I am very concerned by what I see as junior grades being significantly too high.
Possible explanation 1) I am wrong about the exageration.
Possible explanation 2) The computer code to do the calculation is faulty.
I would put forward the hypothesis that the doubters in (1) are correct and either (2) or (3) or both combined are plausible explanations.Possible explanation 3) The mathematical basis of the change is unsound.
An error which affected the processing of the Gibraltar u1800 has given the doubters some useful audit evidence. What has happened is that a Scottish player of 140 ish standard has played 5 games at Gib in each of the last 3 years. This is his only appearance (well) south of the border. A recent input erroneously assigned him a date of birth which resulted in his age being calculated as 8. On the "old" grades the effect of this error was to increase him by the junior increment of 10 to 146. On the "revalued" grades his initial grade was 153. On the latest release with the junior increment, the effect was not to add 15 to get 168 but to add 43 to get 196.
We believe that virtually all the Gib opposition was adult. On the face of it, the junior increment has been triple-counted - this could also explain some of the other big changes for less active junior players if their grade contains
more than one year of results. It does however seem a very elementary error (computer code) not to have been spotted and corrected so a more subtle flaw (mathematical basis) could be to blame.
Whether the ECF board and Council will lose confidence in the revaluation exercise and postpone or cancel it remains to be seen. There's enough surely to at least consider this option.
Edited in the light of Sean's next post.