Welcome to the GW1 REVIEW – THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN
It’s back, like it’s never been away. The boys (and I cannot stress this enough) are back in town!
Hope you all enjoyed your break as we are back into another season and it started with a bang. I spent the weekend, like the rest of us, on the emotional rollercoaster that is FPL. It was probably more down than up for me but it’s early days and I am not panicking. Yet. Let’s dissect what went wrong/right.
But before all that a bit of housekeeping. BIG thanks to everyone who has signed up this season and thanks to all those who have paid. There are still a small number who we have not received payment from and we have sent out a final payment reminder. If you haven’t yet paid your entry fee please do so today. We will begin removing those next week that have, either not paid or not been in touch. We will be able to announce the prizes as soon as that is done. We certainly have record prize money already this season but we may also have record numbers but we can’t confirm that until all payments are with us. It is an exciting time.
The excitement all started on Friday night with the very first ever FFUK FNF meet up at The Thirsty Bear nr Waterloo. I’m not sure what was more exciting, the prospect of the deadline followed swiftly by the first game of the season or the fact that you could order drinks and food via an iPad and it was bought over to your table almost immediately. The fact that you could also select tunes via a jukebox on the app may have just swung it. Either way it was a great evening, thanks to Damian O’Neill (112th) for organising and thanks to those who attended as well. Damo will organise another one soon, keep an eye open for news of that one!
In terms of the football, from what i remember, it was a time of celebration especially if you had captain Mo Salah (2 x 12) and VVD (8) who got a goal from a Mo assist, which if you own both is the stuff of FPL dreams. I was in dreamland for a moment and decided to order a bottle of wine via the iPad. I don’t remember much more after that.
That feeling on Saturday morning was back. Equal measures of dread and excitement as the team news poured in. It was City up first and that meant an early dose of Pep roulette. This time Bernardo (0) and Aguero (5) were both benched. I owned the former who I thought might just be enough to make up for the fact I didnt own Raz (20). It wasn’t. Anywhere near. I got ffuking punished hard. Lesson learnt. I will be engineering a way to get Sterling into my team, I should probably just check the draft I had before I settled on my final GW1 side as that had him firmly in place. If only the season had started two days earlier. So City smashed Wham by 5 goals. Raz’s hatrick was a highlight for his owners although only 16 in the league gave him the armband.
In a nutshell that was the weekend. Massive highs followed quickly by massive lows. I wont go on further about my own experiences until I have to later on, lets check out those who had more highs than lows. But first the Official FPL GW1 Dream Team, how many of these did you own? Probably more than the 1 for me!
But now it is time, for the first time this season, to look at the first page of the FFUK league. This is where you want to be.
Straight in at the top and one of 5 FFUKers to reach the 100 club at the first time of asking. FFUKing impressive. Congratulations to new player this season, Steven Watson (1st) who top scored with 109 points. Of course he owned highest scoring player Raz (20) and most owned Mo (12) but he captained neither. This is a man who can think outside the box, he was the only FFUKer in the whole league to captain Rash (13 x 2). Genius. Elsewhere there were plenty of points for his other picks like Origi (12), VVD (8), Pogba (9), Laporte (6), Ederson (7) and Kelly (6). What an opening week. Steven has shown the early pace, we must all follow and try to catch up.
Next best was another new player. Welcome to Lee Bedford (2nd) who scored 103. Lee was one of the 16 who captained the top scoring player Raz (20 x 2) for the perfect start. However with no Mo he needed the rest of his squad to step up and boy did they. Kane (13), Rash (13), Ryan (9), VVD (8, James (6) and Wilson (5) all returned.
Well played also to another newbie Ben Tiffin (3rd) who scored 102. Another cracking start to the season. We all have our work cut out to keep up with the new boys. Ben went captain Mo (2 x 12) like 158 FFUKers did! But it didnt stop there, Raz (20), Kane (13), AWB (8) and VVD (8) all did the business but perhaps his pick of WhatsApp group favourite, Ashley Barnes (13) was most impressive.
Behind Ben are a trio of FFUKers who all scored an even Ton. Congratulations to James Amar (T4th), Adam Cox (T4th) and Justin McCarthy (T4th) who have all started strong. 100 points in a single gameweek with so many unknowns shows these 3 are all ones to watch. With that added pressure now on the question is, can they keep it up?
THE CONTS MINI LEAGUE
Once again the CONTS mini league is up and running and there is no easy first week in this league. BANG DOUBLE EVICTION. Straight off the bat, no time to get comfy, a pair of FFUKers would be evicted before the dust has even settled! #
We have 50 FFUKers in this league and for the first 12 GWs there will be double evictions. Get through that and then it’s one eviction every GW until we have our winner. Only one winner. Only 1 prize. Brutal.
The first GW is something of an anomaly. As we make our way through the season we can use Overall Rank to decide any close calls. But for the opening GW there will lots of us tied on overall rank so we needed another way to decide. We had foreseen this when we started this league and decided on some rules so that if that happened we had other ways to decide.
We needed to consult the rule book this weekend. As the games unfolded it became clear that both myself and Pete Cronin were at risk. As it happened I just needed Zouma to get 0 to see myself safe. He got -1!!!! FFUK. Fortunately I was out drowning my sorrows by this point. But on Monday morning with a foggy head I checked the rules on the CONTS mini league page
At the end of GW1 Richard Harrison was left on 61 points and with that became the first evictee of the season. Sorry Rich but at least you can now concentrate on the league. But there was a 3 way tie for next worst between myself, Pete and Andy Heath on 62 points. All identical overall ranks so the next check was lowest captain score. Myself and Pete both captained Mo for his 12 x 2. Nervously I clicked Andy’s team, would it be Raz with 20 x 2 or Rash or Kane with 13 x 2. Any of those would kill me or Pete. But Andy went with Aguero (5 x 2) so it is with great relief (and a lot of embarrassment) that I can confirm Andy Heath is also being evicted from the CONTS mini league. 48 survive including Pete and I, but we both need to buck our ideas up if we are to make it through the double evictions let alone even get to the final stages!
Into injury time now and that is it for this opening GW. Thanks for reading and we will be back next week with the next one. In the meantime we hope we will be able to announce the prize money soon plus news of a new trophy for our younger players, coming your way soon.
Perhaps now is also a good time, especially with plenty of new players joining us this season to remind everyone that we are always on the lookout for help, primarily with posts on the site, if you fancy writing something for us to go on the site we would love to get you involved, Pete and I can help if you need it and we can set you up with a WordPress account (or not if you prefer). As the years go by Pete and I find ourselves with less and less time to commit to FFUK, fortunately we now have a few legends to help us from time to time, but we would never say no to more help.
If writing isn’t for you then maybe you fancy doing something else, get involved by helping us with a video or maybe you are a techie or a graphic designer who can lend us their skills from time to time. If you don’t ask you don’t get as they say. If you fancy getting involved please get in touch!
Until next time, look after yourself and each FFUKer!
Cheers
Chris
FFUK 