Thorold Charles Reep went to RAF Henlow, the first UK parachute test center, which was used back in World War I, as a recruit in 1928. Sir Frank Whittle, the jet-engine inventor, studied there before his claim to fame. Nevertheless, RAF Henlow is known better as the place where Charles Reep had a spark of imagination that led to football analysis.
Reep was often stereotyped as a game-ruining maniac by some football fanatics, but that is not the case. His analysis of the game helped him uncover the most efficient attacking style of the play.
Charles Reep was born in Cornwall in 1904. When he was young, Reep became a fan of the Plymouth Argyle, a British football club. At age 24, Reep became an accountant for the RAF and was posted to Henlow. His love for the Plymouth Argyle continued, but he worked too far to watch Argyle’s home games, so instead, he went to Highbury to watch the Arsenal football club.
Coincidentally, Arsenal captain Charles Jones gave two lectures on football tactics at RAF Henlow, Reep’s workplace, in 1932. His speech inspired Reep to gather data from matches and analyze them. His first attempt was named a ‘Tactic Crime Chart.’ Reep also created a system to grade the difficulty of a shot around the goal. The plan was an early version of the xG metric used widely today.
Reep was posted to Iraq in 1936 and in charge of the RAF football team. He used tactics that Charles Jones had explained in his three-hour lectures, and the results were noticeable. His experiments, however, had to be stopped temporarily due to some conflicts at Iraq.
At the same time, Reep continued collecting and analyzing football data, advancing the unique shorthand method he had devised at Henlow and applying it to as many First Division games as possible.
In later years, when he started collecting data again, he found multiple vital pieces of information on the game. Seven of nine goals resulted from three passes or less; moves starting with a receipt from your half resulted in a goal being twice as likely to be scored compared to short passes. Also, most goals came from ‘regained possession,’ a way of winning back the ball in the attacking quarter of the pitch.
Throughout the years, he found out even more critical pieces of data. According to his data, it took nine shots to score a goal. Three ‘Reachers,’ what Reep called getting the ball into the final quarter, were needed on average to achieve a score. Using this information and the previous, a team must reach the attacking quarter 27 times to score.
In early 1951, Reep’s RAF team was winning almost every match. Jackie Gibbons, the Brentford manager, was looking for help for his Second Division side, which was failing. His team had no more confidence, and he had no money. He had heard, however, of Reep and his team, who had recently won 12-1. Later, Reep found himself as the team coach.
Brentford was 16th in Division Two. They had not won as visitors since September.
However, a Football League team took Reep’s advice for the first time, and the Bees won 3-0. Next match, 4-0.
“An unbelievable and instant success,” Reep had commented.
Later in his life, through the 1960s and 1970s, he would continue his journey of analyzing the football game in several other major football clubs, like Coventry, Torquay, and Plymouth. In 1969, Reep collaborated with Richard Pollard to create the first computer analysis for the game.
Reep’s death in 2002, when he aged 97, went relatively unnoticed. Unfortunately, most of his career had been like this too. Fortunately, his work had not come to waste, laying the blueprints of modern football analysis. Now, computers can analyze data faster than any human ever could.
Reep was often stereotyped as a game-ruining maniac by some football fanatics, but that is not the case. His analysis of the game helped him uncover the most efficient attacking style of the play.
Charles Reep was born in Cornwall in 1904. When he was young, Reep became a fan of the Plymouth Argyle, a British football club. At age 24, Reep became an accountant for the RAF and was posted to Henlow. His love for the Plymouth Argyle continued, but he worked too far to watch Argyle’s home games, so instead, he went to Highbury to watch the Arsenal football club.
Coincidentally, Arsenal captain Charles Jones gave two lectures on football tactics at RAF Henlow, Reep’s workplace, in 1932. His speech inspired Reep to gather data from matches and analyze them. His first attempt was named a ‘Tactic Crime Chart.’ Reep also created a system to grade the difficulty of a shot around the goal. The plan was an early version of the xG metric used widely today.
Reep was posted to Iraq in 1936 and in charge of the RAF football team. He used tactics that Charles Jones had explained in his three-hour lectures, and the results were noticeable. His experiments, however, had to be stopped temporarily due to some conflicts at Iraq.
At the same time, Reep continued collecting and analyzing football data, advancing the unique shorthand method he had devised at Henlow and applying it to as many First Division games as possible.
In later years, when he started collecting data again, he found multiple vital pieces of information on the game. Seven of nine goals resulted from three passes or less; moves starting with a receipt from your half resulted in a goal being twice as likely to be scored compared to short passes. Also, most goals came from ‘regained possession,’ a way of winning back the ball in the attacking quarter of the pitch.
Throughout the years, he found out even more critical pieces of data. According to his data, it took nine shots to score a goal. Three ‘Reachers,’ what Reep called getting the ball into the final quarter, were needed on average to achieve a score. Using this information and the previous, a team must reach the attacking quarter 27 times to score.
In early 1951, Reep’s RAF team was winning almost every match. Jackie Gibbons, the Brentford manager, was looking for help for his Second Division side, which was failing. His team had no more confidence, and he had no money. He had heard, however, of Reep and his team, who had recently won 12-1. Later, Reep found himself as the team coach.
Brentford was 16th in Division Two. They had not won as visitors since September.
However, a Football League team took Reep’s advice for the first time, and the Bees won 3-0. Next match, 4-0.
“An unbelievable and instant success,” Reep had commented.
Later in his life, through the 1960s and 1970s, he would continue his journey of analyzing the football game in several other major football clubs, like Coventry, Torquay, and Plymouth. In 1969, Reep collaborated with Richard Pollard to create the first computer analysis for the game.
Reep’s death in 2002, when he aged 97, went relatively unnoticed. Unfortunately, most of his career had been like this too. Fortunately, his work had not come to waste, laying the blueprints of modern football analysis. Now, computers can analyze data faster than any human ever could.
