I’m watching Match of the Day and finding myself wondering when ‘assists’ became a feature of of play which are counted and listed alongside a player’s goals. I also find myself wondering when ‘assist’ became a noun.
It was probably explained in the same email, but I’ve had a lot on recently.
It comes from American football and/or basketball, I think.
I once had an “assist” from an agreeable lady trading as a physiotherapist, but I suspect this falls outside of your enquiry.
I think ‘assists’ have long been a concept in ice-hockey, haven’t they?
Do we have any big hockey fans on this board who can confirm?
Ask the Swedish contingent.
I can confirm that they are indeed a longstanding part of ice hockey and up to two assists can be awarded per goal.
Wayne Gretzky, the top points scorer in NHL history, scored 894 goals and 1,963 assists in his NHL career.
Goal line/VAR technology has also been part of hockey for a while with football seemingly a bit slow on the uptake for that too.
Perfectly explained. Mind you, so it should be for a man who’s watched for a man who’s watched literally hundreds of games of ice hockey over the years… 🙂
For a little more fact based info, goals and assists are both counted for one “point” to each player, and ice hockey goals can be unassisted, or have one or a maximum of 2 assists. The assists go to the player(s) from the same team who touched the puck immediately before the goal scorer. So, if #23 passes to #25, who passes to #47, who scores, the goal is scored by 47, assisted by 25 and 23. (There is the idea of a “primary” and “secondary” assist, but they are essentially the same thing and held in the same regard, undifferentiated).
This makes for interesting situations if, say, a player just “dumps” the puck and skates off for a line change (ice hockey is based on unlimited player substitutions, even when the puck is “live”) the goal scorer can chase the puck in and somehow gets a goal where the initial player may be already sat down on the bench by then. They’d still get an assist as above though. See also player 1, who taps the puck to player 2 behind his own goal. Player 2 then skates the length of the rink, goes round every opposition player twice and scores. Goal scored by 1, assisted by 2; one point each…
Start of the Premier League and the rise of Fantasy Football.
A convenient way of expanding point scoring for more than just scoring.
Other FF scoring methods (certainly in SkySports version).
Tackles
Passes completed
Best celebration
I blame Opta statistics analysing everything and turning the game into a science rather than an art (and I use the term loosely)
Yes I think it first came in when Fantasy Football started. Following the dull 1994 World Cup Final where the game was a cautious 0-0 after 120 minutes and then decided on penalties (Diana Ross had a disaster) there was a thought that corners won could decide a drawn game because the team who had won more of them were, in theory, the most attacky. This would have been a bad idea because winning a corner would become the new “goal” towards the end of a tight game.
In rugby, the whole point of the game originally was to kick conversions. No points were won for getting the ball on or over the try line. You just got the chance to “try” a kick over the posts and score points.
I remember assists being a big thing when I did fantasy football. It made it worth picking a player who didn’t score many but was the favoured corner taker.
At some point it seemed to stop being important but now they are all talking about it again.
Attacky? As in Attacky breaky heart?
No, as in Return of the Mack(y)
The Fantasy Football scoring thing makes sense, but I swear I had never heard the term before this season when it started cropping up as if it was a universally understood bit of jargon. Maybe it was but I just hadn’t been paying attention for the last couple of decades.
FF is only a part. Anything that can be counted is being. As well as FF the rise of computer-based analytical programmes like prozone has been a major factor, as endorsed by Big Sam who my children think has Craig Shakespeare trapped in a bunker beneath Goodison Park watching Everton matches on a permanent loop, a bit like Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange. On the transfer side we have the ‘moneyball’ myth – identifying overlooked players through yet more number crunching.
So we have:
Key Passes (the pass before the Assist!)
Total passes (MCFC have been turning this up to 11 this season)
Interceptions, tackles etc on the defensive side
Metres run
And so on…
And the utterly baffling ‘Expected Goals’ which tells you that a match which finished 0-0 should really have finished 3-2. Which MOTD show in a sheer ‘stat for the sake of it’ approach.
My favourite bit is the players tweets which are a deathless combination of being gutted, going again and letting the fans down.
Prozone also gauges how far over the moon each player is, and the quantity of Aston Martins and Bentleys they are likely to accrue with potential future contrscts
Future drink-drive convictions and nightclub brawls?
Endless possibilities.
Thanks, Chris. Next up we’re off of to The Silk Lounge in Chelsea, and we joint the action when the DJ is has decided to put Stormzy on. Which side is going to find out that they’re big for their boots?
Och Shite! In Mae Dae ye tuke the pleeyerz kat after tha geem and wroong it oot tae mazhure hae mach blood, sweat and muck waz innit.
And ya’d batter hev moor o’ th’ather falla’s blood in yer shoorts than yar ain!
P.S. one stat that does reveal a great deal is good old goal difference.
At the close of play today, among the Premier League teams, only the “new firm” top 6 have a positive goal difference..
Could be that weakened teams come out against the top ones – this what happens in La Liga when facing the big clubs. Getting points by winning games against your peers is more achievable/important than going hell-for-leather with your best team against a Barca or Real Madrid.
Bring back goal average, I say. It all started going downhill when they got rid of it in favour of the new tangled goal difference….
When it started going downhill – there’s a list
Like when they replaced the dramatic clack of the teleprinter with the blinking cursor of the vide-printer
When everyone (except Jack Charlton) stopped pronouncing Ajax as if they were the company team of the bathroom grit pedlars and started using the same soft “J” when saying Juventus.
When commentators stopped using crackly phone lines to spout their inanities
etc
When the last light blue invalid car was parked up near the corner flag.
When Coventry City mowed circles on their pitch, rather than stripes.
When Keith Weller of Leicester City wore tights on a cold day.
When people had “other things to do” rather than stop to watch the FA Cup Final.
When the first board of logos appeared behind the manager at the post-match interview.
When the presentation of a trophy started to involve a hastily constructed stage on the pitch.
When clubs began adding stars to their crests.
When each player appears from the tunnel accompanied by a child in full kit, holding a ball.
It’s the Americanization of sport. Everything can be categorized and then used as data. And boy is America sport full of useless information.
“Assists from his left foot from outside the box”
“Most assists against a team in Blue beginning with M since 2007″… that sort of thing.
Don’t care. Goals for. Goals against. That’s what matters
I always thought the obsession with endless micro stats began with cricket..?