NEWS
09/07/08
Season
2008-2009 is now OPEN TO ENTRIES!!!
The
players listings have only just come out for the 2008~2009 season,
so bear with me while I get the website all in order, but in the mean
time, DOWNLOAD
THE ENTRY FORM HERE and get agonising on just how to spend your
£50m!!
Now I know that it's early doors
and that players are yet to be signed, but that's no excuse not to
get your entry in early, because there's a TRANSFER AMENSTY until
the start of the season. Yes! That's right - even if you enter today,
you can make as many changes as you want to your team up to kick off
of the first match at noon on 16th August 2008. After that though
it's a different story...
21/05/08
And so we arrive at our final
destination. We would like to thank you for choosing to enjoy the
ride with Jumpers For Goalposts as we are aware that there are other
Fantasy Football Leagues available. But we would point out that there
are few out there that crack such poor jokes week after week, run
such confusing rules, give out such 'delightful' trophies or make
quite some many references to a provincial football team that plays
in tangerine. And quite frankly that's what you want in a fantasy
league isn't it really?
So, that being the case here is
the final weeks' news. Top score this week was 12, which thirteen
of you got. Biggest risers were Joy Stevens and Craig Hughes. Biggest
faller was Nolan Giblen (sorry mate!). Impressively no-one got a minus
score, but let's face it no-one really cares about this week's scores.
All they care about is this week's positions and just who is going
home with some of the prize money. Would you believe this year I'm
giving out over £530 in prize money. That's blinking amazing.
My poor poor bank balance - you better all come back next year and
plug the hole that's gonna be there for a few months!!!!
But just how did that money get
spread out? Was it like a five year old's toast with everything at
the corners? Or did I actually take some lessons in plastering and
learn how to spread things out evenly. Well here comes the science
bit…concentrate!
- 32nd Place got you £5
this year and that went to Nerys Hutchins. A bright start, but fell
away. Just delighted to be above her other half Craig I suspect.
- 10th Place also won £5
and that went to Mark Parfitt, holding off Rob Bealing for the last
money paying place. Mark had two spurts of league glory in week
12 and 31, but made 10th his own in the last few weeks. Nice going
for the new boy there.
- 9th Place and a return of the
entry fee got another new boy, Matt Palmer £10. An abysmal
first week spurred him on to become a gradual league climber.
- 8th Place secured Jon Hales
£15. A good reward for his season long consistency.
- 7th Place and you get to take
home £20. And who gets that? None other than perennial JFG
bridesmaid Allan Booth.
- 6th Place and £25 goes
to yet another new boy Gary Townsend. Not bad return on investment
that is it?
- 5th Place earns £30.
And oh boy is she never gonna let him hear the end of it. Sorry
Al, but Rebecca Booth got 5th .
- 4th Place and £35 - see
how the moolah's creeping up now? - well blow me if it isn't Ben
Relf. Yet another new boy scores well after a shocking first week.
And now onto the big money! Ooooooh.
(It's like Family Fortunes this innit?)
- 3rd Place. He had the honour
of sitting top of the pile in week one, and then gradually fell
to his lowest position of 19th (some of us can only dream!). But
hard graft by his team brought him back up to 3rd, which he's pretty
much made his own for the last 17 weeks. It give me great pleasure
to give £50 and a trophy to a bloke who meant I wasn't the
only one with a southern accent at the CIS cup final…well done
to Richard Tapsfield!
- 2nd Place. What can we say
about this man? To be honest there's only one way to describe him.
He is Mr JFG. If I'm so much as five minutes late with the weekly
update the boy's onto me. Week one saw him in mid table, and I began
to wonder if last year's victory had gone to his head. But I should
have known better. The boy came good and a long and steady climb
saw him nearly win it for a second year, but it wasn't to be. Hopefully
£100 will make it all better for Simon Duke.
- 1st Place. Gazz Hartley. £200.
The lad's a JFGenius (geddit?!). Another one with a shocking start
that saw him only languishing in 31st by week 5, but then something
changed in his team - I think it was Ronaldo woke up or something
- and bingo. 9 weeks later he was top of the pile and despite the
odd wobble and a few nerves, he didn't budge from there for 28 solid
weeks. Combined with a visit to the JFG final, it really showed
what a solid team and good substitutions Gazz had. Why the FA bothered
with that Italian numpty I don't know. Well done Gazz. A truly cracking
achievement to be top for that long and a well deserved winner of
JFG Season 2007~2008.
However, for every great winner,
there has to be a gallant loser. And if you thought that Gazz Hartley's
28 week in one position achievement was good, then you should take
note of Graham Thorpe. For the last 33 weeks he's made last place
his own. He's been there that long I think he's built a small house
with a little shed at the bottom of the garden. Congratulations Graham
you get this year's JFG Wooden Spoon. No really, there really is a
wooden spoon. It's engraved and everything…
Now then, before some of you start
bleating at me to ask the reasoning why Nerys got the fiver and not
Iain…if you're sitting comfortably then I shall explain. The
rules (on the website don't you know!) state that "In the event
that any scores are tied then the winner will be decided on the most
number of weeks spent at a highest position." So there. I worked
out who'd been higher for longer and thus Nerys was on top of Iain,
Nathan stands above Nick, Gary L gets to look up to Ian Hamblen and
we won't even mention the ménage a trios between Craig Hughes,
Ewen M and Sam W…
And because it's the last update
for this season, that also means that we have a final Manager of the
Month award to give out. Oh yes. It was quite a close run thing this
month what with it being a bit shorter and that. Sam Welfare did his
best to topple the winner but beating him but just 2 points was…………………
Jeremy Perkins. Well done Mr P. A trophy for this monumental achievement
is yours for the taking.
And how pleased was I to see that
each Manager of the Month award went to different people. I love it
when a plan comes together.
There was also a new award this
year which gave honour to nothing to do with managerial skills. No,
this award was for the best use of the Queen's English and to be honest
also confirmed that the hardest thing about entering a team into JFG
wasn't the picking of the players. So roll up roll up, let's hear
it for the all new "Best Team Name" award. Over the course
of the year, I kept prodding you to give me your votes on the team
you thought had the best name (if you didn't vote then why not!?)
and the top three in reverse order were:
" Dynamo Bikelight (me! Hurrah!)
with 14% of the vote,
" Borrusia Teeth (Gary Townsend) with 20% of the vote,
" And the outright deserved winner with 40% of the vote was Jon
Steward with Borrusia Munchmyballsac. Congratulations to you Jon.
A fine fine effort there, worthy of a trophy as well as £10
too.
And before you all start going
"Hold on, that don't add up to 100%" there was lots of single
votes for various teams and I can't be bothered to list them all for
fear of turning this into a girlie length email.
A few weeks ago we also crowned
the winner of the oft confusing and long winded JFG Cup. Thankfully
this year we had a straight knockout competition which made life easier
for me with no pesky mini-leagues to work out. Anyway. I digress.
The winner and victor over the mighty Gazz Hartley was Rob Bealing.
Not only did he get a trophy, but he got £30 too! Well he will
when I remember to give it to him. Nice to see him win too seeing
as he got beat in the final last year.
So how exactly did Gazz Hartley
do so well? What was it that gave him the edge? Well also available
on the site all year long have been the "Departmental League
Tables" giving you a standing of where you are in the departments
of Defence, Midfield and Strikers. Clever eh? And a quick rundown
shows us that:
- Defence League was won by Simon
Duke, then Jon Hales and then Rebecca Booth. Gazz H was 5th.
- Midfield League was won by
Richard Tapsfield, then Sean Jarvie and then Pete Hoyle. Gazz H
was 6th.
- Strikers League was won by
Mark Parfitt, then Ben Relf and then Nick Sutton. Gazz H was 6th.
So actually, with nine different
people in the top nine places there that probably tells us nothing.
Wonderful. I suspect all we can garner from that was that Gazz H was
consistently good. Similarly if you look for the lower reaches, you
can see that Graham Thorpe wasn't bottom in any of the leagues, but
somehow he still finished bottom of the overall league.
Lovely. Now I'm really confused.
Spiffing.
And then of course there was the
"Had you had those players from the start league table"
which is both enlightening and painful reading too. In reality it
shows that most people, give or take a few, would have ended up round
about the same place as before, but with about 300 more points. But
the top three would have been: Simon Duke, Richard Tapsfield and then
Gazz Hartley.
I hope you've all been paying
attention to all this right?! I'm not even going to mention the tube
map on acid that was the Positions Graph…that's a feature that
may well get ditched for next year!
And finally I'd really like to
thank you all for taking part in this year's league. It still amazes
me to see how JFG has grown. We're in just the fifth year and already
we're handing out over 500 quid in prize money. I also must thank
those of you who've been out here inviting, cajoling and generally
dragging in more and more people into the league each year. There's
something quite weird to think that there are other random people
out there - some I haven't even met - who like what I do so much that
they talk about it to other people.
If you've got any suggestions
for how to improve or any tweaks to be made to JFG then please please
please email me. We've got a few months now until Season 08~09 starts
up so get your thinking caps on!
Oh and be prepared for the JFG
End of Season Do - it's coming soon!
Thanks again for taking part -
I'm now off to sit in the corner and mumble "No JFG. No updates.
No JFG. No updates" over and over and over and over…
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