The first round of the FFUK Cup is being contested this October Gamemonth. The month comprises a total of four Gameweeks, and with two of those weeks already completed, we’re halfway there. And already some managers are living on a prayer.
Ten managers already more than 50 points behind in their ties, not least Michael Baines who trails Jez Penn by a whopping 96 points! Max Walker currently has a 78 point margin to make up on Stan Packham, while Ollie Beckwith has the same deficit to deal with vs Kevin Flynn. Paddy Power’s already paying out lads!
At the opposite end of the spectrum a number of ties are tight. Tighter than a camel’s a$*e in a sandstorm. 29 matches are being led by less than ten points, although interestingly none of them are tied …… for now. As a reminder, tied fixtures are determined on a countback method, so in this case on scores achieved in the September Gamemonth. Four ties are being led by a solitary point: Brendan Ryan, Matthew Shaw, Aaron Smith and Paul Taylor leading Sam Parker (despite being the Gameweek 5 top scorer), Eddie Fitz, Jack Slade and Stuart Loader respectively.
The prize, as things stand, for the highest quality fixture – the fixture with the highest aggregate points total goes to James Downie vs Ross Smith. A clash of the titans. A battle for the ages! Ross can consider himself extremely unlucky to have drawn the man with the current highest total for October in FFUK (this is why we have our second-chance cup, the Milk Plate) and even more so for the fact that Ross is currently fifth placed for October! His 168 points would have him leading 124 out of the 128 fixtures! Tough school Ross.
The lowest score to be currently leading a tie is 94 points. Mark James is the lucky man to have drawn an even worse competitor, in this case Fabian Mascoll who has only amassed 86 points to date.
We’ve had one manager drop out of the league, and hence out of the cup competition as well. His place has taken by a bye, so one extra lucky manager gets a free pass to round two, joining ten others already benefiting from such a pass. Nice one Joe Warrington!
Finally a look at how some high profile ties and managers have been faring. The fixture with top billing is undoubtedly the blue on blue, friendly fire fixture between Tim McEwan and Stu Allen. Tim currently leads the tie by just 11 points (120 vs 109), so there’s all to play for. Our co-chairman Chris Galloway leads one of the two all-Chris match-ups. His 30-point lead over Chris Norman (152 vs 122) looks a big enough cushion to see him through. (Incidentally the other all-Chris affair sees Chris Smith lead Chris Lovegrove 154 to 132). Our other co-chairman Pete Cronin was drawn in the first match and leads Ben Eastwood by a too-tight-for-comfort 17 points (125 vs 108). Finally, yours truly has helped himself to a 66 point advantage over Brian Collins. Brian was the top points scorer in FFUK in Gameweek 3 with 84 points , but his form has since dipped alarmingly and has only amassed 69 points in the last two Gameweeks combined.
That’s all for now. If you’ve not been mentioned above and want to check out how your tie is going it’s all here: FFUK Cup 20/21 – sheet “Round 1”. Good luck with your match-ups and remember, if you lose all is not lost – you’ll be duly entered into the Milk Plate starting in November!
Cheers,
Bakes
P.S. really disappointed to discover that we haven’t got either a Tommy or a Gina in the League!
FFUK 