paul and corinna and lucas' blog

Great performance tonight – kinda restores your faith that we can play well – it's still possible! Should have been 5 or 6-0 really; 4-1 flattered them. Not the strongest opposition in the world perhaps, but easily the biggest obsticle in this qualification group, and "you can only beat what's in front of you" as they say – and we thrashed them! It's great to see some of the good aggression and fluidity I was calling for – not quite the set up I was proposing but the style of play sure was! There wasn't a Ferdinand hoof in sight!

What really frustrates me though is the standard of international refereeing. The ref had a shocking game tonight. Our previous game was poor. In fact, I find it very difficult to think of a (competitive) England game with fair refereeing – especially in the most important games!! I've ranted about all this before, but fortunately it didn't cost us this time. The ref tonight was basically saying: Haul a man down and I'll turn a blind eye – even in the 6 yard box if you fancy! Fall over and I'll give you a free kick. Dive and there's a good chance I'll rule out any goals you concede. If you're tackled, I'll book the player who dared to do such a thing! Go ahead, kick them in head – sorry – of course I mean: stamp your studs in their face – I won't even flinch, even if it gives you a massive unfair advantage... I mean, honestly!

The worst extreme is this anti-Rooney prejudice – if he even thinks about going within 3 metres of a player it's a foul! I mean – give the guy a break!! Do they not realise he has moved on since those overly-aggressive days?

Well, another improvement on last season – still finished 3rd like (and only just – pipping 4th for it right at the end!) but this time we won the Super Cup – and deservedly so as we were the form team. I managed 4th top scorer overall with 24 goals, or 2 a game on average exactly. 3rd was on the cards for a while but I stopped scoring after our holiday for some reason... 1st and 2nd are goal machines so I class this as "2nd of the rest" – I'm pretty happy with that...  :)

Couldn't repeat my Player's Player of the Season nomination but I did get joint Most Player of the Week Awards (including the award for the Super Cup week) and Most 'Team of week' appearances.

Hopefully we'll finish in the top half next season!

Well, I quite enjoyed that – lots of good football. My fantasy team didn't do too badly either – a great start (in front by miles), finishing 4th out of 10. Not too far off the pace, which is surprising because I was down in 9th between the semi-finals!!

Someone asked a commentator how England would have done if we had made it to the finals. I'm always the optimist who reckons we will win the tournament before the first ball is kicked. But putting my patriotic hat on the metaphorical stand for a minute, I would probably agree with them – we would have been lucky to get out of one of those groups.

That might seem a bit unfair since the teams we should have got past in the qualifiers did so well. (Croatia winning all 3 of their group games and probably should have gone all the way to the final, Russia getting to the semis and losing to the eventual winners.)

But having said that – what we would have done is probably very different to what we should have done. England is capable of so much more than it's currently achieving – we have great players – but it rarely seems to come off.

To not qualify for Euro 2008 is not just embarrassing, we are genuinely underachieving. We have players that dominate matches at the highest level every week, yet they're impotent in the white shirt. Then look at the standard at the Euros: you had Middlesborough and Sheffield Utd level players in the semis who almost stopped the Aston Villa standard players from getting to the final! At least Torres won it for Spain in the end, but Liverpool aren't exactly a world superpower any more.

Some would say we shouldn't expect much because we're a small country. Yes, we punch above our weight, but it's also true that a smaller country just won the competition!

I first got into football proper back at the 1990 World Cup. England was lucky at times but you have to admit it was a great team and they were close to achieving their potential. Only my almost namesake's deflection and a horrible penalty lottery stood between England and the final.

We also went pretty close in '96 – yet again the Germans in a penalty shoot out to kill us off at the semis. (You could say it was "written in the stars" – if I hear that one more time... It's funny how much faith footballers put in superstition!)

When you look back to 1990 and 1996, and 1966 even, we always had:

• a towering goalie (in presence and ability as much as height)
• a strong defence
• creative/cutting midfielders
• strikers who scored as many tap-ins as great goals

What are the problems with our current team? Most of the same list I reckon. We have no confidence in our goalies, our midfield is weak (when playing for England), and we have no-one to score tap-ins.

I know the international game has changed a lot, even since 1996, but so has the English mentality. We used to play aggressive football, but we seemed to have swapped that for strength. We used to play with confidence and believe in ourselves, but now we don't attack in number just in case. We used to be able to keep the ball and run at defences, now we spend most of the game running around our own half trying to get the ball back!

When the idea of Premier League nationality quotas first came out I thought they would be a good idea, but I've changed my mind, they're not the answer. Maybe it would improve our players in the longer term, but it doesn't explain why our current players underperform so much.

It's got to be how England are set up on a tactical basis. For example, why do managers insist on counting Rooney as a striker? He's difficult to pin down I admit, but he's more of a hardworking midfielder than striker. That means we're playing 4-5-1 or 4-6-0 all the time – no wonder our strikers are so isolated!

One thing people often say is England can't adapt to anything but 4-4-2. I guess that's partially true, but the Premier League hasn't had twenty 4-4-2s playing each other on a Saturday for a long time – these players play a whole mixture of tactics and formations – that's one of the things the foreigners have brought.

I say it's partially true because England can't depart from a back 4. But why would we want to? It's one of the best defences in the world! But for the other 6 players, we have never been tied to 4-4-2. For example, back in 1966 we played the most important matches without wingers. We are not gifted with wingers at the moment so I wonder whether that would work again now?

I guess I'm saying: why do we try to force the players into the system rather than build the system around the players?

We don't have a great Makélélé or Senna 'anchor', but we do have Hargreaves and Carrick who are getting better combining pushing forward and defence at the same time – playing together at Man U can only be a good thing.

I'd like to see a more fluid attack – this is where other nations are leading the way, but I think we have players for it too. Players who can pull defenders out of position, or threaten to overload in another area if they don't move. Rooney and Gerrard are first on my teamsheet. Then you could have 2 mobile strikers shifting around and interchanging with them, or maybe Joe Cole and Owen – if he can get fit enough. (If we had to accommodate Barry, I'd probably replace Carrick.) There's no conventional wingers per se, but any of six could go wide, and good use of fullbacks would generate additional width.

I think that kind of fluidity (with the players we've got) would be too much of a handful for most teams, and importantly, better fits the talent we have at the moment. When it comes to confidence – I have no idea why they're lacking, but if I were manager I'd get Derren Brown in to sort them out!

The winner achieved a whopping 771 points so you can tell it was a high scoring season – the only problem being my team wasn't. It started going downhill after the 2005/6 season! Actually, to be fair, although I didn't start all that well, around week 8 I got going and it briefly looked like experience might count for something against all these new guys. Unfortunately not. I started to recover towards the end, but it was still a bit of a dud season:

Winner of that mini-league then I guess! Wassim started out in the usual fashion: "Please watch and learn as I walk away with this title for the 2nd year running" and "well done on picking your teams, but they are crap, change them otherwise you will be bottom"... No comment required!

I initially intended to focus my squad on attack, but ended up doing my usual trick and overspending on defence, starting with only one striker – what was I thinking?! It was definitely an attackers season again. I succumbed to whatever Wassim's got and ended up using all my transfers by the end of December – argh!!

I was setting all kinds of records, like the new worst week ever: -3! Though my favourite week had to be when I played Wassim in the new Round Robin competition: that ended Wassim 8 – 31 Paul... But you can see how close it was overall:

At least I won something properly – check out the F&E FA Cup table:

(I didn't even know I was winning until I stumbled across it just before the final!)

There was no Challenge Lawro this season so we played I Know The Score instead. It was a walk in the park, as my name predicted:

That was 1621th of 124953 – not bad!

Why is there no England at the Euros to keep the football vaccum to a minimum this summer?!

Well, my second season in work footie was a bit more successful – my team didn't finish bottom this time for instance. 3rd out of 4 is an improvement... And we were getting better as the season went on, thrashing both first and second in the league at the end. In the cup, we beat the team that finished second only to be thashed in the final by the team that finished bottom! Doh!

It was quite successful for me personally: 5th top scorer with 20 goals (some really nice ones in there too), I would have done well in an assists league, even starting to play well in goal towards the end! (That's really saying something!) And I got a nomination for Player's Player of the Season!! Wow!

I may not win the fantasy football league this year, but beating Wassim is enough for me, and the result in the round robin this weekend (above) was particularly satisfying... And he now only has 4 games left to make up 30 points to avoid losing a babysitting...  :)

After an earlier attempt to save it failed, Scarborough FC have gone out of business. "Supporters may now look to form a new club, playing at a lower level and ground-sharing with another local team."

Doh! I remember the days... Watching Boro give Arsenal and Middlesborough a run for their money at the McCain Stadium (and a few less gamourous). Pie and chips... That's all gone now, oh well...

According to this research, changing your team's manager will probably make zero difference: "Of course, some management changes do work and that is what entices clubs to make the shift. But on average, it does nothing and it is as likely to make things worse as it is to make them better." And from some earlier research: "On average, managers arrive and leave without having significantly altered the [underlying] team strength." You might get better results immediately following a change, but it could simply be because you're playing easier teams, and of course, luck has a big influence.

That highlights what a good move it was to instate Roy Keane as the manager at Sunderland. The previous season they were relegated with a dismal 15 points from a possible 114. Check out this season – from the bottom to the top, literally (source: BBC):

The reason I say he's a great leader is what he's achieved with the available resources. He's got the team to punch above their weight consistently for almost a season. Their performances were consistently above 'normal', he got more out of the players. Of course, yes, he brought new people in (a pointer to good leadership anyway) but didn't spend much money, instead he was able to use his existing contacts (another pointer) to bring in players he knew or others he trusted knew. He didn't pay a fortune to bring in stars. I think he was looking attitude as much as ability.

Previously Keane had enjoyed a lot of success as a player, but had no managment track record when Quinn said he was appointing a "world-class manager", so it's an impressive prediction. Of course, he will have picked up a lot being mentored by two of the all time great managers. (It's no surprise a quarter of the Premiership managers this season have worked for Sir Alex – what other manager has created that kind of dynasty? That's why the rest are still not in his league.)

He's got a great personality for football management too. The first thing you think of is he's tough, as you could see from his playing days, and that strength is required in a manager. Though he doesn't steamroller his players, instead he's earnt their respect. He's unrelentlessly determined, and it's contageous, or as our Pastor puts it, you reproduce what you are! I just imagine what it would be like to play alongside him, on his team – you'd be filled with belief, a fighting spirit, unable to give up. He would be a source of extra energy when you needed it.

Another leadership lesson is how prepared he was – he'd done lots of research and preparation right down to fine details, and ahead of time, thinking ahead. He didn't just jump in and assume he would do a good (enough) job on natural ability. "He had been spending time looking at the coaching side – he didn't just stop playing and say 'I'm going to become a coach'. We knew in his last few years he had been actively seeking his badges, attending games, reserve games, obscure non-League games." – Quinn.

So watch out Premiership!

Liverpool played well last night – deserved a better result. It occured to me that Rafa is probably a great candidate for England manager – he really knows how to approach cups. He took on the final really well, attacking Milan's weaknesses. Good stuff.

Registration is already open so go to this page to sign up! Come on people, it's only £10 and there are £75k of prizes on offer, not to mention the honour of beating your mates! Once you're signed up, join our league with PIN 48.

Well, a fantasy footie season at least. 

I started out of the blocks well, building up a 30 point lead in 6 weeks – even with having to carry Crouch, who's not light! But Wassim seemed to come from nowhere to overtake me and Alister and build up a massive lead – 48 points at the turn of the year. As always, Wassim played his hand and used up all his transfers early. This worked well initially, building up his lead to 60 by mid-January. But then I started clawing him back in.

On the last day I started 9 points behind. Although we both have Drogba, Wassim was fooled by early reports that he wouldn't be playing, so when he scored that gave me 3 points. I made up some other points too, bringing it down to 4, and there were so many ways I could have got another 5 points to win: Liverpool not conceding 2 to relegated Charlton (I had both my Liverpool defenders playing), Ronaldo almost scoring a few times, Pedersen almost scoring and getting assists, Berbatov almost scoring a few against the weak Man City, and loads of other possibilities right up to the very last minute, it was tense! But none of them happened, Wassim was able to hang on and I wasn't able to steal the title on the last day (again).

Another good showing by Alister, spent a fair while in second and close to first but lost it towards the end. Stapley seemed to be absent for the middle chunk so did well considering... Thanks to Elie for joining in, it's unfortunate you missed qualifying for the European competitions by two days! You thrashed my B team though! (Registered at the same time.) Here's how it finished:

And here's how the season progressed:

My strategy yet again was to outspend everyone on defence. It had won me the previous two seasons but let me down this time – defences were just nowhere near as tight. Chelsea are usually my safest bet, but they conceded 24 this year compared to 13 and 9 previously, and Terry was injured for a while. I also went for Liverpool in a big way, but Rafa kept rotating my players, argh! I had to rely on riskier defenders but it didn't work out – definitely an attackers season. Ronaldo did well for me once I eventually bought him, and he ended up top scorer overall by far. Saha was great until injuries. Johnson started really well (top scorer for a while) but just decided to stop scoring altogether! My midfield was woefully weak, which probably the biggest contribution to me losing the title. Gary Speed fluking an excellent 34 points did well, but not having Arteta all that time was costly. Still, it was close in the end.

Wassim completed the honours by winning the F&E FA Cup too, beating my B team by 10 points. None of us did so will in Europe – as an F&E league we were in all the competitions but got knocked out quickly, except Wassim who made it to the 5th round of the Intertoto. I didn't even get past the group stage of the UEFA Cup! (That's what you get for registering early!) Alister lost his first match in the knockout stage of the Champions League -4 v 2 (yes, minus 4), hmmm...

In an effort to salvage at least some dignity I joined Challenge Lawro (predicting results) in October. I started 36 points behind Wassim which also happened to be exactly half his points. I caught up and overtook, but it was close in the end too! Lawro himself was too far ahead to catch up – only made up 12 of the 39 points he already had on me. But next season I will be in it from the starter's pistol! It finished like this:

And it progressed like this:

Bring on 2007/08! Come on... Hurry up!

From this: "a bunch of massively fat [fans] in replica kit calling out 'you're not fit to wear the shirt' to some of the most impressive athletes in the country" – ha ha...

So every English footie team topped their group in the European competitions, that's seven teams in the Champions League and UEFA Cup! (Though Blackburn let the side down by only coming joint top - how did they get into Europe anyway!?) I think that says a lot about the state of the game in our country. (Though I guess Chelski, Arsenal and Liverpool don't exactly count as English teams any more?) We just need to get some winners out of all those now - Liverpool fluking it is not enough! (He he.) Ahh, these were the days - "That wonderful night in Barcelona"...

Save Scarborough FC!

Well, the World Cup Fantasy Football did not exactly go to plan. Though as always, my plan involves England winning the final...   :)   Had the usual 'just missed out on points' (forgot to put Cannavaro in, 6 points, and sold Podolski who then went and scored 2 in the next 10 minutes) but not enough to affect much.

That's Stapely finally winning something (though it took 2 teams to do it! Ahem...), me in 4th, Matt in 6th, Wassim in 7th and Alister down in 10th! Oh well...

It's funny that Wassim finished in the bottom half. He was leading for most of it but used all his transfers up early, and I think that was before we realised it was double points for the knockout phase!   :)

Aha, my other medal has arrived just in time to cheer me up!




That's the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 season gold medals sat on my shelf. I wonder if three in a row is possible? I should at least have two stars embroidered on all my t-shirts...

Gutted again. That was our chance. Well, yes, I know we will get another good chance next time with important players coming of age, but we really could have won it this time. Penalties yet again eh?

Though I don't have much to stand on (calling 3 of the 4 quarters wrong!) undoubtedly we will hear yet more footballing ignorance in the coming days. Yes, England did not perform well, but what some people do not realise is you don't win the World Cup by putting 100% into every game, otherwise you would peak too early and flop later on. Nor do you win by pretty football. You do not need to play teams off the park. You just do enough to win. This is where people get confused: performance is not potential. If you know these players, you know that England had the potential to beat any team in the cup. Their performances were steadily building up towards that potential as the tournament progressed, i.e. as required. And until now, their performances were good enough. Tonight we did not put in a good enough performance, but if you know the players, their potential was far higher than that.

Having said that, I will say this: as soon as we have fair refereeing in a World Cup, we will win it. We often joke about referees being anti-English, but I think we have plenty of significant evidence to make a case. We are not imagining things or making them up. Looking back at 2004 (which they even tried to support!!) I don't think this competition has been as bad as then, but it has still been very bad. I think the referees get maybe 70% of their decisions correct, 25% wrong, and 5% are too difficult to call. I don't know the exact figures, but these are my guesstimates. Maybe as much as 50% of that 70 are undisputed though – e.g. a player on his own kicks the ball out and no-one disputes it's a throw in for the other side. In those situations, the players practically referee themselves. However, that leaves maybe 50% disputed, of which a large proportion are being called wrong.

That is an issue in itself as Matt pointed out. But generally, (mathematically) you would expect the incorrect decisions to be shared out evenly over the length of the game, meaning that neither team would usually get a significant advantage. If that's the case, it's fine (except when a major decision goes the wrong way). However, against England, referees seem to do a terrible job. Tonight, like in 2004, a few incorrect decisions went our way, but tens of them were against us (or for our opponents). If I had the time and inclination to do more than just rant, I would go over our World Cup games and categorise all the refereeing decisions into: undisputed, correct, incorrect but for England, incorrect and against England, and unable to call even with video replays. I reckon the results for most other internationals would be fairly balanced, but for England it would be highly in favour of our opponents.

The referees must think English players are all fouling cheating stinking balls of aggression, just waiting for our red cards. Everything seems to be interpreted through that lens anyway. The ironic thing is we are the most honest team out there. If an Englishman is fouled, he gets up and tries to carry on. The whole team and coaching staff (and their families) do not immediately surround the referee demanding a red card for the crunching tackle that has almost, without that bit of luck, certainly would have put little jimmy in intensive care (sorry, I know sarcasm doesn't come across well in text). And don't be fooled, that's just another tactic they use to try and influence his thinking for the rest of the game. Perhaps that is a cause of England's refereeing being so out of balance, that we do not demand (in)justice from the ref? I did not think about it until Corinna said today, but it's racism!

(That surrounding the ref, asking for cards, diving, holding your face when not even fouled, etc., it must stop – it's got to be punished. So what if the ref did not spot it/get it right at the time. If someone breaks the rules, they must be punished. UEFA have got to stop hiding behind "policy" and accept that refs are not omniscient. As it is, it is bringing the game into disrepute and promoting cheating because they know they can get away with it. They're even premeditating cheating now!)

The refereeing today did not cost us the match in dramatic fashion, but it added a lot more pressure and made the game much much harder for us than Portugal would have been able to do alone. I do not disagree with Rooney's red card, but the funniest thing is that the ref clearly did not even spot the red card offense (standing on the guy) but instead gave it for what was at worst a yellow card (shoving Ronaldo). But because it's an English player, especially that Rooney who's so aggressive, it must be a red card (sarcasm). Not to say anything about Rooney being fouled directly before the whole incident, which the ref failed to award correctly...

Who'd be an England fan eh?

Find out your Brazil name, mine's:

Come on England!

No... So we play Ecuador on Sunday - the same day as my graduation! I think the ceremony is being delayed so we can celebrate England getting into the quarters before we celebrate what an amazing year this has been!   :)

Do you think you could post about something elase rather than FOOTBALL!!!!!!!
ARRAH!!!!!!!!! it's sending me Crazy!!!

Ha ha... The Silly Things Women Say: part 1, part 2, part 3.

The funniest thing about World Cup time is all the football ignorance comes out of the closet. People who really should know better, and people who normally couldn't care less about footie, completely misread games and spout their amusing opinions.

Anyways, looks like it's going to be another hot one on Tuesday for Sweden: min 15° to max 29°. It's 8pm, but the heat has been lingering there, so I dunno.

Argh! "revised weather forecasts suggest more heat and humidity in Nuremberg, despite the match kicking off three hours later. Leading German weather forecaster Joerg Kachelmann said: 'The small cold air pocket has stalled in the west so it's probably going to be hot for England after all.'" (source)

Except, looking at the BBC weather forecast again, it's now predicting even cooler conditions at 16° and heavy showers!

For anyone getting sick of 3 lions (though I can't imagine anyone who would) here's a change of tune:

I've checked out the weather forecast for the Trinidad and Tobago game (handy link on this page) and it drops by 10°c on Thursday to a maximum of 19°, so by 5pm it will hopefully be pretty cool (literally) - phew!

It's that time of year again. Phew! It was a close one this year, but in the end I defended my title of Fantasy Football Champion. As advertised by the FL people, I hereby claim all associated bragging rights. Here's how the league finished:

That's me, Wassim, Stapely, Alister (pretty good for a first outing - was catching up!), a few others and Andy languishing 2nd to bottom! Though none of us did that well - only in the top 11% or so overall - but thankfully we were all equally rubbish!

Things started with the usual banter - especially as Wassim was winning. I had my worst week ever early on...

0 Point Wonder (27/09/2005)
Nice. That's got to be my worst week ever!

... only to be beaten the next week with a -1! I did miss out on 14 points because we didn't have the internet for a while (moving house back in October/November time) but I can't blame that for my rubbish run early on - the team actually seemed to do better without me! For a long time I was out of the picture with Wassim and Stapely running away with it:




But I managed to catch up a bit and with a storming finish overtake both of them at the last hour! Literally in the last hour of football - thanks Henry! It was such a funny finish though because Wassim took a lead and claimed the title a bit too early:

Title In The Bag? (18/04/2006)
The F&E fantasy league title is as good in the bag after Solid Gold FC extended its lead to 14 pts over 2nd place and 23 pts over 3rd with 3 rounds of games to go. Interviewed after the latest round of games Goldmember said "It's an absolute pleasure to not only be on the verge of clinching the title, but to have achieved a tally that was carefully calculated before the campaign began."

Then Stapely caught up, overtook and made the same mistake:

Title In The Bag? (03/05/2006)
The F&E fantasy league title is as good as in the bag after a dramatic late surge by the popular Only Goalie in the Village team, currently 5 points ahead with only a week left. Manager Stapely Benfold said "It's an absolute delight to rub that cocky SoB Goldmember's nose in it after him claiming to have won the title too early."

Ha ha... Again Wassim over-committed to early, using all his transfers by early February! Cost him dear with Lauren and some others getting badly injured in mid-Feb!   :)

I also won my Prize League by 13 points and the F&E FA Cup by a long way:




Check out Alister in 2nd there! Didn't do so well in Europe tho. As I was having my dip when the cups were decided, I only made it into the UEFA Cup. But then again, in theory that should have given me better chances of winning. In the second round though, my much weaker opponent had a freakishly good week and knocked me out. Doh!

Bring on the World Cup!! Only 1 day 08 hours 02 minutes to go!

Ok, here's my official prediction: England will win the 2006 World Cup! We're going to do it this time...

Hey, check out my 'fixed' version of 3 Lions! (It's been 40 years now...)



Man, I never get sick of that song...

Ooooo, there's less than 3 weeks to go now!! And we've got the first England match on big screen, 5-a-side football, 3-on-3 cage football, and even a brass band to play The Great Escape! I can't wait...   :)

Don't forget to sign up for the World Cup Fantasy League! Once you've signed up, our F&E League PIN is 57 (so you can join).

Well, this season's 6-a-side has finished. We didn't exactly do as well as we hoped, but there's always next season...   :)   Anyway, the season review is here. (Check out those neat stats... Took me ages to work out!)

Right! It's that time of year again! If you're already registered from last season, just login and get your Fantasy Football team for the new season. If you're new, get yourself registered! It's only £10 and you get a shot at £60k's worth of prizes!

And it's not just about winning money, "it's about putting one over on your mates, obscene triumphalism and uninhibited bragging rights." It's these bragging rights that I currently hold. So register your team with our league (pin 55) to see if you can knock me off my throne!

Well, that's the footie season over. The premiership relegation battle made for a great finish. Unlike Man U, I had a good season. In Fantasy Football anyway.

I won Wassim's friends and enemies league!

That's 760th out of (at least) 32759 teams. Not bad even if I do say so myself, but I was up in the 300ths and 400ths at various points so it's not as good as it could have been. The guy who won overall had 673 points though, so it wasn't exactly close. (And that's Wassim uncharacteristically down in 11th, or 13751st, he he...)

I had loads of injuries towards the end too, including 5 of my main point scorers: Henry, Ljungberg, Heinze, Paulo Ferreira, even Terry for the last couple of games! And I made a couple of duff selections towards the end as well, or rather a couple of selections based on duff information, mentioning no names BBC - Cahill doubtful, my foot! He was so fit he scored within 9 minutes!

Mr King was catching up quickly so it was getting quite tense, but I managed to hang on 'til the end. Then I posted this on the league board: "Remember itsthetakingpartthatcounts! Better luck next time..." He he, cheesey I know, but as I've never won FF before I have to rub it in!   :)

My squad was:







I remember those 6 points for leaving Viduka out. It was just one match early on and he went and scored two... Doh! That convinced me to go for 2 strikers rather than 3 so I wouldn't have to leave any out. I didn't lose too many other points though, so that's good.

Here are the points by month (ordered on season total):




The key to my season was definitely defence. I spent loads on it - more than most - and I remember Wassim saying at the start I was focussing on it too much. But it paid off and I took an early lead. Terry and Ferreira were getting me like 6 or 9 points a game.

But my strategy only worked while Henry was injured/not on form. And as he started to score, I had to juggle the players around a bit to keep my strong defence and buy him too. I had always planned to buy Rooney as soon as he was fit. And I did, but he never got going (points-wise). So I swapped him for Andy Johnson, who was great. Sad to see them relegated!

Wright-Phillips and Ljungberg were both great for the first 2/3rds of the season as well, but most people had them anyway so they didn't really make much of a difference. The main things I missed out on were a decent keeper (I bought Carroll just as Fergie dropped him) and Lampard. But I seem to have done ok without them...   :)

It was all different in the cup though, Wassim is winning by a fair way, but there is still the final to be played on Saturday of course! The prize league didn't exactly go to plan either. I was in first place for the whole season (and by quite a way) but 2nd was creeping up on me and I was pipped to the post on the final day. It's a tie on points though; I was only knocked down to second by goals scored!




So I missed out on my "precious Fantasy League gold medal mat"   :)   I should get the "much coveted Fantasy League gold (coloured!) medal" for the F&E league though. I also qualified for the 'Champions League' (£10000 prize) and got a bye through the first round, only to be knocked out in the second. That was another tie (13 points each) but 'greek until i die' won on goals scored, again, doh! Gutted about that because my team was much better than theirs, that was just an off week.

In the Yahoo Fantasy Football, I managed to sneak 3rd in the St Tom's Premiership:




I had been 2nd for a while, but then dropped down to 4th, only to recover to a respectable 3rd. My strategy of always going for risky players kinda worked. It would have been better if I kept Cech and Lampard for the whole season though.

To be fair, Matt probably would have beaten me down to 4th if he hadn't pulled out early, due to being scared of Robinson. We did pull closer to him after Matt left, but maybe that's because he didn't bother as much because there was less of a threat?

Anyway, that put me in 11334th position overall, the 96th percentile - not far off my FL result, but not quite as good.

I also won our own little league with the same team:




Though to be fair, Wassim gave up because he thought the points system was silly (conveniently once I'd built up a big lead), and I don't think Corinna touched Gonzo United even once! Quite an achievement really!

The jury is still out on the proper Champions League Fantasy Football (it's sad doing all these competitions, I know) but I've got a healthy lead in that too...   :)

Arsenal 7-0 Everton. That's unbelievable! And I just tried putting Arsenal v Everton through the predictor (it doesn't even go up to 7 goals!) but 5-0 only has a 1.0% probability! 7-0 must be tiny!

Ha ha, and with that result, Everton's goal difference is now 0 with 1 game to go!

Solskjaer to boss FC United?

Manchester United supporters will approach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to manage a breakaway club if Malcolm Glazer's £800m bid to takeover at Old Trafford is successful.

A blueprint for the new team with the working title of 'FC United' outlines how in the event of a takeover fans will boycott a Glazer-owned United and switch support to a Manchester-based club that would begin life in the North West Counties League - 10 levels below the Premiership.

Talks have already begun with United legend Eric Cantona about assuming a playing role for FC United, which would be owned by a democratically-run supporters' trust.

Those behind FC United have taken advice from supporters of AFC Wimbledon who founded their club after Wimbledon were moved to Milton Keynes and re-branded as 'MK Dons'. "Wimbledon have already made their way from the Combined Counties League to the Isthmian League where they are top of Division One. Should, as expected, they gain promotion they'll start next season only two divisions below the Football League."

Ha ha, I can't believe they're serious! Mind you, they'd get loads of supporters if Cantona started playing again!

Stars gather for tsunami benefit: More than 50 of the world's top footballers will take part in a benefit match for victims of the Asian tsunami.

That's a great idea! Well done to the clubs and players for doing what they can! Europe's XI includes Shevchenko, Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard, Henry, Raul, Vieri, Del Piero, Ballack, Deco, Zidane; and the World XI includes Ronaldinho, Drogba, Heinze, Eto'o, Kaka, Song, etc.

What a line up! It should be a great game... There's even some oldies like Maldini and Zola. Our old PES favourites Cha Doo-Ri and Park Ji-Sung are in there too. And the coaches are Arsene Wenger and Frank Rijkaard! And it's even ref'ed by Pierluigi Collina!!

It's a real star-studded line up. So I'm not sure what Radhi Jaidi and Lucas Radebe are doing there? He he...   :)

Wow, I don't know what happened at footie last night. For some reason everything I hit was on target!

It started with five tough minutes. The ball is passed through to me, I score. Followed by an even more gruelling five minutes. The ball is passed through to me, I score again. Another 10 minutes of wrestling, the ball is passed through to me, I dribble past one defender and from quite a way out, smack it straight into the bottom-right corner. 3-0.

For ages it was very close (football-wise but not score-wise), then we got a couple more goals at the end. Our games almost always finish with a team winning by 1 goal. Even with totally mismatched teams, it would max out at 2 or 3 goals difference. This game finished 8-2! A total drubbing!

I scored 4 - I've never done that before with these guys! And I think I had 7 shots in total, 2 wildly wide, 5 on target! Flip! It must have been the coming back from illness or something... The fourth goal was great, I beat the offside trap and sent the keeper the wrong way just like Rooney's in Euro 2004 (except scaled down to 5-a-side).

To be fair, one of the goals we let in was my fault, and the other one was partially, so I was a bit of a mixed blessing I guess... :)

Weyhey! Managed to recover my top spot on Fantasy Football (after this) and gain 25 places in the overall list (now 325th)! I wasn't sure how it had happened originally, I wondered if they had played a Fulham defender or something... But it was because Gerrard was credited with the assist for Newcastle's own goal on Sunday! Ha ha, excellent...

Phew! I can enjoy Christmas now...   :)

Argh! I had managed to recover my Fantasy Football position only to be knocked off the top just before Christmas. Well, still joint top (and 350/30000). Managed to top my Champions League group with W4 L1 as well, so I'm into the knockout stages, ooo...

I was winning in our UEFA Champions League FF mini-league too, until they decided to wipe out all the points! So I fell from 232 (and a 30 point lead) down to 0! At least that wipes out the overall lead too.

Not doing so well in Yahoo FF either after forgetting to update the team (again) and then this week selecting players who Furgie later decided to rest... Doh!   :)

Bolton's secret weapon. I heard Sam Allardyce say in an interview before last weekend's matches something about "ProZone", which sounded like some kind of statistical analysis software. Having done a google for it, check out Bolton's Backroom Staff page: they employ a Match Analyst who used to be "a consultant for Leeds-based sports analysis company, ProZone".

This article adds a bit more detail. Apparently ProZone analyses camera-fed information about the movement of players and officials in a game. Big Sam has even used the software to correct refs and they now want to use it themselves!

According to this article laptops almost outnumber footballs at the Reebok... (he he) In addition to the extensive database on players' medical and fitness records, Wanderers make use of fast-developing match and incident analysis systems. They help identify players' strengths and weaknesses as well.

Having embraced Prozone - the spy-in-the-sky player analysis system - when it first came out and now an advocate of Sportscode, which offers on-screen review of any match incident, Allardyce can back his own personal judgment with detailed accounts of every player's movement over the course of any game.

"It gives me a huge amount of information both on the day and for later to make sure the players know exactly where they must perform and push on," he adds.

It's funny because a year ago I did consider going to Leeds Uni which was talking about the research it had been working on in this area. They had security applications (e.g. automatically warn a guard of suspicious behaviour) but they were also talking about analysing sports. I suspect ProZone is a Leeds Uni spin-off company (that's what professors do when they produce something profitable), cool...  :)

Brazilian Superstar makes debut for non-league Garforth Town (that's just round the corner from us!). Ok, he is 50, but still...  :)

(thanks to Wassim)

Looking forward to PES4 coming out! Some people have gone to get it from the shops. I had it on order but I just found out that Amazon aren't going to send it until the 24th! Argh... So I've cancelled that. I'll have to get it from the shops myself.

We watched Starship Troopers 2 last weekend. Quite poor. The first was great fun, but this was a standard 'cash in on the name with a sequel'... The Klumps last night was a laugh though...  :)

Talking of laughing, this morning I saw the first ad for The Simpsons on C4. I can't wait... I did wonder why BB2 stopped showing them. The ad was from an episode I hadn't seen too, so maybe they'll be showing some new seasons?! Cool...

And what is it with me and front-left wheels?! Our first car had the bearing and brakes go, this one had the brakes and something on the suspension go! Wasn't too bad tho price wise. Cost £156 and those brakes discs/pads would have needed replacing at the upcoming service anyway.

I tried asking around at work for good garages in the area, but either they were booked up for ages or people wouldn't endorse any (!). I tried looking in the usual places like the yellow pages but they weren't too helpful. In the end I used UpMyStreet.com's FindMyNearest service. That's really good. Not used it before really.

I just picked a garage at random, which is a bit of a gamble but it paid off. Western Garage (Valley Mt) are really good if you're in the Harrogate area and need a garage. Professional, polite, quick, didn't add a few £50 extras, just did the work I asked them to do. It's only a small garage, but I'm quite happy with them so far.

He he, cool. Tune in to www.conferencefootball.tv on Saturday 9th at 1pm and you can watch Aldershot v Scarborough live!

No way, I'm up to 46th again in fantasy football, and I could have been up to 16th (Wassim reckons) if I had just left Viduka in (scored twice!) DOH!

Corinna and I played Scrabble Friday and thanks to a 64 for ANTELOPE (50 point bonus for using all 7 tiles) she finished on 312! I haven't heard the end of it since...  :|

Also, while I was away everyone in the company got an email saying that as well as all the recent cost-cutting exercises, there are going to be some redundancies, including some from my department here! I haven't come across one later saying I'm sacked, so I'm hoping for the best... No seriously, those affected have gone already (I was only away for a couple of weeks) and I found out today who they were. One was a guy I used to sit near, another is the lead designer on my current project (yes, the one we've been told is crucial!) Strange, there seem to be some vacancies still being advertised!?

Well, we had a great holiday, more detail to follow shortly. In the meantime though, here's a few things:

There's a free Champions League Fantasy Football game by the same people who did the Euro 2004 one. Go here to get a team (you can use your Euro 2004 login again if you can remember it...). I've created a league, couldn't think of a name though so it's just "Enter name here"... To join it, you'll need the code 57640-10984. Feel free to join! The first deadline is Tuesday I think...

Also, while I was away, my Fantasy League team did really well. It went up to 30th overall (that's out of more than 30,000 people!) but now I've come back I'm back down to 160th again. Maybe I'd do better if I just left the team alone?

He he, I've got an email sat in my inbox titled "A new role for a Dream Developer is now being advertised". Maybe I should apply? (We have a product here called Dream...)

I read this article while on holiday too. I had to chuckle when I saw that one of the (positive) categories is 'comfort' and when I read the comment "Sermons can actually be enjoyable."  :)  Here's a link to the form if you wanted to enter one. Not fully supporting the stats at the start, but when you contrast those with the way some people (like the BBC in a couple of reports of theirs I read this morning) you have to agree with his "the people doing the talking are usually ones who don't go to church".

Simply = useless. That is, unlike me! After two weeks I'm starting to build a lead in fantasy football:

pos	team	name	pts (week)	pts (total)
1	itsthetakingpartthatcounts!	Homer Simpson	26	44
2	Donkey Kong Giants	Mr King	23	37
3	Huffa Chuffa Lumps	Darren	25	36
...
10	Lucid Dreamers	Johann Van Der Smut	10	27
...
16	Funky Football Funsters III	nEiL	8	8

I'm currently 155th out of (at least) 30,000 people!! And that's with one of my players not even playing at the moment (suspended)!

And in the Yahoo league I got the most points in week two storming up from mid-table mediocrity into 2nd!  :)

I was badly mistaken! I'm top of our 15-team league! Come on!

Also, playing footie with church last night I scored 2 (one good, one flukey) but our team lost 5-4 in the end. However, at 4-4 I had a chance to win it - the cross came in, I jumped and did a classic Shearer-style powerful header into the top near-post corner. I'm fairly sure that was the best header I've ever done in my entire life (though that's not hard as I spend most of my time playing 5-a-side!) but somehow the keeper got to it. I have no idea how.

My right-ankle was hurt pretty badly at footie about a month ago after I mis-hit the football and landed awquardly. I was finding it hard to walk even and it came up all purple and swolen. Not good. But just when it seems to be pretty much healed, my left-ankle gets hurt! Argh! (not as bad as the right one was tho thankfully).

We're looking at getting a new printer and I noticed this laser one going for only £10.50... Hmm... Scrolled down a bit and it looked genuine, scrolled down a bit more and noticed that p&p was £100.00!  :P

Well, pucker up! It's that time of year again! Yahoo's free Fantasy Football service is up and running for the new season. You can sign up here. Get your team in before 14th August (10:59AM) to get the chance of getting points from game 1.

I've created a new group you can join with ID 7697 (email me for the password).

There's also enough time left to join Wassim's Fantasy League group as well!

Ooops, forgot another condition for my PES challenge - no retired players. Added now.

Another condition added to the PES challenge: finish with a load of points in the bank. I could have had another 8k but I accidentally stopped myself selling a player... Doh!

Paul's PES3 Puzzle (well, it's a challenge really but I couldn't think of a word for challenge that begins with 'p' to keep the aliteration going...) Anyway, start a Master League with all the settings locked down to the hardest (except transfers - leave them at the default, games should be 10 mins long) with cheat prevention on and everything. No purchasing of retired players, but growth players are ok. Within 5 seasons:

• score 59 goals in the league in one season
• score 22 goals in the league in one season with the same player
• win Division 1, the Division 1 Cup and get to the final of the WEFA Champions League
• finish season 5 with a bank balance of 78232pts

Or rather, the challenge is to beat these... (I was hoping to win the treble, but I just lost the WEFA final 2-0!)  :(

For my next trick, I will be trying to win the WEFA Champions League from scrach, all settings locked down to the hardest, without buying a single player! (Come on PES4 - hurry up or we'll have to keep coming up with silly challenges to keep us occupied!)

Matt's Euro 2004 predictor results now published:

8th  Matt Parkins  79
13th Jo Parkins    66
14th Paul Parkins  65

Must be to do with his dodgy scoring... (1st got 111pts, 18th got 42.)

Pro Evolution Soccer 4: can't wait!

I spoke too soon! The other Fantasy Football league hadn't been updated - the results were actually:

 5th  itstakingpartthatcounts!  Homer Simpson        73  (4634th of at least 13272)
 9th  Chirpy United             Marge Simpson        69  (5666th)
11th  Sven's Army               Johann Van Der Smut  52  (9718th)

(1st was 500th with 99pts and 13th was 10582nd with 47.)

Plus, Corinna came joint 2nd in her prize league! Wow!

Forget the Rooney's and the Zidane's - my highest scoring player of the competition was Nikopolidis! (the Greek goalkeeper with 12 points!)

The Portuguese players being greeted by adoring fans when they arrived at their hotel last night:

(from the BBC - it was actually the main square in Athens, they were celebrating a Greek winning a spelling contest or something?)

Euro 2004: Well smash my plates and call me Stelios Georgousopoulos, I knew it would be Greece all along, I just forgot to tell anyone... That's right.

We were cheering on Greece anyway because Corinna is a quarter Greek.

The Euro 2004 Fantasy Football league, ENG-ER-LAND WILL WIN (another great prediction there...), finished:

British Bulldogs    Wassim Captan     210  (26632nd of 159344)
Homer's Delight     Corinna Parkins   202  (35032nd)
Regal Rovers        Matt Parkins      163  (76160th)
wholetthefrogsout?  Paul Parkins      143  (97554th)
The Yankee Doodles  neill birchenall  108  (126849th)

Phew! I just made it into the top 100,000 there...   :)   The other FF league we did finished:

 5th  itstakingpartthatcounts!  Homer Simpson        67  (5522th of at least 13272)
 9th  Chirpy United             Marge Simpson        59  (7727th)
11th  Sven's Army               Johann Van Der Smut  52  (9478th)

So the opposite order to the other league! Strange... (1st in that league came 358th with 97pts and last, 13th, was 10412nd with 47.) Results in Wassim's predictor were very close, but I'm sure there was some rigging going on:

1st  Wassim Captan  69  (joint on points but won on Overall Goals Predicted)
6th  Paul Parkins   64

(Just kidding!) Only 5pts separated the top 6, and 16 all 8 of us, so that was a very close one. Matt's predictor results not published yet, but it wasn't looking good last time I checked... I still maintain my defence that I did my predictions before any rules were published, and I optimistically had England winning all our matches at least 2- or 3-0 including the final (which I still think we should have...). No excuse for the FF results tho... I knew I shouldn't have laughed at that guy who bought the Greek defenders... Doh!

Merk slams English press. Now I can understand the upset over people publishing Meier's private life like that, that's unacceptable, but this was in the same article:

On Monday, Uefa's referees' committee had thrown its full support behind Meier and produced television pictures which it claimed supported the Swiss official's verdict. "The way some of the English press have blamed Urs Meier after a correct decision is completely unacceptable,"

The referees' committee said it had viewed the incident many times on video and unanimously agreed that defender John Terry's challenge on Portugal keeper Ricardo was a foul. "Holding is an offence and must be punished according to the laws."

Am I missing something? Meier said at the time he disallowed it for a push not for holding or any other foul. And when you look at the video many times, you can see that the keeper just doesn't have a chance of getting the ball. It has nothing to do with a foul - he was just nowhere near it.

It seems to me that UEFA just scrutinized the television pictures to desperately try and find something, anything. I'm sure if there was a foul nowhere near the ball they would have found it and used that. But to go so far as to call it "a correct decision" is absolutely ridiculous. Where was the push? There wasn't one.

Why are people just not prepared to say "I judged it as best I could at the time, but looking at this new evidence I can now say I made the wrong decision." There is still honour in saying that. There's no honour in lying and blindly repeating "it was a correct decision". Saying that doesn't change the fact that it was the wrong decision.

It's really uninspiring when you get an email saying "you got the 91659th highest score of this phase"... Unlike England though, at least we've still got a chance of winning our Euro 2004. The current standings have moved around a bit:

Homer's Delight      Corinna Parkins  141
British Bulldogs     Wassim Captan    134
Regal Rovers         Matt Parkins     129
wholetthefrogsout?   Paul Parkins     104
The Yankee Doodles   neill birchenall  82

Gutted. That was it - our best chance of winning a major tounament for years.

Our passing (which was a major factor in killing off other teams) just didn't happen at all. We just gave the ball away constantly. Good game from Cole and Cambell again. But on the day, Portugal were the better team. I really don't know why we played so much worse than in previous matches. We were on form but for some reason we really just didn't seem to get started in this game at all.

It was the most one-sided match I've seen for a long time, but I'm not talking about the football - that referee was terrible! I didn't actually count, but it felt like he actually got more decisions wrong than right, something like 60%-40%. Ok, one or two went our way, but on the whole he was thoroughly in Portugal's pocket. In the end, we did enough to win but he cost us the game by disallowing a perfectly good goal. He said there was a push on the keeper... WHERE?? There wasn't one!

Don't want to sound harsh, but I don't think Beckham has an excuse for that penalty miss either. England were practicing penalties on that pitch the day before the game, so he knew what to expect.

Expect my predictions and Fantasy Football teams to get no points now. I had based them all on England winning the tournament...

The Euro 2004 fantasy football mega-league is looking very close now: only 6 points seperate 3 teams. (The less said about my team the better... Neill joined late so he has an excuse!)

Regal Rovers         Matt Parkins     110 
British Bulldogs     Wassim Captan    107 
Homer's Delight      Corinna Parkins  104 
wholetthefrogsout?   Paul Parkins      78 
The Yankee Doodles   neill birchenall  64 

So it's all down to the knockout stage...

What about that Holland-Czech game eh? A chance on goal a minute just about! That's what all (non-England) games should be like (England should be all one way... That's what I'm hoping for tonight anyway!).

Forget my earlier post - I'm awesome at predicting results! I'm toping Wassim's predictor competition with the same predictions!

Paul Parkins	16
Jerzy Drabowski	15
Wassim Captan	14
Jason Bernard	13
Emma Rhodes	13
Wayne Gregory	13
Neil Magon	8
Nick Moore	8

It must be because Matt's dodgy rules are biased against anyone who isn't called "Matt".

5-0 wasn't that far off then! Good result, not too worried about the quality of our football. Thankfully the rest of our games are all in the evening. We just need Switzerland to beat the French now and we're sorted...   :)

Looks like we may be playing Greece then. I think I'd prefer them to Spain.

I have to say though, some of the refereeing in this tournament has been terrible. Are these the best referees in Europe? Loads of offsides given to on-side players. That Russian keeper sending off the other night was a terrible decision, he didn't touch the ball. Loads of fouls given for players just falling over or tripping themselves up. (That even seemed to be Switzerland's game plan last night: as soon as you get near the box, fall over, get a free kick and bring up your tall players for it. And the ref just kept giving them free kicks for non-fouls! Grrr...)

Come on everyone, Bulgaria are beating us into 2nd place in the European Free Kick Cup!

Also in the news: Paul Parkins wins vote of confidence - he he, ok, so I'm just about the worst result predictor/fantasy football underachiever. I even managed to transfer a player in last night AFTER the match was halfway through! I couldn't predict a match if it had just happened...

Still, I'm expecting a good England win tonight, 5-0??   :)

(p.s. Corinna said "don't tell anyone but I'm really looking forward to the match tonight" - oops...)

France reveal penalty plan: Mikael Silvestre has revealed that Fabien Barthez had watched videos of David Beckham's penalty-taking prior to Sunday's win. "We had a look at all the penalties he took and he was always taking them this way."

France 2-1 England: Gutted. It's just like us to work really hard, win the match for 89 minutes and then go and throw it all away in the last few seconds. Gutted.

Still, you've got to remember that this is not a couple of weeks down the line in the knockout stages. We're still in, we still have a clear path into the next stage, so we haven't actually lost anything, just made it harder for ourselves. We are still going to go on and win this. We showed that we are capable of beating anyone.

Ignoring the result, I thought it was a great game. We had it won. Rooney was about 100 times better than I was expecting, King played really well, Scholes and Cole were good, Campell and James looked pretty solid. Owen (did he even touch the ball?) and Lampard were very quiet. Should be better against the weaker defences of the Swiss and Croatians though. As always Vassell came on and did a good job, as did Hargreaves, but Heskey has now started to threaten our defence as well as ruin our attacks! Sigh...

I watched the match on the huge projector screens at church. They did a barbeque and made an event out of it. It was a great atmosphere, better that some games I've been to!

He he, Matt has worked out that we can still go through with only 2 points! Probably not a good idea to aim for that though...

Well, you've only got until 3pm tomorrow to enter your free Euro 2004 Fantasy Football team...

As there's only a dismal 2 teams in my league so far, I'm going to enter another one ("for Corinna").   :)

Yay only two days!!! ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Only 2 days to go!

For you cheapskates out there, go here to get your free Euro 2004 Fantasy Football team. And it's not just pride you're playing for - there's TVs, Digital Camcorders, Home Cinema Systems and other stuff to be won, and it's free!

I've started a private league so after you've created your team, join it with this code: 68570-12631.

Watch out for the rules, there are some odd ones like 'Automatic substitutions' - so don't go buying any rubbish defenders or keepers! It's really tough though, only 100 mill Euros to spend, and decent players aren't cheap...

Click here to download a good Euro 2004 Forecaster spreadsheet (101K).

I've just done mine and England beat Italy in the final, only letting one goal in for the whole tournament!   :)

Well, I was wrong about Scholes. What a difference from the Japan match! He was my man of the match against Iceland.

When you consider how badly the rest of the 'title contenders' did in their practice matches, it just makes you think we've got a great chance this time.

Corinna bought me a football but she doesn't like me playing inside. What she doesn't realise is I'm just trying to copy Henry from this Nike ad. (Best watched with sound, thanks to Wassim for the link.)

Give her the red card: Football fans desperate to avoid missing the action during Euro 2004 need to dump their girlfriends today or it might be too late. In fact, the longer you leave it, the more football you will miss.

If you dumped your girlfriend on 1st June, it will take her until 13th June, the date of England's opening game against France, to get over the split and to stop hassling you. According to a recent survey, the average time for a woman took to calm down after a break-up is between 10 and 14 days.

"If you have a bunny boiler, it's not only wise to ditch her, but best to move out to Portugal and live under an assumed identity."

The survey also revealed how desperate lads were not to miss a second of England's games. Nearly 90% would make Kylie wait for a date until after England had played.

It's coming home ... It's coming home ... It's coming ... Hmm, maybe not after last night's 1-1 with Japan. Our passing in the first half was good but the defence was poor throughout. France would have ripped us to shreds. We're really missing Ferdinand.

I like Reidy's idea of playing a 4-5-1 against France. I say give Rooney's place to Butt or Hargreaves in DMF. I doubt Rooney would have any impact on France, and with Lampard and Scholes breaking from midfield we would probably do just as well.

Erikkson's really just trying to play 4 attacking CMFs and it doesn't work. Never thought I'd say this because he's one of my favourites, but if any midfielder's got to be dropped, I think it would have to be Scholes. He's not playing so well right now.

I was quite encouraged though, the passing was excellent at times. Owen was looking good again. Yep, we're still going to win...   :)

Sad, I know, but I set up the proper Euro 2004 teams in a PES3 competiton and we played it in co-op as England. You'll be glad to know that after a little drama and a few sending offs we managed to get to the final against France, whom we duely thrashed 3-0!   :o)

Actually, I was thinking about it the other day, and I know I say this just before every major competition, but I really think England have a good chance of winning this time...   :)   I'm getting really excited about it now. Can't wait... Already got my Fantasy Football team set up. I even managed to pursuede Corinna to join in!

Well that's the Fantasy Football season over.

In the Yahoo league, I was up to third before this weekend and I was soooo close to second. One good final weekend and I'd have stolen it. I had a rubbish one though and ended up 4th, doh! There was 13 in that league in the end, Matt won with 12.5% more points than me. Though I got the joint title of most highest-scoring weeks (7 of the 38).

In the FantasyLeague league, I ended up 8th out of 17 so mid-table respectability, but the winner had 22% more than me... I know how it all works now though. I'll be better prepared for next season so watch out!   :)

I'm trying to get involved our church's 11-a-side footie team. I phoned up to find out what they were doing on Saturday. I was hoping it would be a training session so I could join in, but it turned out to be a match. But as I'd been before as a spectator and (mainly) because they were short on subs, he said "bring along your boots". So I took them.

It was a league match against the team at the top of the league. Player for player they were about as good as ALC but they had one excellent player in the centre of midfield who although getting on a bit (must have been late 30's or 40) could trick players well and had excellent short and long passing ability. He was their main playmaker and was setting up every chance they had. It turns out (I found out later) that he was an ex-pro. Apparently he used to play for Sheffield United!

They scored a very weak goal straight away. I think they caught ALC in that 'not quite started yet' state. A little later they got a penalty (though the foul wasn't very bad and it was right on the very edge of the box), then they scored another weak goal. So by half time we were losing 3-0. It wasn't technically over yet, but...

Anyway, our team went out in the second half and out-played them (mainly by keeping the playmaker quiet, as I was suggesting from the start) but couldn't convert any of the chances. Even in the first half we had more and better chances than them, but couldn't convert any. 12 minutes to go and I was given the nod to play up front, and another sub came on too. I must have only got 2 or 3 touches of the ball in total, but I was getting into some good positions.

With just two minutes to go, the other sub who came on at the same time as me ran into some space taking his defender with him. I quietly changed my pace/direction to lose my marker. He decided to go for glory and try to hit it from just inside the box (though to be fair he was under a lot of pressure) when if he'd have just squared it I would have been totally unmarked near the penalty spot! Still, I was just hoping for the tap in from the rebound really...   :)   He missed by a way and we lost 3-0. But the scoreline didn't represent the game. Pity really. At least I had a run around anyway...   :)

Wow, but I'm up to 3rd in the Yahoo FF league! I've managed to fluke best score twice in a row, 4 of the last 7 weeks!   :)

Doh! My Fantasy Football team got knocked out of the UEFA Cup in the 2nd round by Homer's Dohnuts of all people!   :(

Sunday League player picked for World Cup - there's hope for all of us!

Man! Footie last night was sooo close... It was 0-0 then 1-0 (to us) for about 40 minutes, then we had a burst of goals to go 4-0 up and started to relax. They managed to get 3 back with about 10 mins to go, then equalised (argh! with me in goal). It was very tense until we scored 2 in the last 2 minutes to finish 6-4! Weird.