MySQL matching row values sets

Question

I am relatively new with mysql and php. I have developed a hockey stat db. Until now, I have been doing pretty basic queries and reporting of the stats. I want to do a little more advanced query now.
I have a table that records which players were on the ice (shows as a "fk_pp1_id" - "fk_pp5_id") when a goal is scored. here is the table:

pt_id  | fk_gf_id  | fk_pp1_id  | fk_pp2_id  | fk_pp3_id  | fk_pp4_id  |  fk_pp5_id
1      |     1     |     19     |     20     |     68     |     90     |     97
2      |     2     |     1      |     19     |     20     |     56     |     91
3      |     3     |     1      |     56     |     88     |     91     |     93
4      |     4     |     1      |     19     |     64     |     88     |     NULL
5      |     5     |     19     |     62     |     68     |     88     |     97
6      |     6     |     55     |     19     |     20     |     45     |     62
7      |     7     |     1      |     19     |     20     |     56     |     61
8      |     8     |     65     |     68     |     90     |     93     |     97
9      |     9     |     19     |     20     |     45     |     55     |     62
10     |     10    |     1      |     19     |     20     |     56     |     61
11     |     11    |     1      |     19     |     20     |     56     |     61
12     |     12    |     19     |     20     |     68     |     90     |     97
13     |     13    |     19     |     20     |     68     |     90     |     97
14     |     14    |     19     |     20     |     55     |     62     |     91
15     |     15    |     1      |     56     |     61     |     64     |     88
16     |     16    |     1      |     56     |     61     |     64     |     88
17     |     17    |     1      |     19     |     20     |     56     |     61
18     |     18    |     1      |     19     |     20     |     56     |     61
19     |     19    |     1      |     65     |     68     |     93     |     97

I want to do several queries:

1. Show which of the five players were together on the ice most often when a goal was scored.
2. Select say 2 players and show which other players were on the ice most often with them when a goal was scored.

I was able to write a query which partially accomplishes query #1 above.

SELECT 
fk_pp1_id,
fk_pp2_id,
fk_pp3_id,
fk_pp4_id,
fk_pp5_id,
count(*)
FROM TABLE1
group by 
fk_pp1_id,
fk_pp2_id,
fk_pp3_id,
fk_pp4_id,
fk_pp5_id

Here are the results:

fk_pp1_id    fk_pp2_id     fk_pp3_id       fk_pp4_id       fk_pp5_id       count(*)
1               19            20              56              61              4
1               19            20              56              91              1
1               19            64              88            (null)            1
1               56            61              64              88              2
1               56            88              91              93              1
1               65            68              93              97              1
19               1            20              56              61              1
19              20            45              55              62              1
19              20            55              62              91              1
19              20            68              90              97              3
19              62            68              88              97              1
55              19            20              45              62              1
65              68            90              93              97              1             4

See this sqlfiddle:
http://sqlfiddle.com/#!9/e3f5f/1

This seems to work at first, but I realized this query, as written, is sensitive to the order in which the players are listed. That is to say a row with: 1, 19, 20, 68, 90 will not match 19, 1, 20, 68, 90

So to fix this problem, I feel like I have a couple options:

1. Ensure the data is input into the table in numerical order

2. Re-write the query so the order of the data in the table doesn't matter

3. Make the resulting query a sub-query to another query that first orders the column (left to right) in numerical order.

4. Change the schema to record/store the data in a better way

1, I can do, but would prefer to have the query be fool-proof.
2 or 3 I prefer, but don't know how to do either.
4, I don't know how to do and is least desirable as I already have some complex queries against this table that would need to be totally re-written.

Am i going about this in the wrong way or is there a solution??
Thanks for your help

UPDATE - OK I (hopefully) better normalized the data in the table. Thanks @strawberry. Now my table has a column for the goal_id (foreign key) and a column for the player_id (another foreign key) that was on the ice at the time the goal was scored.

Here is the new fiddle: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!9/39e5a

I can easily get the one player who was on the ice most when goals are scored, but I can't get my mind around how to find the occurrences of a group of players who were on the ice together. For example, how many times were a group of 5 players on the ice together. Then from there, how often a group of 2 players were on the ice together with the 3 other players.

Any other clues???

Answer 1

I find a similar problem here and based on that i come up with this solution.

For the first part of your problem to select how many time same five player were on the ice when the goal is scored your query could look like this:

SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(t1.fk_gf_id) AS MinOfGoal, 
       t1.players AS playersNumber,
       COUNT(t1.fk_gf_id) AS numOfTimes
FROM (SELECT fk_gf_id, GROUP_CONCAT(fk_plyr_id ORDER BY fk_plyr_id) AS players
      FROM Table1
      GROUP BY fk_gf_id) AS t1
GROUP BY t1.players
ORDER BY numOfTimes DESC;

And for your second part of the question where you want to select two players and find three more player which were on the ice when goal were scored you should extend previous query whit WERE clause like this

SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(t1.fk_gf_id) AS MinOfGoal, 
       t1.players AS playersNumber,
       COUNT(t1.fk_gf_id) AS numOfTimes
FROM (SELECT fk_gf_id, GROUP_CONCAT(fk_plyr_id ORDER BY fk_plyr_id) AS players
      FROM Table1
      WHERE fk_gf_id IN (SELECT fk_gf_id
                        FROM Table1
                        WHERE fk_plyr_id = 19)
      AND fk_gf_id IN (SELECT fk_gf_id
                       FROM Table1
                       WHERE fk_plyr_id = 56)
      GROUP BY fk_gf_id) AS t1
GROUP BY t1.players
ORDER BY numOfTimes DESC;

You can see how it's work here in SQL Fiddle...

Note: I added some data in Table1 (don't be confused with more date counted).

GL!