Competition Update 02/01/2024

Roberto Di Statteo
Jan 2, 2024
4 min read

Happy new year everyone!

As you know, December's been a very busy (and not very enjoyable) month for NUFC, and the competition schedule is no different. There are quite a few rounds of things jammed in together to ensure that everything fits into a season, plus all the other stuff going on this time of year, so schedule has been sporadic. Here's the status quo in all competitions, though.

Scorecast

A scrollable, full table can be seen here: toontalk.uk/scorecast

Yin Mo holds onto top spot as the next 4 shuffle a bit, Bill Wonders now up to a season-best 2nd place, and is Yin's closest challenger as David Threadgill has a nightmare of a round. Mark Habbishaw, also on only 1 point, drops out of the top 10 with Lee Miller; John Thompson is into the top 10 for the first time, and Colin French hits a joint-top score of 11, and returns to the top 10 after only briefly dropping out last round. Honourable mention to Paul Durham on 10 points.

Simon Baxter also on 11 climbs more than anyone else, up 24 places to 34th. John Waters is at 24th, and I'm 23rd, so I'm relatively happy. Graeme Gilhespy goes above both of us though, with a very respectable 9 points. :D

Chris Collins was an early leader in this round with 3 bullseyes in his first 4 games; he finishes on 10 and climbs 16 places.

Christopher Nager with the best score lower down the table for the second week in a row so could be climbing out of this area before long.

And no movement at all from 81 downwards despite Matthew Pike having a damn good go of it with 2 points.

Tablecast

A scrollable, full table can be found here: toontalk.uk/tablecast

The final Tablecast table for the current GW will include the result from tonight's game between West Ham and Brighton, but here's the table as it stands right now:

Despite slipping to 17th last week, Glenn Harrison turns to top the league for the third week of the last four. Angie Stanger-Leathes has been from 4th, to 9th, to 7th within the last week or so, and looks to be intent on sticking around in the top 10. Brian Waite and Julie Roseblade also look like consistent top tenners and Pete Davies has held onto top 5 for three weeks in a row. Stephen Renforth is our biggest climber at 53 places.

There are only 98 participants but it's easier to grab 25 at a time... unfortunately for Danii Allan this means that I'm technically in the top half and she's not! She, John Waters and Anj Luzanycia-Hird are the ones to have fallen from the top 20.

Mal Peary plummets from 5th to 59th and Simon Coles from 8th to 72nd

... and I'm sorry to say my other half is back to the bottom of the league. Biggest faller is Rick Pike - 70 places from 10th to 80th.

Fantasy League

Jonathan Adamson - if you're reading this, I can no longer see your team on Fantasy Premier League for some reason. As such, I'm going to have to put zeroes in for your score. Please let us know if you're having issues - we'll be able to correct things retrospectively.

Mobile version of the Fantasy League interface is taking a while to put together. For now, please use a desktop PC or Mac, or a tablet, or "desktop mode" on your phone. If you have a phone (or other device) with Google Sheets, you can access the full record of all of the Fantasy League results by clicking this button:

Toontalk Fantasy League Spreadsheet

The last GW to start in 2023 ends tonight with West Ham v Brighton. Those scores are for Round 4 Leg 1 of the Tournament, which looks like this:

This is the only Fantasy League this season that has a prize behind it (to be confirmed later) and we're down to the last 16. You can see the full Fantasy League Tournament page by clicking here:

Toontalk Fantasy League Tournament

The Cup (which is not the same competition as the Tournament, just to be clear) will continue in GW24, in mid-February, with the quarter-finals. Peter Thompson and Graham Hall drew 58-58 in their last 16 game, and then 45-45 in the replay. As I haven't programmed my stuff to allow for 2 draws in a row, since it's super-rare, I've gone off the highest score in the previous round (Round 3). Graham Hall scored 78, Peter Thompson 74. The cup page can be found by clicking here:

Toontalk Fantasy League Cup

The Quarter final of the cup is as follows:

DATE:

W/C 10/02/2024

FIXTURES:

Matthew Pike vs Robert Hutchinson

Robert has struggled in the league, currently occupying 11th position in the Championship, but he has won his last two league games so looks to be in decent form. Matthew is in National League Four but as this is the first season of this Fantasy League system, that's only because he got his team submitted closer to deadline. He's currently 3rd in that league after starting brilliantly, but losing 5 of his last 6.

John Davidson v Enda McGuane

John is 3rd in League Two, his highest league position so far. Enda only 6th in the Championship, but has won 5 league games on the bounce. This could be a close one, I think.

Chris Abbott v Graham Hall

Chris has been inconsistent in League One but is sitting 6th and not as far off the leaders as with some of the other divisions. Graham Hall scraped through on a previous-round tiebreaker over Peter Thompson; he's currently 7th in the Premier League.

Ben Harper v Alex Banks

Ben and Alex are currently 1st and 5th, respectively, in National League Two. Ben's form hasn't been perfect but scores have been high and bonus points have helped him to lead the division by 8 points. He scraped through against Graham Clark 47-46. Alex has only won 3 of his last 8 in the league but smashed League One leader Bob Douglass and NL1's title-chaser Ross Percy on his way to the quarter-final.

For the league awards page, please click here:

Toontalk Fantasy League Awards

Manager of the Month awards for December:

Premier League: Andrew Young (146)

Championship: Robert Hutchinson (143)

League One: Graham Clark (145) League Two: Steve Beggs (153) National League One: Greg Surtees (128) National League Two: Ben Harper (141) National League Three: Ryan Jensen (142) National League Four: Ilkka Pentilla (146)

And here are the fixtures from the 8 league divisions: