The round-robin in two lines
A round-robin is a league where every team plays every other. Home and away means playing each of them twice, once on each ground. It is the format of almost every fantasy league, and the easiest to get wrong when drawn by hand.
The method used for a century is always the same: fix one team and rotate all the others around it, like the hands of a clock. At each turn you pair the teams facing each other. It is tedious by hand and impossible to get wrong by machine: no team can appear twice on the same matchday, by construction.
The classic hand-drawn mistake is exactly that: around matchday six or seven someone ends up in two fixtures at once, and it is noticed once the season has started.
How many matchdays
With an even number of teams, the first half has one matchday fewer than the number of teams: eight teams play seven, or fourteen with the return. Ten teams play nine and eighteen; twelve play eleven and twenty-two.
With an odd number there are as many matchdays as teams, because one rests each week: five teams play five, or ten with the return.
It is worth doing that sum before signing people up, because it decides how long the season lasts. An eight-team league home and away ends around matchday fourteen — early December.
The draw, and how to make it credible
The calendar depends on the order the teams are written in: change the order and you change who meets whom on matchday one. That is why the draw is not cosmetic, and is better done in front of everyone.
The simplest way is to shuffle the order with the button on this page while the others watch, and print the result straight away. A calendar decided by one person and sent by chat the next day always produces the same comment.
If the league was born from an auction, the natural moment is the end of that evening: everyone is already there and the names are already chosen.
Odd numbers: the bye
With an odd number of teams, one sits out each matchday. That is not a technical problem but a sporting one: whoever rests scores no points, and in total-points standings that distorts everything.
There are three sensible answers. Play on average points rather than totals. Assign the resting team a conventional result. Or, cleanest of all, find one more team.
Whatever you choose, decide it before matchday one and write it in the rules. Deciding at matchday six, once someone has noticed they are worse off, is the shortest path to a league that falls apart.
Home and away, or single round
The return leg is the first half with the grounds swapped: whoever was at home on matchday one is away on the first matchday of the return. It is the convention everywhere and makes the second half predictable.
In fantasy football home or away usually changes nothing, because there is no home advantage. It is still worth recording: it decides who chooses in a tie in knockout formats, and matters if your league gives the home team a bonus.
If the league started late and few matchdays remain, a single round is a legitimate choice: a short season that finishes beats a long one abandoned in March.
If a team drops out mid-season
It happens nearly every year. There are two options: remove the team and void every match already played against it, or leave it in the table with a conventional result for the remaining matchdays.
The first is fairer and more work, because the table has to be recalculated. The second is simpler but hands easy points to whoever had yet to face them.
The practical advice is to write which one applies before you need it. A rule agreed in advance is a rule; agreed afterwards it is a grievance.
