Scorecast & Tablecast 14/11/2022

Last one for a while now, because of that fantastic idea someone had to put a World Cup in the middle of the football season! Presumably, a world cup that'll be boycotted by the vast majority of sports journalists who were up in arms about human rights violations when Newcastle got taken over. No? What's that? They're all going to Qatar?

Anyway, enough politics... onto important stuff. Here's the league table going into the Christmas break:

No, your eyes doth not deceive you - that black and white cell three from the top does indeed say Newcastle United on it. Staggering performance by Eddie Howe and the lads with our club record signing, Alexander Isak, only playing three games Saint-Maximin only playing eight. This table won't move now, until Boxing Day! Same applies for your own Tablcast table, which is as follows:

David Waters was briefly bottom of the league despite having been top earlier in the season! Just goes to show how tiny movements in the table can massively affect the standings. Dougie Gibson goes top of the league, the only entrant to have four bullseyes, currently. John Waters is the highest-placed admin in third, while George Bland, another of the original admins, props up the table having fallen 20 places. Martin Soulsby also down 20, and Chris Turner down 19... he, Chris Collins, and Brendan Allan all fall out of the top 10 and into the bottom half.

Meanwhile, Roy Parkinson keeps his top 10 spot and has, in fact, swapped places with league leader Dougie. Robert Pentland is our biggest climber having rocketed from 39th to fifth, with Tony Bosworth also making serious ground to hit fourth spot from 30th. Stephen Wallace, Adam Bland, John Thomas, and Sara Hawthorn complete the top 10.

Here's the comparison of top vs bottom:

Both seem to have underestimated Bournemouth somewhat, and only one of the sides currently in the relegation zone has been picked by either of these two.

Don't forget, the league table and Tablecast table update automatically every two hours, so when there are other games on you'll be able to check the standings in the evening without having to wait for this report. You can do that by visiting

toontalk.uk/tablecast

As for the Scorecast competition, here are the standings going into the World Cup/Christmas break.

The top half shows David Russell continuing to hold on to top spot, though it's by the skin of his teeth now with 7 of the next 10 teams outscoring him this round. Rory Robertson steals second with a joint-top score of 13 for the round, equal to Jordan McKeown and Barry Winter.

Top Half:

At the other end of the table, Geoffrey Selkirk has scraped himself off the bottom despite missing a few rounds, and Wayne Dance looks set to break into the top half despite missing a couple. His ØPPR (remember that?) is currently 7.17 which would put him fifth in the table with a full complement of rounds entered. Still a long way to go to get up there, though! Unlike in the Tablecast, Tony Bosworth has had a bit of a nightmare with only three points, the lowest score other than all those did-not-runs towards the bottom.

So, that's all for a while! Thanks to everyone for playing in this first two fifths of the season so far. Round 9 of the Scorecast will be after the World Cup - deadline is Boxing Day at 12:30pm - I would recommend getting it done before then, though, as there's nothing worse than trying to guess football scores with a stonking Christmas hangover!

Best of luck everyone, have a wonderful Christmas break, enjoy the World Cup (those of you who are going to watch it, anyway) and HOWE-AY THE LADS!

Enter your scores for Round 9 here:

toontalk.uk/scorecast