The FA Cup may often be regarded as the nightmare of the Fantasy Manager with distraction, exhaustion and injury but a few consequences that can unwittingly cripple their teams with no regard for the many hundreds of thousands of Carlos Tevez owners, and me, just hoping he gets a nice old rest this weekend, for example.
What it does allow us is a little extra time to simmer down and take in what has happened in Fantasy up until now, and, after hectic schedule and illness-based roadblocks, a little time can be spent looking at the goings-on in all things league a little over halfway through the season…
Fantasy Premier League
The Good…
Big Poppa is, of course, our first order of merit and the Fantasy Football Scout league is firing on all cylinders. The snow may have knocked a few folks off course but calm heads prevail with a nice gap between first and second in the League of Leagues. Luckily enough though, it’s our dilligent subscribers to Scout Membership who fill that second spot.
Mark Rutter and The Rutz Nutz take pride of place as number one manager in the number one league in the world, with over five and a half thousand envious managers looking on with equal parts scorn, pride and jealousy. He’ll also be getting 18 points off his bench come Wednesday evening, the lucky swine.
Hot on Mark’s heels are the likes of Nathan Turner, Celso Loureiro, Steven Laverick and James McCall as the top five is rounded out. More commonly known posters amongst the Scout Community such as Camzy, Grimaldi and Jafalad all continue their fights not far behind too. One of Fantasy Football Scout’s older friends Spiderman returns to his 08/09 form and may once again fight until the end for that crown. Sour grapes also start early as some chap named I’m Not Marshal Foch gets frontpage action at 36th in the Scout league.
As for our members, we don’t want to let anyone miss their chance for a spotlight action. December saw The Karachi Kid clinch the monthly prize with a slender one point win over board poster Cunning Stunts in a hotly contested affair. Back in November, Scott Woods pulled out a healthy lead over second place to join the realms of champions while even further back in time Terry Goodwin won the October contest – our own Granville not far off calls of a conspiracy in 8th for that month. All three of the aforementioned winners won a free £25 bet with Paddy Power for their efforts.
The Head to Head leagues are starting to build a bit more shape to them as victories continue to push the men at the top to greater heights, starting with Comfy Coxy at the top of the whole tree holding off Russman and Roger C. I’m Not Marshal Foch pops in again to stick the knife into my season, putting me to shame with his first place in our second Head to Head league, holding off his good personal friend tinoss and the gallic poster gros. Head to Head three is as close as two very close things with a four way tie between Mark, Defoe Rules, Mr Blonde and Anorak split only by rank. The father of all things Scout Mark doth win that war in 6396th place.
A clear leader is seen in our fourth league as denial has a handy cushion of more than two games over closest rivals Just One More Thing and Wes. League five sees Don Corleone (in second) sleeping with The Fish in first while plucky Granville once again looms large. Cesc, Drogs and Caroll is our sixth leader after twenty-one gameweeks, William Coventry and Don are trying their best to rattle him out of there.
Greghammer95 (or whatever he calls himself now) leads the last of our seven select entry league as EasyLuckyFree challenges alongside da Beeeez, my colleague and fellow scout getting his match timing just right to take his team ranked in the 400 thousands to third place. The most competitive league, and also most requiring of luck, is our Reserve League and by merit of ranking alone Kenny Coffey sits pretty ahead of Graeme Matthew (who has stuck around since September) and Evan Donaldson.
The Bad…
Sticking out like a sore thumb are those managers at the bottom of our leagues. Those who think they are doing badly can perhaps afford a rare smile by comparison, while if you are one of the few afforded this unfortunate glimpse perhaps it’ll provide a kick up the posterior. I sure hope it will, not least because I have to give my own team an unfortunate mention.
The seven managers at the bottom of our Head to Head leagues are BigAdz, Andy (that’s me, what pride!), Bedknobs and Boomsticks, Sojourners, Honkey, Davysteen and pewty. We must all try harder or the threat of relegation currently looming large will likely turn to reality.
Tom Sanders gets the wooden spoon in the overall league with a score of -88 plastered against his name. Something tells me he just might have a different agenda. Or a screw loose.
The Ugly… (otherwise known as the Scout team)
Anyone wanting to compare how their side is doing to those in the Contributor’s League can do just that. For a league with only a dozen managers a ranking of 188 sees the likes of Mark, Granville, Sir Paulos, Pure Olivia and, running away leader, Foch undoubtedly proud of their pooled rankings. Fresh faced Scout johnfinlay gets a mulligan thanks to being new to all these proceedings so the likes of da Beeeez, Greek Fan and myself at the bottom are already looking ahead to July. Where would you drop in were you part of this “elite” breed?
Metro Fantasy Football
Our experiment in the wares on offer from the folks over at Metro sees a fan of Pink Floyd sitting pretty at the top of the Scout League and in tenth place overall, very much in the running for the prizes on offer from our free newspaper. All in all just another brick in the wall for Peter Jones. The first three familiar faces I see (apologies if I missed you) attempting to muster up a fight against the leaders are Aldershot Rejects, Big Dunc and Sir Paulos – another two successful enough members of the Scout team in the top 500 overall and very capable of a push on further.
European Adventures
The midweek continental adventures start in the Champions League where the best of the best (and Bursapoor) competed against each for six gameweeks of group stage action. The Scout League is celebrating first spot with a healthy lead as does it’s best manager: Mario Jiang. A couple of our sites more known posters (d2b and Waldaz) are trying their hardest in fourth and fifth place to head into the knockout stages with a coup on the cards. Down in 53rd place I haven’t given up hope of retaining the title of Scout champion in this here league, as unlikely as it may be.
The Fantasy Managers with a real hard edge as nothing more than gluttons for punishment are the small band competing in Europa League fantasy football. Many real managers seem to use the Europa League as a chance to rest and rotate their squads, which makes picking your team here devilishly hard. The manager having coped best so far with these issues is Akers, my fellow Scout and proprietor of our Cup competitions, with a healthy lead. The top ten also includes well known posters such Dick Fran Dyke, PDM Allstars and MFaulkner (who hasn’t even made a transfer yet. Shocking.) hoping the leader will trip up soon. On a personal note, I’m sorely disappointed that I won’t be able to up my Borussia Dortmund ante from two to three of the players, a breath of fresh air sorely missed.
That’s pretty much everything well and truly covered for now, all things going to plan we’ll hopefully be seeing you sooner than the most recent gap in proceedings. Maybe I’ll have to climbed to 19th out of 20 too. One can dream.
References
FPL: Fantasy Football Scout, Members and Contributors leagues.
Head to Head: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven and Reserve League.
Metro: Fantasy Football Scout League.
Europe: Champions league and Europa League leagues.
