The return of the Premiership - after an eternal, agonising, two-minute break since the World Cup, also means the return of Premiership Pro, fantasy league, in which my team is pitted against 10 managed by my friends.
The best thing about the game is how it heightens your enjoyment of the whole of the Premiership, rather than just your own team. You scan transfer gossip and keep abreast of punditry to try and give you an edge. You loan support to other teams if they contain your players.
This season I am the chairman and had to organise the auction which was last Monday at a pub on Farringdon Street, which was great fun. We reserved an upstairs room because some managers were worried at being so openly geeky in public - that said I saw on Friday another group of blokes doing their teams, completely shamelessly in the corner of the Prince Regent, near Herne Hill.
I take it probably too seriously, for some reason. Last year I turned up to the auction with an enormous ringbinder of stats. This year Danny noticed during the auction that I appeared at one point to have palpatations after paying too much for Nolan. Darren Willis - a fantastic comment-leaver on Credo - did a fine job as auctioneer. I wish I had taken my camera but wanted to play down my reputation as Lenscap at social functions with my friends - I was dubbed this at a recent wedding after it was pointed out that I needed to remove it to take proper photographs.
My starting line-up is: Given, Ekotto, Eboue, Brown, Carragher, Ballack, Downing, Nolan, Convey, Berbatov, Ameobi, Roberts, Adebayor, Kalou, and Lita.
Not bad, although I arguably have too many strikers.
I decided to call the league this seaon the Garth Crooks Intellectuals' League in homage to the BBC's 'thinking football man'. I think this is very magnanimous of me after an indicent in the Chelsea press room last season when Mr Crooks, his mouth full of food, nodded impolitely at me to get out of the way of the flastscreen tv he was watching.
My initials are MAO, and I have been asking my fellow managers to refer to me as Chairman Mao. My team is Mao Utd. I finished runner up last season - team name Oliphantasticos - and won the year before that. If I don't win this year it will be a case of Apocalypse Mao.
Recent Comments