Interview – Kelvin Travers – Fantasy Premier League Runner-Up

Continuing our series of summer interviews, we meet up with Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game runner-up Kelvin Travers. Despite leading the game during the final round of matches and a total of seven times across the season, Kelvin lost out to Matt Martyniak by just two points overall – he reveals that his final decision of the season, over which Belgian to bench for Gameweek 38, proved decisive.

Can you take us through your final matchday emotions and your team selection strategy, with so many FPL players in with a chance of winning?
I’d made my transfer and captain decision earlier in the week. It was going to be Marouane Fellaini to Philippe Coutinho, then when I heard Anders Lindegaard would be starting for United instead of David De Gea I knew I had no goalkeeper so my plans had to change. The obvious move then was De Gea to Pepe Reina to cover the inevitable Liverpool clean sheet at home to QPR, but that left me with a decision of who to bench – Fellaini or Romelu Lukaku. As it turned out, it was the biggest decision of my season and I got it wrong. I didn’t fancy Lukaku to start against United let alone score, and whilst I knew Fellaini would likely play deep against Chelsea, he offered a goal threat from set pieces and corners.

I went up to my local pub just before kick-off and they had the Newcastle v Arsenal game on. Everybody in there knew what was at stake for me, so when Theo Walcott hit the post, and score updates of a Lukaku hat-trick starting coming through I began to realise it probably wasn’t going to be my lucky day. At the end of 90 minutes, taking subs into account, I knew I had a slender lead at the top and that it would come down to bonus points.

You’ve been playing FPL since 2004/5 and never finished higher than 3,000^th before. What did you do differently this season?
This year I did play differently, I played my own game and didn’t worry about anybody else or their team (until the last Gameweek). If I could field 11 players I wouldn’t take a points hit, I played reasonably safe each week with my captain choices, and left my transfers until the end of the week to catch injury news. Losing 0.1 on a player was less important than wasting a transfer and finding out about an injury. No matter what strategy anybody plays, a huge amount of the game is based on luck, and I was pretty lucky this year.

You started with a Gameweek 1 score of 118 and an overall rank of 253. How important was this excellent start and how confident were you back then that you would have such a great season ahead?
A good start was obviously nice to have, but it was one out of 38 weeks. The main benefit from a strong start was having the right players in, such as Michu and Mladen Petric, then moving those players on at the right time. I’d never have imagined at that point I’d spend over half the season in the top 10, and be world number one seven times. A strong start isn’t everything, but it definitely helped me this year, and if I can get off to a strong start again next year I’ll see if I can attempt the impossible once more.

What is your strategy, including captain tactics, and what key pieces of advice for playing the FPL game would you give to our community (eg. keep points hits to a minimum/ or form versus fixtures)?
I generally went for a low cost defence, and spent money in midfield and upfront. Avoided point hits at all costs, and usually just played three at the back. In terms of captaincy choice, I looked at home teams playing teams who were weak away, or players with strengths who were up against defences who struggled against those strengths. For instance, when Chelsea put eight past Aston Villa at Christmas, and everybody jumped on Chelsea assets, I looked at Villa’s weaknesses and saw Gareth Bale as a player to expose those weaknesses in the following game – which he did with a hat-trick. The logic behind my decisions was simple, watch football and see what’s going on. See what players and teams are playing well and more importantly which players are likely to perform well in their upcoming games.

How important are stats and research, such as those available through Fantasy Football Scout, to your game?
I love stats. Everybody who knows me knows I’m a bit of a geek with football stats. I love reading the more statistical articles on Fantasy Football Scout as I think a lot can be learned from statistics, but let’s face it, no statistic is going to predict a Jordi Gomez hat-trick or a Tim Howard goal in gale force winds.

What were your most difficult decisions this year?
My final day decision on who to bench, and the two occasions I took point hits. I actually found using both my wildcards to be fairly easy this year, as I’d planned ahead my strategy on how to use those so close together to maximise double Gameweek points. I can’t really think of many difficult decisions actually, I was pretty relaxed the whole season and as I said earlier, just made the moves I felt were the best for me and didn’t overcomplicate things.

What do your family/friends/partner think of your achievement this year? Is it a secret passion or do you bore them to tears with your scores?
My girlfriend hates me playing Fantasy football, watching football, just anything to do with football, but I think secretly she was hoping I’d win so she’d get a holiday to Hong Kong. The majority of my friends were behind me winning, there were a couple at the start of the season who threw me out of leagues for ‘being too good’, but I think by challenging to win the whole thing I may have even won their respect. Every time I went into the pub the first thing I’d hear from people was “How’s Fantasy football going? Are you still number one?”. I’ve also chatted to loads of people on Twitter who supported me, and even swapped plenty of messages with Julian Zipparo (who finished the season in sixth and had led the competition during the season) throughout the season, and towards the end Evs (who finished in fifth). I even got a message from Jon Reeson who won it a few years ago, offering me support and good luck. It’s a bit surreal to have done so well at something, when all I want to do is take an interest in games I normally wouldn’t, watch football and have a few beers with my friends.

Do you play any other Fantasy football games? What if anything would you change about the FPL game (a runner-up prize perhaps)?
Playing one FPL game is enough for me! I did the Euro 2012 Fantasy game last summer and finished in the top 50 from what I remember. The FPL game itself I think is ok as it is. I’m disappointed I didn’t get anything for finishing second, I was hoping that the Premier League might give me a couple of tickets to a game as a gesture of goodwill, but I think the top three or top five should really get something – not that I’ll ever be up there again! I won a bit of money from my mini-leagues, although as I’m sure others have found, it’s not always that easy collecting in your winnings!