Alex Taylor asked on #askwxm about penalties before the Dagenham game, as at that point we hadn’t had one this season. which was a stroke of genius, because he made it inevitable that we’d be awarded a penalty in that match!
One for @m_griffiths92 #askwxm for Saturday’s game… what’s the longest we’ve gone without being awarded a penalty? We’re on for going the whole season without one I reckon 🤔
— Alex Taylor (@alex94wxm) 8 October 2018
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Perhaps surprisingly, going 15 games into a season without getting a spot kick wasn’t actually particularly unusual, and our run of 20 games without an award which ended at Dagenham was not all that much of an oddity either.
Indeed, last season we had to wait until our 21st game before the ref pointed at the spot for us, ending a sequence of 24 games without a penalty.
Even more frustrating was our start to the 2014-15 season. We were awarded our first penalty of the season in the 19th game, and missed it. We got another in our 21st game, and missed that too. It wasn’t until our 26th game that we actually scored a penalty, when Louis Moult scored from the spot against Aldershot.
Our last penalty was at Eastleigh last April, and since then three have been awarded against us. There’s no conspiracy theory to examine here though, as the statistics suggest that if anything referees are more inclined to give a penalty for us than against us. Over the last seven seasons we’ve been awarded 44 penalties, with 32 given against us.
A further myth to explode is the idea that referees look to even things up after making a potentially match-changing decision. The facts across all of football don’t back that up, and Wrexham games are no different. You have to go back to March 2017 for the last time a referee gave a penalty for us and against us in the same match – both were converted with George Harry scoring to earn a 1-1 draw with Torquay. Since then there have been 12 games when a penalty’s been awarded, and the ref hasn’t balanced it up with one for the opposition.
The same is even more true of red cards. We’ve played 32 games in which a player was sent off with no one dismissed for the other side, going back to a rather spectacular blow-out at home to Altrincham when the referee sent off a visiting player, and then dismissed Louis Moult and Andy Bishop!
DragonHeart 