Whoa! What a ride!
Well that’s it, that’s the first round of the FFUK Cup, done and dusted! Did you enjoy it? Did you come out battered and bruised or bloodied but victorious? Maybe you were one of the few that walked away from the first round with your tail wagging like a wind carrot at a rave…
As you know the end of the first round signals two things. The first is the beginning of the second round of the FFUK Cup, being held in December – this is going to be large. The second is the start of the Challenge Cup, to be drawn on Wednesday 2nd December. The Challenge Cup will give 32 losing teams a chance to reignite their cup hopes. The other forgotten 32 teams from October now get the chance to show the rest of the league what they are made of!
A few notes on the first round:
The lowest scoring winner was Mark Hunter with 132 points, he goes through to the second round. By contrast, Mark’s score was a massive 87 points lower than the highest scoring loser, Sam Blake. Sam Blake was in the midst of an explosive tie versus Yabah Turnbull but in the end Yabah beat Blakey by 226 points to 217, by far the highest scoring match in the cup, and a pretty tight match.
The tightest match of all was Nick Verardi v Jonathan Britcher. Nick beat Jonathan by a single point, 166 to 165, and in fact, there were no ties at all in the first round. That was a pretty low-scoring match actually… Let’s have another look at Blakey. Yes. Sam Blake would have in fact won every single tie except for his own, and the tie against Andy Faulkner. Big up to Andy and Yabah who got the highest monthly score for cup teams with 226. Commiserations to Blakey. A mention needs to go to JPC too, he gave the biggest whooping in the first round, by a massive 77 points!
A shout out to my Dad, Mike Cronin too, who made it through and will carry the flag in the Cup for the Cronin clan!
So it’s early days but on scheduling the fixtures for the second round these look a bit hot:
Toby Glicher (1st) plays Vivaek Vendikat (6th), a Top Ten match that is going to guarantee one of those teams no cup action from January.
James Page-Chatton (2nd) plays Matt Cox (10th), a big match at the top of the table and apparently Coxy was JPC’s best man!
Lester Deeble (3rd) plays Neil Stewart (50th). Don’t be misled, Lester has sat at the top of the table for most of the season and Neil, although sitting mid-table at the moment, came 119th in the world last season.
Finally league chairman Chris Galloway (10th) plays Paul Baker (4th), a contributor to the website and long time friend. So another table-top bout with loads of explosive potential. Will they still be friends in January? Of course they will! And with enough banter fuel to last a lifetime!
Looking forward to it!
FFUK 