Lucas, Graham
Graham Lucas helped the Grecian Archive with details of the playing careers of over 1,400 Exeter City footballers.
Known as Dawlish Buoy on Exeweb, Graham compiled a database of all the players who had ever played first-team football for Exeter City. Including details such as the player's full name, his records provided a season-by-season, competition-by-competition breakdown of each player's career at a level of detail unmatched by any other source. Contributing on Exeweb he backed this up by keeping tabs on the club's former players together with maintaining an unique record of games played by City's under-18 team.
This was invaluable to the Archive given the surprising historical inconsistencies that exist throughout the game with respect to even basic matters such as who played and who scored. In the long-time absence of this information being required on an official basis, it was normally the work of journalists and press agencies to record line-ups and goalscorers. Aggregation of information over the course of a season would thereafter be included in supporters' club yearbooks and the (up to) four or five rival football yearbooks that would appear each August. Discrepancies often emerged at source as match reports carried by different newspapers frequently included varying line-ups and even goalscorers.
For the individual fan interested in the facts and figures of the game it wasn't until 1970 that the newly-launched Rothmans' Football Yearbook carried line-by-line details of each league and cup game. A further fifteen years passed until Barry Hugman's books started to provide the career records of every post-war professional footballer and, even at that stage, the available information was strictly 'league appearances only'. Consequently much of the leg work in this growing area of interest was provided by members of the Association of Football Statisticians poring over old match reports, programmes and yearbooks.
Exeter City followers are fortunate to have the Complete Record produced by Breedon Books covering the period between 1904 and 1990. Although there are inaccuracies and 'typos', the book remains an excellent source of information up to a certain point in the club's history. Yet Graham was able to unearth information that contradicted some of the time-honoured line-ups and aggregated statistics. The situation then became compounded by discrepancies contained in the various online databases (such as the usually dependable Soccerbase) that were established during the mid-1990s.
In City's case this served to muddy the waters with respect to the time the club spent in the Conference between 2003 and 2008. Thanks to Graham there is now greater clarity as how the Archive records these years in particular and, in general, improved recognition of how many cup games have been played by each player in addition to the former yardstick of 'league appearances only'.
Known as Dawlish Buoy on Exeweb, Graham compiled a database of all the players who had ever played first-team football for Exeter City. Including details such as the player's full name, his records provided a season-by-season, competition-by-competition breakdown of each player's career at a level of detail unmatched by any other source. Contributing on Exeweb he backed this up by keeping tabs on the club's former players together with maintaining an unique record of games played by City's under-18 team.
This was invaluable to the Archive given the surprising historical inconsistencies that exist throughout the game with respect to even basic matters such as who played and who scored. In the long-time absence of this information being required on an official basis, it was normally the work of journalists and press agencies to record line-ups and goalscorers. Aggregation of information over the course of a season would thereafter be included in supporters' club yearbooks and the (up to) four or five rival football yearbooks that would appear each August. Discrepancies often emerged at source as match reports carried by different newspapers frequently included varying line-ups and even goalscorers.
For the individual fan interested in the facts and figures of the game it wasn't until 1970 that the newly-launched Rothmans' Football Yearbook carried line-by-line details of each league and cup game. A further fifteen years passed until Barry Hugman's books started to provide the career records of every post-war professional footballer and, even at that stage, the available information was strictly 'league appearances only'. Consequently much of the leg work in this growing area of interest was provided by members of the Association of Football Statisticians poring over old match reports, programmes and yearbooks.
Exeter City followers are fortunate to have the Complete Record produced by Breedon Books covering the period between 1904 and 1990. Although there are inaccuracies and 'typos', the book remains an excellent source of information up to a certain point in the club's history. Yet Graham was able to unearth information that contradicted some of the time-honoured line-ups and aggregated statistics. The situation then became compounded by discrepancies contained in the various online databases (such as the usually dependable Soccerbase) that were established during the mid-1990s.
In City's case this served to muddy the waters with respect to the time the club spent in the Conference between 2003 and 2008. Thanks to Graham there is now greater clarity as how the Archive records these years in particular and, in general, improved recognition of how many cup games have been played by each player in addition to the former yardstick of 'league appearances only'.
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