So the Banterbury Review has had a bit of a Christmas break, but the leagues have had anything but! We now have our 16 qualifiers for the Shield, which starts in game-week 21 (Jan 11th). On New Year’s Day we have round 4 of the Banterbury Cup. So as we enter the second half of the season the leagues are really coming to life!! A lot of teams will not just be thinking about promotion or relegation but they will also be dreaming of cup glory or of winning the shield, which in my eyes is the ultimate glory. Ok so we will now go around the leagues, cup & shield with me your host Bench and I’ll try and update you as best I can!
Banterbury Cup – Ties to be played Jan 1st
1 Park Bench Exports v Fergie’s Henchmen
2 Busby Babes v Bocadillo Allstars
3 Gasco’s athletic v Monty (Caz Daz)
4 Son of a Pitch v Cookie’s Monsters
5 Horse FC v Manlet F.C
6 Kop Warriors v DavesRedDevils
7 WhoIsRonaldo v Buzz’s Bomb Squad
8 Owls Rule v Gallowgators
Banterbury Shield
So as I said earlier we now have our 16 for the first ever Banterbury Shield, which consists of the top 4 from each league at Christmas. The qualifying period lasted for 17 game-weeks and I feel the cream has risen to the top. Group 1 looks a bit tasty to say the least!
So here are the 16 and their groups plus the opening day fixtures (GW21)
Group 1
1) Cookie’s Monsters
2) James 101
3) Powerful Potty Fc
4) ChorleyRocks
Cookie’s Monsters v ChorleyRocks
James 101 v Powerful Potty Fc
Group 2
1) Gallowgators (Gallow)
2) CFC (Awesome)
3) White Boys Day (Drexel)
4) Where’s The Dosh? (The Cooky Boys)
Gallowgators v Where’s The Dosh?
CFC (Awesome) v White Boys Day
Group 3
1) Monty (Caz Daz) (Monty)
2) Norfulk-in-chance
3) Arsene’s Boys
4) WhoIsRonaldo
Monty (Caz Daz) v WhoIsRonaldo
Norfulk-in-chance v Arsene’s Boys
Group 4
1) 4th Place Trophy (Burnsey)
2) Park Bench Exports (bench)
3) Son of a Pitch (inertia)
4) we love manchester (gpriley)
4th Place Trophy v we love manchester
Park Bench Exports v Son of a Pitch
Now to the bread and butter stuff, although I’m sure the likes Mutts, Potty and Nifty will not be looking forward to it!
Premier
Cookie is top going into the New Year and what a stellar first half of the season he has had picking up 45 points, in all 4 of the leagues not one of the winners managed 80 points to win a league last season. Last season’s champion Bench is very much in contention, he seems to know how to win ugly (must be his beer goggles), he sits 3rd and just one win off Cookie. Also having a great season are Arsene’s Boys, who came up from the Championship and sit 2nd on the same points as Bench. Big shout-out to Pork n Cheese United who won all their festive fixtures and now sit 5th. Gasco’s athletic & Horse FC sit mid-table after a storming start which seems to have tailed off. Killer Instincts 2nd quarter has been a little bit special, after picking up only a point from his first 11 games he has won 6 form his last 9 including wins over the top 2. At the bottom we have THE MUTTS NUTS who surely can’t wait for the January WC and a new start after managing only one win and a draw in hhis 19 games. Joining Mutts in the bottom 3 at the half way mark are TheKopKnightRISES & Prutsers; allemaal.
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/843/standings/
Championship
Moving on to the championship and Gallowgators ‘hits and build value’ strategy has no doubt worked in the first half of the season, as he is still in all 3 Banterbury competitions. James 101 & WhoIsRonaldo both favourites in Potty’s Bookmakers for promotion sit 2nd & 3rd at the half way stage. I would also watch-out for Mito’s Mercenaries in the 2nd half of the season, worth an each-way bet @ 20-1!
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/9338/standings/
League 1
What has happened to Potty? From 12 unbeaten and an 11 point lead at the top, to 7 defeats on the spin and stuck in Somerset with floods (of Tears) and he goes into the new year 5th in the table. So sitting top is Elliot aka CFC(Awesome), 2nd is Little Red aka Monty (Caz Daz), in 3rd we have GPriley’s we love Manchester, 4th is everyone’s favourite Dingo, DavesRedDevils, in 6th are Fergie’s Henchmen and in 7th is inittowinit***. An interesting 2nd half of the season is certainly in store in this league and lots of banter I hope.
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/9479/standings/
League 2
I would like to congratulate the 4 teams that made the Shield, 4th Place Trophy, White Boys Day, ChorleyRocks & Norfulk-in-chance as well as the 2 teams who are still flying the flag on New Year’s Day in the Cup, Busby Babes (pj) & Owls Rule (NZ Alex).
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/9698/standings/
Qualification League
This is a classic league with 2 places up for grabs in the official Banterbury leagues. The current top 5 are Norfolk n’ Chance, The Cape Bulls, The special onesie, NINja Warriors & Cloughie’s Revival. All 5 are in with a great shout of qulification so best of luck to you all as well as to all the other managers in the league, of course!
H2H for the opening of FF247
What’s the story FC, LANGOLD SM4CKHEADS(Chopper), Mystic Devils, Zoostorm FC (Flingy) and The Gift & The Curse have all won 6 out of 7 in this qualification league.
Happy New Year to you all from the Banterbury Leagues and everyone at FF247!
This article was written by Bench
Ok boys,
My cup opponent this week….
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/2099097/event-history/19/
My team for this week:
Marshall
Gabbidon, Coleman, Debuchy, Kompany (Turner)
Cabaye, Walcott, Hazard ( Silva, Whittingham)
Rooney, Lukaku, Suarez
1FT 0.2 in bank
Predictions? He’s already made one transfer… Probably to take out Ramsey….. For who though??
Do I play Whittingjam or Gabbidon?
Thanks guys
Ok boys,
My cup opponent this week….
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/2099097/event-history/19/
My team for this week:
Marshall
Gabbidon, Coleman, Debuchy, Kompany (Turner)
Cabaye, Walcott, Hazard ( Silva, Whittingham)
Rooney, Lukaku, Suarez
1FT 0.2 in bank
Predictions? He’s already made one transfer… Probably to take out Ramsey….. For who though??
Do I play Whittingjam or Gabbidon?
Thanks guys
Any help appreciated
Sorry fir the duplicate haha thought it hadn’t posted
Dabomb
Looking at your team I’d say you’ll win mate!!
Whittingham is on set pieces so even tho he has tougher fixture I’d play him
Have you cobsidered Whit to Sterling? Better fixture
Thanks mate, I have to hope so!
But Gabbidon is very likely to get a CS, it’s a toughie… Thanks for the help, I’ll have to wait and see what everyone says….
And is sterling a certainty to start?
WTF YOU ARE 137 IN THE WORLD????
Wow! Congrats mate, I’m vouching for you for the top prize!
I’ll +1 that, keep it up B-Bash, great work mate. Glad to have you on the site to give advice to those of us less fortunate!
b-Bash, that’s outstanding mate. Of course we all hate you now 😉
Nice work Bench!! Hope you and all the ‘Banterbury Boyz’ have a fantastic new year!! Here’s to a smashing 2014!!
Nice work Bench! I even made it into the review this week so I’m over the moon! Have a great new year
Cheers Bench,i think i’m done for in the H2H already haha,really need to beat Sanchez this GW or i think it’s officially curtains!! Thanks again for all the effort my friend,stellar stuff,
Hey NIN, congrats on a nice comeback this week, and you were totally right about the guys wildcard in the cup… a shocker 😛
Cheers.Hahaha i just a peek,it’s even worse than i thought it would be,happy days Cloughie!!
Happy days indeed m8! My only concern for this week is which defense do I put out. Surely I can’t bench Coleman away vs Stoke? Gabbidon and Koscielny seem a certainty’s for a CS. So it’s down to Kompany and Coleman or go with a 4-3-3? Did Sterling for Ravel, so mid looks good for this week… decisions, decisions.
Cloughie – I’d go 3-4-3 and make Gabbidon first sub,each of your premium defenders has a much higher attacking potential so i’d nearly always go with them,i see your conundrum though..one of those weeks where there’s an argument for everyone to play haha,nice problem to have in fairness!!
HAHA yeah, It’s a rarity to have one of these gameweeks so I’ll just try to enjoy it 😛
Cloughie – Precisely!! Logging off now chaps,good luck next GW and happy new year to all.
Any thoughts on my team? have 2FT and 0.5M to use,
mannone, kelvin davis
mert, coleman, dawson, ward, chester
walcott, cabaye, hazard, silva, morrison
rooney, lukaku, suarez
i am planning to use one of the FT. From morrison to 5.1M mid but who?? any suggestion?
iqbal – Sterling at 5.2m is a good shout i think,maybe someone like Mutch would suit your squad better though as it’s just back up you’re looking for so a cheapie will do,it’s a nice squad and should bring home the cheese for you!!
I went for Ravel to Sterling in a similar situation to yourself. Your team looks set for points, maybe just do the one FT and leave 2 for after the the 10 day break?
Cheers NIN and brian. unfortunately, i cannot afford sterling, he’s at 5.2M atm. His price gone up just now. the only options available are mutch, huddlestone, livermore, januzaj. Hull have tough fixtures and Januzaj is rotation risked. So, Morrison to Mutch?
iqbal – Yes,Mutch would be my shout.
Have a good one NIN! And GL to you for the GW
Hey Brianclough! Did you manage to win your cup tie?
You owned him! Well done!