as well call heads or tails and decide the result by the referee tossing a coin.

Did We Win?

Chris Waddle - Italia '90

However, to expand this logic to the National team would prove beneficial to England when facing the prospect of the players having to make the long walk to the penalty spot to attempt to get the country nearer to the holy grail of winning a first major trophy since the World Cup success of 1966. Of the eight penalty shootouts in which England have been involved (England's Penalty Shootouts), only one, England V Spain, Euro '96, has resulted in an England victory. The success rate of 12.5% is woeful for a national side and is probably indicative of how unprepared the England team always is for this aspect of the game.

I appreciate the need for a definitive way of deciding the outcome of a football match and can understand the reason why the penalty shootout is seen as the fair way of arriving at a result. However, this is fine for a match played over one leg such as a knockout competition; if the scores are level after extra time what else is there to do? But, for a match played over two legs, I've always felt that the "away goals" rule was a better and fairer way to judge the best team of the two protagonists. After all, if one team is more attack-minded and scores away from home, then the just reward for their endeavours at the end of a drawn, two-legged match should be to go through to the next round. If this had been the case on Monday, Swindon Town would have been safely through to the final having scored twice at London Road during the first leg of the Area Final against Peterborough United. Perhaps the organisers of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy should consider this for next season.