Maths of the Day: Pitch Percentages

GARY: Football is full of numbers, 11 against 11, 4-4-2, goal tallies, so, next time you watch a football match, look out for the hidden maths.

Let's go over now to the ‘Kickabout’ studio to see what today's Maths Of The Day topic is.

BEN: Thanks, Gary.

Today's Maths Of The Day topic is Pitch Percentages.

So, what is a percentage?

Think of any measurement or object split into 100 equal bits.

Each bit is 1% - or 1/100 - of the whole thing.

So when footballers say, 'I gave it 110% out there,' they're saying, 'I did the impossible,' because they gave it everything they had and then some more.

Back to you in the studio, Gary.

GARY: Thanks, Ben. Let's see how good you are with percentages.

Your star striker scores 30 goals in a season.

You need to use percentages to work out how many of each goal type they scored.

Question one - if 50% of the goals were simple tap-ins, how many goals was that?

Ok, so that's 50/100, or half.

They scored 30 goals in total and half of 30 is 15.

So the striker scored 15 tap-ins.

Question two - 20% of the striker's goals were headers, so how many goals is that?

We would write that as 20/100, which is the same as one fifth. One fifth of 30 is six, so they scored six goals from headers.

10% were penalties, so how many times did the striker fool the keeper?

10% is the same as one tenth, and one tenth of 30 is three.

So they scored three goals from penalties.

Question four - if the rest of the goals are from free kicks, how many is that?

No need for percentages, here - just add up the first three answers.

15 + 6 + 3 = 24. Take that away from 30.

Six goals were from free kicks.

That's all from me for now.

Keep practising and you'll soon be 100% successful.