Season 13 - Week 1

New Season, same old leaders.... well mostly.  David Rosser (two time overall champion, two time Pele winner) leads with a cracking opening week pick of Sunderland away at Bolton.  In third place Nick Kelly (Pele winner season 5) with another away winner in Fulham and Jimmy Smith (Pele winner and overall champion in separate seasons) picked Arsenal and was crushingly vindicated to gain him fourth spot.  The only player in the top four without form is Craig Judas Boy Commons who has two negative equity seasons behind him.

David Pilkington (bottom of the overall league with a humiliating -£31.10) is one of 31 players to pick losers in the opening week.

Welcome to the new season, and I hope your first pick went well (mine didn't bah).  It is welcome news that we may soon be able to restart betting for real (for those who weren't around in the early days we all used to pay a £1 a week and that £1 would be put as an accumulator on all the results in your league, with the entire winnings (if all ten come in) being share amongst those ten people.  Sadly the gambling laws prevent us from doing that if we don't know all the people playing (well we would need a gambling license, and that costs thousands).  On the basis that we might be playing for real soon (if you so desire of course) then lets review how much we would have won.... okay well it would be nothing this week, but the Maradona league and the Ali Dia league both got 8/10 and that's a cracking effort.

Without too much form to go on, I won't say much more about the first week, other than to big up Craig Lowe who was really equal 4th, but I wanted to concetrate on the "big guns" who were flexing their muscles in the first week.  Craig, with an all-time score of -£1.76 is not quite a big gun, but this is a commendable score given that he has been playing for a long time.

Talking of the all-time league, let's also commend David Rosser, the legend, who has a phenomenal all-time score of +£28.35, doubtless the bookies scourge in his spare time, he has built up this score by mainly focussing on the longer odds.... but follow his strategy at your peril, he has an uncanny knack of picking away winners that few can follow.  Paul "Shakey" Shakespeare also has an impressive all-time score, created by a phenomenal run of positive equity seasons (he lost about £8 in his first season and has turned it around in a very different way, by predominanty picking in the 1.80-2.25 range and most importantly getting it right a lot!

Paul Crunkhorn and Robert Heseltine (big gains in a short time) have also been impressive, with one big season and solid seasons around, and final member of the £10+ club is the world renowned Nick Kelly who tends to either win big or get relegated, a genuine threat in any league, he is often favourite to win and favourite to go down!

As I am now two leagues below my father (who started three leagues below me!) I thought I would also mention the Jones clan.  Jake (League 2), Jamie (League 3) Ross, Ricky (League 5) and Andrew (League 6) have scattered far and wide, but with 2 up and 4 down this season it can all change quickly, are they related, who knows, maybe they will tell us in the forum.  We do know that  Alan Blackley and his son Michael John are related and that although they are currently in the same league, opposing results in week 1 may see the son soon leave his father behind.

Ayako Ono asked me to be nice to her, so I won't mention her first week loss and will instead concentrate on her incredible rise through the leagues to the Maradona league.  Let us know who you are on the forums and I will try to give you a shout out... Craig Storey and Craig the Ram, I'll get to you soon..... if you do anything exciting!

Gibbo out

 

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