Home advantage is a thing when it comes to football.
Teams routinely win more matches at home than they do away.
There’s probably a whole host of reasons for that including not having the waste energy travelling (needs research on whether a team wins more matches that are nearest to home and loses more that are further away), the familiarity of the home strip (the colour of shorts and shirts that is relatively constant at home and varied away) and just the comfortable reality of being in a place where you are used to your surroundings and the people in them.
This brings us to people.
Most football teams have more of their supporters watching them when they are playing at home than when they are playing away.
Take as an example the team I support (Sheffield Wednesday): when they play at home they have about 25,000 fans watching them. When they play away they will be lucky to be allocated more than 3,000 tickets for the fans who want to travel to see them.
I reckon that people have minds that subtly influence the things around them according to their wants, needs and desires. When you get 25,000 people together in a small space who all want the same thing then that thing is more likely to happen. In this case, that things is for their football team to a) score goals and b) not let the other team score goals. These, when you look at the statistics (which, of course, never lie) is what happens. More goals are scored at home and fewer goals are conceded at home. Consequently, teams win more games at home than they do away from home.
Sure, other factors come into play too. Even the best teams have purple patches where they can’t score goals for toffee. But even during a bad spell the stats still show that, on balance, more goals are scored and more matches won at home.
People Power sucks the ball into the opposing team’s net. Mind Power shields the home goal from being invaded. Psychic Power wins football matches. Stats don’t lie. Up the Owls! WAWAW.
Robert C Day 