Fantasy Football Review 2010/11

The football season is over, and it will be almost three months before my beloved Arsenal play a competitive game again. I thought it was about time that I reviewed the past season from a fantasy football perspective, as I ran a very successful fantasy league during it. With the help of 11Gunners I managed to get 782 teams to join the league, and the final outcome was in doubt right up until the last day of the season.

In the end "Herk City" emerged victorious with Mark von Herkomer as their manager, with "N'gog we trust 4evra" a close second under the stewardship of Joe Plumber and Mr. Ike managed "BadNews" to third place. There are trophies for the first three teams, and I'm currently trying to contact all of those managers with only a little success. As it stands the runners up trophy will be on it's way to Guyana, but I cannot contact the other two managers who are from England and Ireland.

There were 223,750 leagues altogether competing this season, and I am delighted to say that my league was ranked 47th overall. It's not a bad achievement and I'll be hoping for even more teams to enter next season. It also puts the performance of my own team in a slightly better light, as I managed to finish 35th in my league with a bit of a late rally. Here's a look at how the top 10 in the league finished up.

1	Herk City	Mark von Herkomer	47	2232
2	N’gog we trust 4evra	joe plumber	43	2209
3	BadNews	Mr Ike	51	2192
4	Wycombe Wanderers	Sam Sheehy	54	2166
5	I'm Back	Fire Fred	48	2160
6	abigail11	Abz Davies	41	2131
7	Fab4 is God	Ricky Leung	54	2127
8	Get in there Defoe	Rocky Ogle	54	2124
9	Manfootster United	shendon whytle	44	2115
10	Berb won't start XI	Chris Drake	45	2112

If I was to choose a star fantasy player of the season I think the award would have to go to Charlie Adam of Blackpool. He managed 12 goals, nine assists, and 45 bonus points during the season despite the fact that he played with a team which was relegated. He cost only £5million to buy at the start of the season, which is an awful lot less than the £13million some people shelled out for Frank Lampard. It will be very interesting to see where he ends up when the transfer window closes, as he has an awful lot to offer most teams in the Premier League.


It's players like Adams which can make all the difference if they are in your team from the start of the season at such a cheap price. It's important to try to identify which players from the promoted teams might make an impact next season, as they should be quite reasonably priced too. The players of Queens Park Rangers, Norwich City, and either Reading or Swansea City are all potential fantasy league stars of next season.

Regular readers will also know I was running a predictions league throughout the season, and it ended up rather close in the end as well. Stephen Bradley had been the runaway leader all season, but he came dangerously close to being caught right at the very end. I hadn't offered a trophy for the predictions league, but if all the winners from my fantasy league cannot be found I think Stephen richly deserves a trophy. Here's a look at the final predictions league table.

	1 (1)			_Bradley08	1635	-15	0
	2 (2)			preetgreet	1560	+80	0
	3 (3)			essexgooner1965	1335	0	0
	4 (4)			aranmichael	1185	-10	0
	5 (5)			Imjola	1115	-20	0
	6 (5)			Nickmc1980	1100	-35	0
	7 (7)			billygooner_29	1095	0	0
	8 (8)			COSGOONER	990	-30	0
	9 (10)			Sinesladael	905	+80	0
	10 (9)			oakhamgooner	890	+5	0

I'll be running the prediction league again next season, and I'm determined to finish higher than fourth this time. Hopefully there will be a few more competitors the next time, as it's a very enjoyable way to keep an eye on all the Premier League games as they happen. As soon as both games are up and running again I'll be all over Twitter with the codes to join. I would imagine the fantasy league should start sometime in mid July, but the predictions game is usually a lot closer to the start of the season. 

I hope to start my review of Arsenal's season in the next few days, and it would have been completed sooner but I've been ill recently. It may not make the most pleasant reading after Arsenal's late collapse left them without a trophy yet again, and also facing a Champions League qualifying round.

That's it for today.

Here's one of my favourite memories from Arsenal's past. It's the highlights of the two legs of the 1980 Cup Winners Cup semi-final victory over Juventus.

See You Tomorrow.

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