Updated/republished on 20 December 2025

Introduction

Since I enjoyed messing about with data and ‘R’ formatting with my effort of summarising last seasons excitement of Bath City’s performance (Leeds, 2024), I thought I would do it again for this season.

Not so cluttered as the previous document which was pretty much a test of package functionality, my ability, but also complicated by three managers statistics to include, this year focuses on one team and one manager.

This document will be organic until the end of this season whereby it will be manually updated after each match (when I can). Text and comment will be added as and when, so after the final match everything should make sense. Minor errors and adjustments should be ironed out before the end of the season. The purpose is to visualise the progress of Bath City FC through charts and tables, and various descriptive statistics. If I can, I might even touch on inferential statistics by comparing the whole of last season with this one.

The focus is on scores, scorers and attendances for pre-season, cup, and league matches. In expanding upon these figures for the league: a basic table summary in numbers, management statistics, and home/away attendance breakdowns are included.

Data

This seasons data are from the Bath City FC (2025) fixtures & results web-page. Packages used are Tidyverse (Wickham et al., 2019) for general tidying and the combination plots for each section (using ggplot), LessR (Gerbing, 2025) for manipulating data and for all other plots, tables are formulated with KableExtra (Zhu, 2021).

Pre-season

One less pre-season friendly than last season but no less difficult. In fact, I think the friendlies were a good mix of different league and non-league teams, starting off losing 0:1 away at Taunton Town, and ending on a high by winning at home against Bristol City U21s (4:0).

Figure 1 summarises scores, goals and attendances.

Pre-season summary

Figure 1: Pre-season summary

Wilson scored three of the seven pre-season friendly goals (43%).

Highest home attendance: 2205.

Average home attendance: 974.

Cup-run

Our involvement in the trophy games started on Saturday 13th September with the FA Cup 2nd qualifying round.

Note: This year the Somerset Premier Cup (SPC) competition is renamed as the Francis Hillier Premier Cup (Howe, 2025a). For simplicity it shall remain as SPC throughout this document.

A summary of our progression can be seen in Figure 2.

Cup-run summary

Figure 2: Cup-run summary

So the first match we’re dumped out of the FA Cup by Wimbourne Town! On to the SPC and FA Trophy, then!

15th October: Sweeten, Alves and Ash contributed to the W4-0 over Bridgwater United in the SPC1 home game and join Jenkins-Davies on the cup run score list (see Figure 2; 2.2). Surely a massive confidence boost to the team and supporters alike?.

16th November: Windsor strikes again in a 1-1 home draw leading to a 5-3 win on penalties in the FA Trophy 3rd round. Sees us into the next round of the FA Trophy - furthest we’ve been for a while!

It is noteworthy to add that just before the FA Trophy round 2, Jake Tabor was recalled to Swindon Town ending his loan early (Acklam, 2025), and Scott Wilson is loaned to Weston-Super-Mare (Drury, 2025) until the end of the season!

3rd December: Yeboah scores twice (also claiming the own goal (OG)) in the SPC2 match against Odd Down (Bath) Afc, with Alves and Yeboah adding to the 4:0 final score. Kind of expected against a team four levels below us, but they fought hard and didn’t give up (Howe, 2025c).

13 December: FA Trophy round three sees a 1-1 draw against Dorking, thanks to a wonderful strike by Alves to level. Winning out on penalties - all glory to our young 2nd ’keeper Charlie Binns for saving two of theirs!

Alves scored three of the eleven cup match goals (27%).

Highest home attendance: 805.

Average home attendance: 582.

League

We started off strong in the league this year, though straight losses to Dorking Wanderers (L1-2) and Maidenhead United in a punishing match ending in L0-4 dumped us in position 18, we can bounce back with the right mentality.

Figure 3 visualises the literal “ups-and-downs” of our progress throughout the season.

BCFC NLS league table positions: 25/26 season

Figure 3: BCFC NLS league table positions: 25/26 season

With no game on 27th September due to our early departure from the FA cup competition, other teams are exhausting themselves with additional matches. Let’s see how we fare against Farnborough - another away game on 4th October, so far (29th September) our ‘better’ performances are away from home (D3, W1).

4th October: An away score-draw at Farnborough keeps us at 18th. A better performance, still early days though. Much improvement to be made, especially at home.

19th October: Our unbeaten away form was ruined by Hornchurch who beat us L2-3. At least Ash an Jenkins-Davies added to their tally. We were drawing until a penalty was awarded to them in the dying minutes.

21st October: Back on form with a tidy W2-0 against Afc Totton at home.

2nd November update: Losing away in the final minutes against Hemel Hempstead Town sees us continue on a downward trajectory. Hopeful additions to the squad (Howe, 2025b) will make a future difference. Both debuted as subs at the following home game against Horsham and played well in the short time they had on the pitch. Parselle red-carded for a deliberate hand-ball on the edge of our penalty area. The resulting free-kick awarded them their second goal (L0-2).

4th November: Up another place beating Slough Town away (W3-2). A tense +9 minutes extra time, but we held on.

8th November: A no-score draw against Dagenham & Redbridge at home see us go up one place to 17th.

11th November: Challenging conditions (wet & windy) forced a D1-1 at home to Tonbridge Angels. Could have been 2:1 to us had that 2nd goal not been disallowed due to a foul.

22nd November: Very wet conditions at Hampton & Richmond Borough. However, we secured a W2-1 with a late goal in the last minute of extra time.

25th November: Losing another match in the final minutes, this time L1-2 at Weston Super Mare

29th November: A 1:1 home draw against Enfield Town gains us a point and we rise to position 16 in the table.

6th December: Charlie Binns sees a red card making him the third keeper sent off this season with yet another dubious referee decision. L0-2 away to Maidstone United drops us back to 18th.

17th December: Harry Pell signs from Cheltenham Town (Howe, 2025e). The experienced mid-fielder should make a difference.

20th December: W2-0 at home against Salisbury moves us up one place in the table to 17th.

Score performance

League & Cup matches

Figure 4 highlights the scoreline of all matches in league and cup matches, and indicates how many times a particular score happened.

Distribution of scores (league matches & cup run), home and away

Figure 4: Distribution of scores (league matches & cup run), home and away

League only

League only scores are shown in Figure 5. Not much difference between the two tables (not many cup matches, right?), but these scores accumulated the points for the league table - in some views, more important.

Distribution of league match scores, home & away

Figure 5: Distribution of league match scores, home & away

Overall goal scoring averages

11 December: An additional feature that should have been included from the beginning. To date, in 21 matches, our average scoring rate has not been exceptional. Home (0.8), Away (1.18), Total (1.0). This means that, so far, we’re scoring more goals in away matches than at home. On the other hand, goals against us are slightly higher, although conceding fewer at home (1.3), than away (1.36). The information below will update after each match.

Goals for
Total: 23 goals in 22 matches = average of 1.05
Home: 10 in 11 = 0.91
Away: 13 in 11 = 1.18

Goals against
Total: 28 goals in 22 matches = average of 1.27
Home: 13 in 11 = 1.18
Away: 15 in 11 = 1.36

Goal scoring leaderboard

Who will be awarded the Golden Boot? See Figure 6 for how the scoring leaderboard stands.

Score sheet - league & cup run

Figure 6: Score sheet - league & cup run

14th October: Glad Sweeten entered the goal scoring race with two goals at the Bridgewater SPC1 match; Alves also, both scoring good goals. More of them please.

21st October: Nice to see Parselle enter the scoreboard, nodding in the second goal from a corner. Ash scored the first at the home win against Afc Totton.

4th November: Ash and Jenkins-Davies increased their tally at Slough Town, Tabor got his first goal for BCFC!

11th November: A new addition to the score sheet with Windsor getting his first goal for the club at home against Tonbridge Angels.

16th November: Sees Windsor creeping up the score sheet (2nd goal in FAT2 - see Cup-run section).

22nd November: Tillson enters the Score sheet by ensuring an away win at Hampton & Richmond Borough.

25th November: Jenkins-Davies scores again in a 2-1 loss at Weston Super Mare.

29th November: Windsor increases his tally by scoring against Enfield Town at home.

3rd December: Yeboah enters the race with two against Odd Down (Bath) Afc (one OG - see Cup-run section), Windsor and Alves catching up with the leading scorers.

13th December: Alves creeps up the board to fourth place after finding form at Dorking - see Cup-run section again!

20th December: Windsor’s brace at home to Salisbury makes him joint leader with Jenkins-Davies and Ash, on six goals. Looks like some competition for the Golden Boot this season.

Who scored where?

Figure 7 shows the proportion of goals scored in all matches (league & cup), by each scorer contributing to a draw, loss or win (Fig. 7a), at home and away (Fig. 7b).

Proportion of  total goals by scorer - league & cup runProportion of  total goals by scorer - league & cup run

Figure 7: Proportion of total goals by scorer - league & cup run

The output below compliments the charts in Figure 7: how many goals scored in a draw, loss or win (matching Figure 7a).

## Joint and Marginal Frequencies
## ------------------------------
## 
##                 WLD
## Scorer             D   L   W Sum
##                    2   5   0   7
##   Alves            1   0   2   3
##   Ash              1   1   4   6
##   Beardmore        1   0   0   1
##   Clark            0   1   0   1
##   Fisher           0   1   0   1
##   Jenkins-Davies   0   3   3   6
##   OG               0   0   1   1
##   Parselle         0   0   2   2
##   Raynes           1   0   0   1
##   Sweeten          0   0   2   2
##   Tabor            0   0   1   1
##   Tillson          0   0   1   1
##   Wilson           1   0   0   1
##   Windsor          3   0   3   6
##   Yeboah           0   0   1   1
##   Sum             10  11  20  41

And here: who scored goals at home and away matches (matching Figure 7b).

## Joint and Marginal Frequencies
## ------------------------------
## 
##                HorA
## Scorer           Away Home Sum
##                     3    4   7
##   Alves             2    1   3
##   Ash               3    3   6
##   Beardmore         1    0   1
##   Clark             0    1   1
##   Fisher            0    1   1
##   Jenkins-Davies    5    1   6
##   OG                1    0   1
##   Parselle          1    1   2
##   Raynes            1    0   1
##   Sweeten           0    2   2
##   Tabor             1    0   1
##   Tillson           1    0   1
##   Wilson            1    0   1
##   Windsor           1    5   6
##   Yeboah            1    0   1
##   Sum              22   19  41

Top 3 goal scorers

\(Ash\) \((6)\),
\(Jenkins-Davies\) \((6)\),
\(Windsor\) \((6)\)

Season table summary at 20 December 2025

Played: \(22\) (\(24\) left) | Position: \(17\) | W: \(6\), D: \(7\), L: \(9\) | For: \(23\) | Against: \(28\) | Diff: \(-5\) | Points: \(25\)

Management performance (league only)

Manager Matches Wins Win rate Points Avg Home ATT Min Home ATT Max Home ATT
Darren Way 22 6 27% 25 1069 689 (Tonbridge Angels) 1396 (Salisbury)

Note: Some would say a poor performance so far with a 20% win rate at game 10 (04th October). Let’s see how it changes at game 16 and compare with Jerry Gill’s 25% (4 wins) when he left (see Leeds (2024)), before passing judgement. (Fingers crossed for at least three more wins by then! Two so far at 5th October).

Update 08 November: However, whilst the win rate at game 16 is the same for both seasons (25%), last season (2024/25) we had 15 points in position 20. Today we have 17 points in position 17, so all-in-all, a better performance in comparison. Onwards and upwards, right? We’re not even halfway through the season yet.

17th December: Guess who’s back? Kendall’s back! Lee Kendall, who kept us out of the relegation zone last season, makes a welcome return as Assistant Manager (Howe, 2025d).

Attendance statistics

League and cup matches

Home and away match attendances for all league and cup matches are shown in Figure 8. The output below gives the corresponding descriptive statistics of both attendances.

League attendance, Home and Away (inc. cup run)

Figure 8: League attendance, Home and Away (inc. cup run)

##         n   miss        mean          sd         min         mdn         max
## Away   13      0    1030.769     471.125     451.000     857.000    2028.000
## Home   13      0     993.692     268.363     359.000    1035.000    1396.000

League matches only

Breaking down league only attendances home and away for win/lose/draw outcomes. Descriptive stats for Figure 9 shown in the output below (ordered by highest mean average attendance).

League attendance home and away, win, lose, draw

Figure 9: League attendance home and away, win, lose, draw

##   HorA WLD n na ATT_mean ATT_mdn ATT_sd ATT_IQR ATT_min ATT_max
## 1 Away   D 4  0     1256    1126    588     724     745    2028
## 3 Away   L 4  0     1175    1102    450     456     722    1773
## 6 Home   W 3  0     1117    1035    249     238     919    1396
## 4 Home   L 5  0     1066    1094    112     180     923    1180
## 2 Home   D 3  0     1025    1130    298     284     689    1256
## 5 Away   W 3  0      770     669    380     370     451    1190

League only home attendance

Home attendance for league matches only Figure 10; (and Table 3 which also gives away match figures). The “Index” on the x-axis represents the match number played (example: 5 is the 5th league home-game).

Home attendance, league matches

Figure 10: Home attendance, league matches

Figure 11 shows the distribution of home attendance figures

Distribution of home attendances in league matches

Figure 11: Distribution of home attendances in league matches

Distribution of home game attendance (League)

## 
##          Bin  Midpnt  Count    Prop  Cumul.c  Cumul.p
## -----------------------------------------------------
##   600 >  800     700      1    0.09        1     0.09
##   800 > 1000     900      3    0.27        4     0.36
##  1000 > 1200    1100      5    0.45        9     0.82
##  1200 > 1400    1300      2    0.18       11     1.00
## 
## NA
## NA
## NA
## NA
## NA

Summary of 2025/26 season

A brief summary in table format - the title of each one explains the content.

Table 1: Proportion of league-match outcomes
Distribution Proportion
24 0.52
D 7 0.15
L 9 0.20
W 6 0.13
Table 2: Distribution of league-match outcomes (Home & Away)
Remaining Drawn Lost Won
Away 12 4 4 3
Home 12 3 5 3
Table 3: League matches only - attendance stats
Played Remaining Min Max Sum Mean
Away 11 12 451 2028 12035 1094
Home 11 12 689 1396 11754 1069
Table 4: League matches - Home & Away attendances (Home attendance ordered high to low)
Team Away Home
Salisbury 1190 1396
Dagenham & Redbridge NA 1256
Horsham NA 1180
Dorking Wanderers NA 1156
Enfield Town NA 1130
Chelmsford City NA 1094
Afc Totton NA 1035
Dover Athletic NA 976
Maidenhead United NA 923
Eastbourne Borough NA 919
Tonbridge Angels NA 689
Afc Totton NA NA
Chelmsford City NA NA
Chesham United 857 NA
Chesham United NA NA
Chippenham Town NA NA
Dagenham & Redbridge NA NA
Dorking Wanderers NA NA
Dover Athletic NA NA
Eastbourne Borough NA NA
Ebbsfleet United 1395 NA
Ebbsfleet United NA NA
Enfield Town NA NA
Farnborough 745 NA
Farnborough NA NA
Hampton & Richmond Borough 669 NA
Hampton & Richmond Borough NA NA
Hemel Hempstead Town 722 NA
Hemel Hempstead Town NA NA
Hornchurch 974 NA
Hornchurch NA NA
Horsham NA NA
Maidenhead United NA NA
Maidstone United 1773 NA
Maidstone United NA NA
Maidstone United (Ko 12.30pm) NA NA
Maidstone United (Ko 12.30pm) NA NA
Slough Town 451 NA
Slough Town NA NA
Tonbridge Angels NA NA
Torquay United NA NA
Weston Super Mare 1231 NA
Weston Super Mare NA NA
Worthing 2028 NA
Worthing NA NA

References

Acklam, J. (2025, November 13). Holloway backs Tabor to ’score goals for Swindon’ as he impresses on loan. Swindon Advertiser. https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/25617781.jake-tabor-will-definitely-score-goals-swindon-town/
Bath City FC. (2025). 2025-26 Fixtures & Results. Bath City FC. https://www.bathcityfc.com/2025-26-fixtures-results/
Drury, L. (2025, November 14). Scott Wilson returns to The Optima. https://wsmafc.co.uk/scott-wilson-returns-to-the-optima/
Gerbing, D. W. (2025). lessR: Less Code, More Results (Version 4.5). https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lessR
Howe, S. (2025a, July 16). Somerset Premier Cup renamed in honour of former president. Bath City FC. https://www.bathcityfc.com/somerset-premier-cup-renamed-in-honour-of-former-president/
Howe, S. (2025b, October 31). Player News - Owen Windsor and Matt Bowman join the Romans. Bath City FC. https://www.bathcityfc.com/player-news-owen-windsor-and-matt-bowman-join-the-romans/
Howe, S. (2025c, December 2). Romans put Odd Down to the sword in County Cup win. Bath City FC. https://www.bathcityfc.com/romans-put-odd-down-to-the-sword-in-county-cup-win/
Howe, S. (2025d, December 17). Staff News - Lee Kendall returns to City as assistant manager. Bath City FC. https://www.bathcityfc.com/staff-news-lee-kendall-returns-to-city-as-assistant-manager/
Howe, S. (2025e, December 18). Player News - City sign experienced midfielder Harry Pell. Bath City FC. https://www.bathcityfc.com/player-news-city-sign-experienced-midfielder-harry-pell/
Leeds, S. (2024). Bath City FC statistics 2024/25 season. https://rpubs.com/sleeds50/1317024
Wickham, H., Averick, M., Bryan, J., Chang, W., McGowan, L., François, R., Grolemund, G., Hayes, A., Henry, L., Hester, J., Kuhn, M., Pedersen, T., Miller, E., Bache, S., Müller, K., Ooms, J., Robinson, D., Seidel, D., Spinu, V., … Yutani, H. (2019). Welcome to the Tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686
Zhu, H. (2021). kableExtra: Construct complex table with kable and pipe syntax [Manual]. http://haozhu233.github.io/kableExtra/