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Fixture List Generator
by Cad Delworth

Do you ever need to create an 'all-play-all' fixture list? If so, you WILL want to read this page, which describes the pencil-and-paper method and also contains a downloadable Excel spreadsheet which does ALL the work for you!

Introduction

The first time I needed to create an all-play-all fixture list (this was for nine entrants!), I thought it might take me an hour: how wrong can you be? After SEVERAL evenings of work, and a LOT of scrunched-up pieces of paper, my 'eureka!' moment arrived; and I not only had the list I needed, but also a reliable way to create a fixture list for any number of entrants.

Incidentally, I have no idea why this method works (any takers?), but it has always worked for all the numbers of entrants I've tried (up to 23 so far).

The Manual Way (Odd Number Of Entrants)

I'll explain this with an example for five entrants. An 'entrant' can of course be an individual, a pair, or a team. For an odd number of entrants, you need as many rounds of fixtures as entrants: in this case, five.

STEP ONE: Draw a grid of N×N squares, where N is one less than the number of entrants. For our example, this means a 4×4 grid:

       
       
       
       

STEP TWO: Label the top and left of the grid with your entrant names (we'll use A to E for this example). Across the top, start with the first entrant; down the left, start with the second entrant:

A B C D
B        
C        
D        
E        

STEP THREE: Ignore the top half of the grid; that is, the squares to the right of the diagonal. I've greyed these out to show you what I mean:

A B C D
B        
C        
D        
E        

STEP FOUR: Fill in in the grid with Round numbers, starting the top row with 1, the second with 2, and so on. If you go 'over' the total number of Rounds in any row (five in this example), start at 1 again, as shown in the bottom row below.
Here's how the grid looks when it's complete:

A B C D
B 1      
C 2 3    
D 3 4 5  
E 4 5 1 2

STEP FIVE: To compile the fixture list, look for each Round number (1, 2, …) in turn, starting from the top of the first column and working down then across, and write down the team names at the top and left of every square where the Round number appears. In our example, Round 1 has the fixtures AvB and CvE (D doesn't play in Round 1); Round 2 has AvC and DvE with B not playing; and so on.
Here is the complete list of fixtures from the grid above:

ROUND 1
A v B
C v E

ROUND 2
A v C
D v E

ROUND 3
A v D
B v C

ROUND 4
A v E
B v D

ROUND 5
B v E
C v D

The Manual Way (Even Number Of Entrants)

The only two differences if you have an even number of entrants are:

  1. You need one less round than the number of entrants.
    For example, six entrants need five rounds and not six.
  2. When filling in the bottom row of the grid, add two between each square instead of one.
    For example, the bottom row for six entrants would read 5, 2, 4, 1, 3 instead of 5, 1, 2, 3, 4.
    To explain this: the number of rounds is five, five + two = seven which is more than five, so subtract five from seven which gives you two.
    Similarly: four + two = six, subtract five which gives you the answer of one.

The Excel Spreadsheet Version

The manual method is simple enough, but the method is obviously ideally suited to a computer, so I spent a little time creating an Excel spreadsheet version. Before you click the link below to download the spreadsheet, a few disclaimers from the author:

  1. I provide the spreadsheet AS-IS, and YOU assume ALL responsibility for determining its fitness for purpose as well as ALL responsibility for ALL consequences of downloading or attempting to download the spreadsheet and using or attempting to use the spreadsheet, INCLUDING ALL liabilities.
  2. You MAY make and distribute unlimited copies of the spreadsheet, provided that all copies are UNALTERED, that you make NO charges of any kind for distributing or copying the spreadsheet, and that you do not attempt to claim authorship of the spreadsheet.
  3. You may NOT post copies of the spreadsheet online nor make the spreadsheet publically available on the Internet by any other means. You MAY post links to this page on any Web page, but you may NOT post links direct to the downloadable file on this site.
  4. The spreadsheet was written using Excel 2003. It should work with Excel 97 or any later version.
  5. The spreadsheet contains VBA macros. When opening and using the spreadsheet, you WILL see warning dialogs about macro security which you WILL need to respond to in order to use the spreadsheet.

To download and open the spreadsheet, click here.
Internet Explorer users can RIGHT-click the link above, then click Save Target As…

Using the spreadsheet could hardly be simpler: type in the entrant names, then click the button! As it says in the spreadsheet, if you type in the entrant names in alphabetical order, the fixture lists for each 'round' will be created in alphabetical order as well.

You can print out the generated fixtures direct from Excel, or copy and paste them into another application (such as a word processor) if you want to do further work on them. If you want to keep a copy of the spreadsheet with your entrant names intact, save it with a new name.


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