After a discussion over the weekend with ASRP Stellings, we came up with a possible fantasy fitba idea (based on one of his leagues last year)…let me know what you think of it, it involves quite a bit of administration and rule making, but we all love a bit of admin, don’t we?
Anyway, the idea is to get a player list from one of the papers and base our game on the points from that, I vote the Telegraph because it’s the best FF game and I’m a Middle Class, Right-Wing Tory. Anyway, the idea is to base our game on that but add a little twist…
We decide on a budget for everyone (say £150m) and hold an auction night for players (at the The world's greatest pub, the Maypole, pie and pea supper, drink Moorhouses) for people to bid for individual players for their team (ie only one person/team can own a player - £150m for Ronaldo it is then).
Everyone has to buy a squad of fifteen, and we go through the player list auctioning off only the best/most popular etc otherwise it’d take all night. All other players (ie the crap ones from relegation fodder/mid-table mediocrity like Hull, Stoke, Newcastle and L'Arse) will be placed on a free transfer list. Once all the players have gone, the person who has most money left or was the last to spend up (hence promoting frugality) has first pick from free transfers to fill their team and so on and so forth until everyone has a squad of 15 (2 keeps, 5 deefs, 5 mids, 3 att).
By my calculations, the average premier league playing squad is around 18-20 giving us a pool of around 380-400 players to sell. That means a maximum of 25 people to enter. I suggest they pay £20-25 entry (including pie and pea supper – that’ll only cost about £3 per head won’t it?) which, realistic case scenario of 20 entrants @ £20 gives a pot of £340. Give the club £100, winner £100, RU £70, 3rd £50, 4th £20. Greasy Greek a wooden spoon.
As far as the administration of it goes, the basic rules as far as points go would be the same as the paper. Players pick their starting 11 each week, email it to me by a designated day, I work out the points from the paper, make some snazzy cool spreadsheets, blind you all with a load of SUMIFS and VLOOKUPS before Macro-ing your face off to do the points and standings and that. We could add our own rules like deadlines for submitting teams, have 2 transfers each month (people send me players they want rid of, I add them to the free transfer list, people pick new players from that list, whoever is bottom gets first pick etc), make people captains, bonus points etc.
If this sounds like too much hard work, sod it, we’ll just do the FA Premier League one but it has a few plus points; a) fun, b) lets me play with spreadsheets more, my no.2 hobby (after maths), 3) allows a social drinkorama at the pole, increasing village awareness of LPFC and Robert’s profits d) we get to eat pie and v) makes sure Greasy Greek doesn’t win (i.e is a real test of skill and soccer knowledge).
Let me know if any of you fancy it, we could discuss rules and that and stuff then. If you think it’s too much hassle, you don’t deserve a fitba club.
This was a very long post
