There will be no fantasy footy competition this season, I’m afraid. I’ve decided to take a year off to work on the site and attempt to do all the changes I’ve been meaning to do for the last few years but haven’t had the time. This will mean that hopefully next season your team entry and transfers will go straight onto the site, I won’t have to type them all in and you won’t spend days wondering if I received them, or trying to remember what the transfers actually were. It’s a win-win situation.

To tide us over for this season I’ve created a mini league on the Metro website at http://fantasyfootball.metro.co.uk/. The league is called The ff Gap Year and has the ID 8006281. It’s free to enter so there’ll be no prize money (unless you win the overall competition). Simply sign up, pick a team, find our league and join it. I know it’s free but please don’t flood it with teams. A maximum of two per person sounds reasonable.

Thanks, and apologies,

Rick.

The League

The ff Cup

Manager Of The Month

So, the huge Chelsea victory in the FA Cup Final against Portsmouth on Saturday that might have given Dylan Jones’ Lost Boys a chance of the title, failed to materialise, leaving my own Badgekissers Anonymous sitting pretty at the top at the final whistle, a position they have retained since week 10. It was a shame for the Lost Boys, who battled back from a 43 point deficit to finish just 9 points shy of their conquerors, and who also finished top of the weekly rankings an impressive 6 times without managing a single Manager of the Month win compared to the Badgekissers’ solitary weekly and Manager of the Month victories.

The fact that most teams in the top 10 had the same two Chelsea players meant that there were no real changes in the prize winning positions. However, with Tina Kenny’s City Free United and Greg Stankiewicz’s The Not So Mighty Stans finishing level on points in fifth place, it went to a tie-breaker to decide who would finish the higher to take the £15 prize for 5th place and who would have to settle for the tenner reserved for 6th. With both teams having made 12 transfers during the season it was decided on the amount of money spent on all players and it was Kenny who triumphed, spending a thrifty £103.2m compared to Stankiewicz’s £105.9m.

Thanks to everyone for playing again this season, hopefully we’ll be back in August. I’ll publish this season’s Roll Of Honour soon and I’ll be in contact the winners shortly to sort out remuneration.

Chelsea’s 8-0 thrashing of Wigan Athletic at the weekend garnered a massive 16 points for 2nd placed Lost Boys, managed by Dylan Jones, thanks to Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba. Long-term leaders, Badgekissers Anonymous, could only manage 2 points for a Florent Malouda assist from the same match but they made up most of that 14-point deficit elsewhere after the rest of the Lost Boys squad failed to turn up with only Spurs keeper Gomes further troubling the scorers with a clean sheet. A solid defensive performance from the Badgekissers saw them achieve a total of 13 points, just 6 short of Lost Boys’ 19, all of which means that the leaders take a 12 point advantage into the final week and that it would take a similar result for Chelsea in the FA Cup Final against Portsmouth for Jones and his squad to register an unlikely victory.

Behind the top two there is likely to be little change with only Greg Stankiewicz’s The Not So Mighty Stans deviating from the Lampard/Drogba combination employed by the rest of the teams going all the way down to 9th place. The Stans have Terry and Malouda and are locked in joint 5th place with Tina Kenny’s City Free United after the latter posted the week’s highest score of 28 to close an 11 point gap. Just 5 points behind these two are David Akerman’s Dave’s Dynamos, who scored 27 points for the week and have a chance of breaking into the prize winning positions should Lampard and Drogba do better than Terry and Malouda at the weekend.

With time desperately running out, the title challenges of Dylan Jones’ Lost Boys and Warren Longstaff’s Blue Camp XI have stalled with just one full week of the competition left, as well as the FA Cup Final. Leaders Badgekissers Anonymous narrowly outscored both of their closest rivals in week 37 to hold an 18 point advantage that will be difficult to overcome. The Blue Camp also find Phil Smith’s Nolukatallagain breathing down their necks after scoring 15 points in what was a pretty low scoring week to finish just four points off third place.

In all, there was little change at the top of the table, although David Akerman’s Dave’s Dynamos joined Naomi Hardiker’s Band Of Scousers in 7th place after posting the highest score for the week of 16 points. Not only are the Dynamos well placed to grab one of the prize positions at the death, being only 4 points shy of 6th placed Tina Kenny’s City Free United, but their top score this week saw them snatch the April Manager of the Month title from under the nose of Barrie Jackson’s Team Bazza. There was just a point in it in the end after Team Bazza slumped with a disappointing 5 point haul after leading the competition for most of the month.

Just four weeks after scoring a remarkable 21 points in a week, Chelsea’s Frank Lampard has been at it again, scoring 10 points in the 7-0 thrashing of Stoke City to push 2nd placed Lost Boys and 3rd placed Blue Camp XI ever closer to long-term leaders Badgekissers Anonymous. The gap now stands at just 16 points to Lost Boys with Blue Camp just a further 6 points adrift after registering an impressive 26 points in week 36. Locked together in 4th are Greg Stankiewicz’s The Not So Mighty Stans and Phil Smith’s Nolukatallagain; they are perhaps too far behind the leaders to take the title but can still harbour hopes of a 2nd place finish.

Breaking into the top six this week were Tina Kenny’s City Free United who scored an excellent 29 points while just behind them now are Naomi Hardiker’s Band Of Scousers, up two places from 9th with 32 points. All of this was at the expense of Gary Higgins’ Total (Fantasy) Football who got a poor 13 to drop a massive 4 places to 10th. Higgins’ other team, My Name Is Earl, are out of the picture as far as prize money goes but they put in the top score of the week of 33 points to rise two to 17th. Also scoring 33 were Dawn Hamp’s DJ Utd and they’re up 4 places to 21st.

With just a week to go in the final Manager of the Month competition of the season, Barrie Jackson’s Team Bazza still lead the way, though their lead has been cut to just 5 points by My Name Is Earl with Clive Swindells’ Throbbing Members a further two points back.

A lead of 43 points just four weeks ago has now been whittled down to just 22 after Dylan Jones’ Lost Boys outscored Badgekissers Anonymous by 17 points to 13 this week with Everton’s Tim Cahill leading the way with 9 points from the three goals he scored during the week. It looks set to be a tense climax to the season after the Badgekissers wasted their final transfer, bringing in Fernando Torres just hours before his knee collapsed for the final time this season. Lost Boys still have a transfer left but they’ll have to make it count.

Behind the top two, Warren Longstaff’s Blue Camp XI have closed the gap on Lost Boys to 13 points after a decent 21 point haul, and behind them Greg Stankiewicz’s The Not So Mighty Stans are back up to 4th with an excellent 24 points, inching ahead of Phil Smith’s Nolukatallagain who managed 22. Also scoring well were Gary Higgins’ Total (Fantasy) Football who rise two places to 6th at the expense of Tina Kenny’s City Free United and the previously in-form Band Of Scousers, managed by Naomi Hardiker, who both scored very poorly with 3 and 1 points respectively.

The top scorers of the week were Duncan Gofton’s Eleven Executioners with 27 points thanks to Tim Cahill and Matt Taylor’s double for Bolton against Stoke. They rise just two places to 28th while another excellent week for Barrie Jackson’s Team Bazza means that they increase their lead in the April Manager of the Month competition to 12 points.

There wasn’t a great deal of movement at the top of the table this week with just one team in the top 10 scoring in double figures in what was a very low scoring week all round. That team was Naomi Hardiker’s Band Of Scousers who scored 16 points to rise 2 places to 7th and are now just 3 points outside of the prize positions after a 3rd successive good week. At the top, Badgekissers Anonymous extended their lead to 26 points despite scoring just 5 this week while Warren Longstaff’s Blue Camp XI lost ground with a poor -2 points, a score that can be entirely attributed to a surplus of Birmingham City and Aston Villa defenders.

Top scorers were Barrie Jackson’s Team Bazza with 20 points, including 6 from Burnley penalty king Graham Alexander, a score that takes them up 4 places to 36th.

What a week it has been for Witton Albion FC and their manager Stewart Cain. In the ff cup final they defeated Michael Akerman’s PSV Hangover by 16-13 and then went on to take the March Manager of the Month prize on a countback after finishing level on 84 points with Andrew Sells’ Pirates Of The Premiership. The countback rule means that in the event of a tie, the winner is the team with the highest score in the week immediately prior to the start of the month. In this case both teams scored 13 points in week 28 which meant we had to look even further back to week 27 where Witton scored 14 points to the Pirates’ 7 and therefore take the £10 monthly prize.

Badgekissers Anonymous‘ lead at the top of the table was further reduced to 23 points after a poor 4 point showing was bettered by second placed Lost Boys, who scored 11. Both Greg Stankiewicz’s The Not So Mighty Stans and Gary Higgin’s Total (Fantasy) Football went just one point better than the leaders to drop down two places each to 6th and 7th respectively while Phil Smith’s Nolukatallagain and Tina Kenny’s City Free United jumped above them.

Naomi Hardiker’s Band Of Scousers scored big with 28 points to rise to 9th from 13th, but the top score for the week was from Phil Garner’s The People’s Club who bagged 30 thanks to Carlos Tevez’s impressive 16 point haul. They rise 6 places to 27th as a result.

Chelsea’s, and especially Frank Lampard’s, great form over the past week has certainly shook up the table a little. Lampard scored a whopping 21 points for the week, scoring five goals and setting up three, surely some sort of record. Unsurprisingly, 13 of the top 14 scores for week 32 were from teams that included Lampard, the only exception being Andrew Nicholls’ Crewe Alex Rejects who bagged 28 points thanks mainly to excellent defensive displays from Leighton Baines and Glen Johnson, who scored 8 points apiece. The Rejects only managed to gain one place in the overall standings, however, and now lie in 41st.

The top score for the week was 34, scored by three teams, two of which – Dylan Jones’ Lost Boys and Andrew Sells’ Pirates Of The Premiership – are challenging for honours near the top of the table, the Lost Boys closing the gap on long-term leaders Badgekissers Anonymous to 30 points, which is still a sizeable gap but it’s not the 43 points it was last week. The Pirates are having an excellent month and are now up to 8th as well as sitting on top of the March Manager of the Month table with just a week left to go in that competition. The other team scoring 34 points were Stewart Cain’s Witton Albion FC and they rise 3 places to 17th, though they’ll be hoping they haven’t peaked too early as they contest this week’s ff cup final against Michael Akerman’s PSV Hangover, a team that scored a big fat zero this week and drop 4 places to 11th.

Chelsea’s free scoring, and the presence in many teams of their principal victims – Aston Villa defenders – means that while there were plenty of high scores this week, there were also plenty of low ones. Gary Higgins’ Total (Fantasy) Football managed just 7 points and dropped down to 5th from 2nd, allowing Warren Longstaff’s Blue Camp XI to move back up to 3rd. The lowest of the week was the woeful -7 scored by Fozzy’s Flyers, managed by Ryan and Alex Forrester, and they drop back 3 places to 42nd overall.