First of all I want to thank you for all the recent comments over the past articles regarding the site. Knowing that we’ve helped many of you to up your game in your mini-leagues is great to hear and a big indication that we’re doing something right here on the site. It also provides a great incentive to keep the site moving forward.
It’s been a big season for us here on the Scout, from hiring contributors, to shifting to a dedicated server. That in turn meant that I had to take the difficult decision to start earning some money from the site in the shape of the Paypal donations and the deal with Paddy Power. Both have enabled me to keep the site running on a dedicated server. Thankfully recent work behind the scenes has also seen us achieve stability on the server, even when those Fantasy Premier League deadline crushes hit us hard.
I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the team of contributors that joined over a year ago and who have helped me take the site on this season. I’d also like to thank all those visitors who donated to the site. Those first few months of donations were a massive help. Thanks also to Paddy Power for being an excellent partner and giving me the means to maintain the site to this point.
Now all that sentimental rubbish is out of the way, I’d like to focus on the success of Fantasy Football Scout visitors out in the big wide world of Fantasy Football. For the first time in the site’s history, we can proudly claim a winner of the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game…
Jon’s “Westfield Irons” ran out winners by a 38 point margin in the FPL. He saw off the challenge from Christian Jarvis’ “Graphic Gunners” and Anto Moyles’ “The Chris Eagles XI” to win the FPL prize of two tickets to a match of the Premier League’s choice next season. Jon can choose one of the teams involved at least and he’s a West Ham fan I imagine he’ll try to get West Ham vs Chelsea or United. Blackpool are probably the more likely opponents if the Premier League can get him a room in the Travelodge, but at least if Jon gets the away tie he can waste his £250 in Blackpool. God knows what £250 gets you in Blackpool these days. Arrested probably.
Incredibly, all of the top three managers in the world are members of the Fantasy Football Scout League, along with fifth placed “Singapore Select” managed by Wil Cheung. So that’s four of the top five managers in the world in our league. Superb.
Not surprisingly then the Fantasy Football Scout League ranked the highest overall for the second season running with an average of 2534 points, seeing off the Facebook crowd who lagged behind on an average of 2479. The FPL site is currently displaying five leagues above us who have cunningly managed to find an exploit in the system (nice one). I’ve contacted the FPL about this – hopefully they will find time to address this once they’ve sorted Jon Reeson’s Travelodge booking.
Over in our other featured game, “Can You Kick It”, the Fantasy Football Scout League also ran out leaders, seeing off the challenge from the Fiso Forum with the Facebook League in third. Two of our managers – Jaap O and his “Team Bor de Wolf” outfit and Anorak’s “Los Trequartistas” were featured in the overall top 10.
A reluctant nod also has to go out to our own Scout contributor Andy, who claimed 27th spot overall in the game. Andy also came top overall amongst the Scout Contributors in the FPL. So, yeah, well done Andy. I’m delighted for you.
Andy will be making a post on all the Scout Leagues later this week to round-up the final standings across all our Head-to-Head divisions. After he’s posted that he’ll be removed from our user list, his IP will be banned and Andy and his timely transfer dealings will never be able to make the rest of us look bad again.
There’s also a full report on the final of the Fantasy Football Scout Cup to come this week and we’re then going to get moving on our post-season coverage which starts with a first look at the promoted teams.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to fill you in on our World Cup plans. We will be including coverage over the World Cup and we are currently planning our coverage of articles over that time. We will start putting this together later this week and you should start seeing articles maybe even by this time next week.
We will be supporting one, maybe two World Cup games but right now we’re not committing to which game that will be just yet. We’re in touch with several game organisers right now and will be announcing our selection and official leagues very soon I’m sure.
As a matter of interest I’m going to launch a new poll today to canvas opinion on World Cup games. I’d really like to know how many of you are planning to play a World Cup game and how many of you are going to put your Fantasy feet up.
In a nutshell then, stick with us over the Summer. Myself and the team are going to bring you all the post-season coverage you need in the build up to next season and amongst all that we’re going to try to feed at least some of your World Cup needs.
God knows what follows that. There are certainly “things” to come from the site in the next few months. This “things” could be of Dan Shittu (an unfortunate choice perhaps?) or Aaron Lennon like proportions – that’s yet to be decided. It’s going to an interesting summer though and I’ll keep you posted as we go.