Week 20: Happy Christmas and Happy New Year

After weeks of having their lead chipped away, RS T-Boy reassert themselves with a Manager of the Week certificate winning performance for Rick Beecroft of 43 points. Of course, this means the T-Boys nudge ahead of their opponents in their OFFL Cup fixture against an high scoring Olymping Macdrid.


OFFL Cup

With two more weeks of scores to go, this is how the cup fixtures are shaping up.

Weeks 20, 21 and 22

Poof of the North 10 v 21 Two Owls
Mannschester Rovers 28 v 16 Rayner Midriff
Metatarsenal 9 v 8 Tat Mucker
Dube Stars FC 12 v 7 Giving It Some Thought
Upmintster United 25 v 4 Two-Oh-Ten
BM Mingmongs 35 v 38 Decimated Left Peg
Straw Bucharest 33 v 25 Jordan Utd
Windmill United 16 v 30 Abeerden
Olymping Macdrid 36 v 43 RS T-Boy
Woolyback Town AFC 25 v 20 Mal
Charlie's Angels 16 v 38 Inter Milandrover
Pompey Puss 31 v 15 Book My Face
Ant & Bex 39 v 41 Livercoolio FC

Radnorshire Tigers, Campbellwin, Nuttingham Florist all received a bye for this round.

Happy New Year folks.

Week 19: The Cup Overfloweth

Manager of the Week this week is the lovely Hilary Straw for leading her Straw Bucharest to 9 points. 12 more than Gavin Ward's Metatarsenal. Not that we should point that out at all. But also, it may be of interest to note that everyone, bar Gavin Ward and Minty Colquhoun, made up ground on our current League Leaders.

Nice.

Happy Christmas. And Good Luck in the OFFL Cup.

OFFL Cup

--------

Three teams are randomly given a bye.

These lucky teams have been randomly chosen from the available 29 teams. They are:

Campbellwin

Radnorshire Tigers

Nuttingham Florist

The fixtures for the first round are...

Poof of the North v Two Owls

Mannschester Rovers v Rayner Midriff

Metatarsenal v Tat Mucker

Dube Stars FC v Giving It Some Thought

Upmintster United v Two-Oh-Ten

BM Mingmongs v Decimated Left Peg

Straw Bucharest v Jordan Utd

Windmill United v Abeerden

Olymping Macdrid v RS T-Boy

Woolyback Town AFC v Mal

Charlie's Angels v Inter Milandrover

Pompey Puss v Book My Face

Ant & Bex v Livercoolio FC

In other words...

Mark Norman v Chris Brown

Dan Manns v Edgar Rayner

Gavin Ward v Mat Tucker

Khumbula Dube v Adrian Bradley

Minty Colquhoun v David Manttan

Neil McConaghy v Neil Jukes

Hilary Straw v Grant Larking

Chris Walsh v Steve Tierney

Craig McHugh v Rick Beecroft

Guy Harewood v Malcolm Pratt

Rob Ivison v Smasher

Lionel Larking v Ashley Keeler

Ant Reeves v Russ Bielby

Week 18: By the bye

Managers of the Week this week are Ant Reeves and Dan Manns for respectively steering Ant & Bex and Mannschester Rovers to a haul of 16 points each.

Which isn't bad.

Especially as it's the second time that Ant Reeves has claimed the certificate, betraying his stealthy escalation toward the top prize wethinks.

Ant & Bex climb highest this week, along too with Andy Straw's Nuttingham Florist who also barge up four places.


OFFL Cup

And, due to his highest climber status, it is Mr Straw who will be picking, out of an electronic hat, the three teams that will be receiving a bye for this year's OFFL Cup.

Mr Straw...? [Drum roll, please]

Week 17: Rayner's Leap of Faith

There is a Manager amongst you who doesn't believe in all this transferring nonsense. He thinks that the OFFL test should be one that lasts an entire season without tinkering with the initial selection at all. This manager happens to be in Twentieth place with little to no chance of rising much in the forthcoming weeks. His team includes a goalkeeper currently enjoying a total of minus 9 points, a full back on minus 3 and a midfielder whose managed about three minutes playing time all season.

Experts predict an early OFFL Cup exit.

In fact, the OFFL Rumour Mill has churned out a possible explanation for such lunacy: it's a really poor excuse to justify a hands-off approach, enabling the Manager to jet off to places like China so he can make a point of not taking the opportunity to pick up really cheap 64GB flash memory USB keys for his mates.

Indeed, THAT sort of manager will never succeed.

Managers of the Week are Craig McHugh and Ant Reeves of Olymping Macdrid and Ant & Bex respectively. They each steered their charges to a large weekly score of 25 points apiece. RS T-Boy is joined at the top of the table on points by Inter Milandrover who take their season's spasm of top spots too early again this year.

The OFFL Cup will be taking place over Weeks 20, 21 and 22. So get your transfers in. Or, you should be lacking one, your team indeed.

Thank you.

Week 16: Don't Stare at the Tierney

No. Don't.

It's cruel.

Do not stare at Abeerden's latest League position. It's rude don't you know.

Just walk on past.

As twelve of you Managers already have in fact.

Charlie's Angels have just tapped RS T-Boy on the shoulder to remind them of their equality in points while simultaneously watching Inter Milandrover move up on the leaders by 4 points also. Hilary Straw's Straw Bucharest made up ground on the top two too and settles in fifth place behind Upmintster United. Another minus score for Mr Ward's Metatarsenal sees them bobble about in twenty-sixth.

Alun Edwards steers his Radnorshire Tigers to a modest 13 points this week and still makes off with the Manager of the Week certificate. Meanwhile, nobody comments on what Lionel Larking's team selection spells out. Which is probably a good thing seeing as it's a bit wrong anyway.

Does anybody actually read any of this tosh anyway?

http://offl.littlesmasher.com

Start preparing yourselves for the OFFL Cup. Coming soon. New Managers welcome. Preferably another 3. That would be administratively useful.

Week 15: League Average Reaches 100!

Old age can be a mournfully painful aspect of life for a Manager's loved ones to cope with. The Manager's memories can not only distort but sometimes also completely disappear. Accuracy of judgements and opinions veer into the ridiculous only to be replaced by an unswervingly surging momentum of cantankerous outrage.

Take ageing skinhead Andy 'I Used to Run A Fantasy League Myself' Straw. Having hankered after the canter into cantankerousness himself he seems to have completed the metamorphosis into an ageing skin-and-boned Andy 'I Can't Remember The Meaning of Deadlines and Quite Frankly I Don't Very Much Care For Them' Straw.

It's a place we're all doomed to be heading towards, I'm sure you'll agree.

Manager of the Week is the youthful and spritely Smasher who, whilst not wanting to blow his own trumpet, does like to blow his own transfer quota. His Inter 'Yes We Got the Rather Feeble Team Name Gag Over Ten Years Ago' Milandrover scored 21 points to climb just one place to remain a member of the Big Four.

And finally, it's always nice to see a manager express his/her joy at being temporarily top of the table. Current League Leader, RS T-Boy's Rick Beecroft, is the latest exponent of the natural high that the League Leadership bestows. Just before it gets cruelly wrestled away from him next week. Perhaps.

[Don't stare at Mr Manttan's score this week. It's rude. Move along.]

Thanks to Craig McHugh for sending in the picture of Carlos Tevez and his Mum. Carlos' mum, not Craig's.

Weeks 12, 13 and 14

Managers of the Weeks....

Week 12: Campbell Tierney, 35 points for Campbellwin
Week 13: Craig McHugh, 20 points for Olymping Macdrid
Week 14: Rick Beecroft and Neil McConaghy, 21 points each for RS T-Boy and BM Mingmongs respectively.

And the lead has changed three times in as many weeks. Charlie's Angels, Upmintster United and now RS-T-Boy all topped the league in this three week festival of fantasy footballing fun.

Tinkety-tonk.

Week 11: A Freak Week for 'knapp Man and Robinho

A freak week from Robinho sees the Brazilian striker net 14 points all on his own creating a wooden cart type vehicle seemingly designed to transport a group of musicians all playing the "Robinho Symphony".

All this seems to have triggered the 'herding instinct' in OFFL Managers. Indeed two managers have already been unable to resist this informational social influence and executed transfers aimed at bringing the player into their teams [see email] and the OFFL HQ are preparing themselves for further knee-jerk transfer requests.

Particularly from Charlie's Angels.

Manager of the Week is Smasher who's 22 point haul can be solely attributed to a certain Brazilian striker enjoying a freak week. Can’t remember his name.

Another instant trend to watch out for is the mass transferring out of Portsmouth players based on the belief that Harry Redknapp's weekend departure will instantly cause Pompey's Premier League demise.

Now who would be paranoid enough to react to both those big news stories?

Week 09 & 10: Chairman's Shares Portfolio Plummets

It's not easy for Our Most Gracious Chairman. As the global banking crisis deepens, His bulging share portfolio is disintegrating in front of his very [bulging] eyes. Particularly, his investments in the Japanese financial markets. Indeed, those Tokyo-based banks are in all sorts of trouble.

The Origami Bank, for example, has folded but the Bank of the Ninja is still in the black. Sumo Financial has gone belly up and, according to reports, the Governor of the Bank of Karate is for the chop. And while analysts are reporting that something fishy is going on at the Sushi Bank, staff are worried that they may get a raw deal.

And, while we, here at Studmarks, make the most of these appalling gags that just arrived in a joke spam-junk [read that carefully] email to cover up our lack of inspiration this week..., [clears throat] Bonsai Bank are having to cut some of its branches while the Bank of the Samurai are just about surviving following sharp cuts. Shares in the Kamikaze Bank are still nose-diving.

I thank you.

Manager of the Week is Andy '3st 10oz' Straw with a much heavier 17 points to add to his total. This pushes his Nutts Florist up. Into third.

And Ashley Keeler finally produces the team he picked back in August. According to the highly disorganised manager it had apparently got jammed in a folder somewhere between hotmail and googlemail.

Hmmm.

We also welcome Messrs Walsh and Dube to the League. As you can see from their pictures here, they're both a couple of ming mongs. And one of them is illiterate to bot.

[Do you see what we did there?]

And as it was our current Champion, Neil McConaghy's, birthday this week here's a freebie for all of us to listen to in celebration for him...

[AND it's for cheridee great mate...]

http://www.archive.org/download/200810LFL-Philippines1/200810LFL-Philippines1.mp3

and

http://www.archive.org/download/LittleSmasher20081005/200810LFL-Philippines2.mp3

Week 08: Stretching Tierney

Manager of the Week is Alun Edwards whose Radnorshire Tigers pummelled home a massive 23 points.

Meanwhile, Abeerden are stretching their lead, and their luck with yet more transfers. Possibly forgetting that we're still only one drinkstop along this long arduous marathon route.

Interestingly, Our Most Gracious Chairman prepares for his scouting trip to Africa where he shall be screwing in light bulbs later this month. While he isn't sure he won't be returning home to a country poorer than the one he returns from, he at least can be certain that the sound of rustling papers and the scratching of pencils will greet him as more potential managers threaten to get their teams in before the start of the OFFL Cup.

Ah yes. The OFFL Cup.

There's a prize you know.

Which can be drooled over here...

Week 07

Manager of the Week is Minty 'Ka-Hoon' Colquhoun. Indeed her team notched up a massive 22 points thanks, in main, to her robust defence and no thanks whatsoever to her favourite player for the last three years, Darren Bent, whom she won't replace however many times he appears on the bench. Unpmintster climbs eight places.

A remarkable David Manttan plummets a remarkable ten places to third from a remarkable bottom after losing, remarkably, four points from Two-Oh-Ten's total. And Gavin Ward finally scores more than a point in a week. But still lies last.

In the meantime, with the marathon well under way, the Umpa Lumpa's are getting into the swing of things. Last season's mistakes, punished by regular beatings, have so far not been repeated. Sadly.

Week 06

Manager of the Week is Lionel Larking who scores 14 points for his Pompey Pussies. Which is nice. Meanwhile Gavin Ward's Metatarsenal's overwhelming consistency means that for the third week running they pick up one point.

Watch out for Ant & Bex macheteing their way up the table without a care in the world. It's obviously been rocking the table enough to wobble Steve Tierney's Abeerden off the top. Our new leaders, Charlie's Angels, are led themselves by the transfer crazy Rob Ivison.

Can he keep it up?

According to his wife, Philippa, not for the duration.

Apparently.

So the rumour goes.

Hilary Hilarious Straw. Minus 4. Ahem.

Teams are still being submitted.

Week 04 & 05

While 'England Disunited' have miraculously morphed into World Beaters we, here in the OFFL, have entered the part of the season that always seems to panic managers into executing knee-jerk transfers, transfers which throw an intriguing light on the messy machinations of those managers' minds.

Take Charlie's Angels' very own Rob Ivison for example. Ironic to think that his family name is an anagram of Vision when he, himself, clearly shows none whatsoever. Half his transfer quota is spent already.

Though having said that, his short-term swapping madness has prematurely thrust his Charlie's into second place in the league. Slipstreaming the Tierney.

Neil Jukes's 'Manager of the Week Certificate' winning score of 19 points has propelled his Decimated Left Peg into joint third. Meanwhile, Gavin Ward's dismal Metatarsenal are already vying for the wooden spoon.

This of course would allow him to concentrate on the Cup in a few weeks time.

Meanwhile, Ant & Bex and Upmintster United both climb six places in the table while others are more considerate in their paced ascent to the top.

Current Champions, Neil McConaghy's BM Mingmongs, drop four places.

Snigger ye not.

Well, not just yet.

Team submissions keep on coming.

Week 3: My Back Hurts

Manager of the Week this week is Andy Straw who steered his Nuttingham Florist to a large 18 points. Andy is on holiday in Australia at the moment but he regularly interrupts his trip to check on how his dearly beloved Nuttingham Florist is doing in the OFFL.

Shame to ruin such a holiday.

Meanwhile, more teams are joining in on the fun/desperation, so if you're reading this and you haven't got a team in yet then don't worry, there's still time. Either that or 'Don't worry, I'll delete you off this mailing list in due course'.

Bunch of forgiving little smashers.

By the way, did anyone see Peter Crouch poke fun at Deco when Portsmouth and Chelsea played the other day? I know what you're thinking... How could anyone stoop so low......

Oh yes, the quality of Studmarks has been unnervingly unswerving over the last 13 years.

Some of you still haven't realised that a joke has just sprinted by.

Week 2

Manager of the Week this week is Campbell Tierney. His imaginatively titled Campbellwin notched up 12 points to follow in his father's footsteps by receiving the Manager of the Week certificate [which doesn't exist].

Let Me Be Your Fantasy

It's been a tough old year for the tough old Chairman. No sooner had the last of the morphine headaches finally died away then the OFFL crowds started relentlessly blood-baying for a new season of the legendary Office Fantasy Football League.

Tightly Pursed Lips

So, with three grapes and a disc lighter, our Chairman skips forward rabbit-punching the near distance, dodging imaginary swipes at his own ventripotent torso, hissing out the words "come on then, come on, if you think you're hard enough" through tightly pursed lips before quickly disappearing into his padded cell for a short snooze before his pre-teatime massage.

Worry not: Umpa Lumpas have been recruited, text templates have been edited, internet blogs spring-cleaned and doctors' notes filed away for potential insurance difficulties later on.

Pants Off

The marathon begins again. For it is a marathon. And not a sprint. So try not to panic your pants off when the first day of the season goes horribly, horribly wrong [ahem, Rob, cough, splutter, Ivison].

Licking

Yet another fantastic OFFL Cup Winning Prize is up for grabs in the fiercely competitive OFFL Cup competition and this year we have our own Studmarks annual entitled "Studs". Donated by the very generous Chris Tierney of Edinburgh, the hardback book is modelled and You Tubed by the hands of Chris himself. Enjoy and start licking those lips in anticipation...

The rules remain the same as last year. As does the budget. And your team can start scoring as soon as you get it in. It's as simple as that. We already have an excellent crop of teams whose managers gambled on submitting a line up before the Premiership kicked off. Some of the managers are already regretting their promptness. Already making a transfer, for example, is manager Rob Ivison. He can't stop himself from fiddling with his Charlie's Angels, which makes a change from not being able to stop himself from fiddling with his Angel's Charlies.

*B'dum tish* [a-hye thank yoo]

Anyway, there you have it. How quickly do you get your team in? Do you watch for a week or two knowing that it is a marathon and not a sprint? And then crash on in with the in-form team of the moment? It's a toughie. And a tad frustrating. A bit like that Olympic pursuit cycling when they spend half the race trying to stand still, wobbling, behind the person in front before surging ahead with a powerful finish.

It's enough to drive the Chairman back into the warm, safe, pain-ridding bosom of the buxom Mrs Morphine.

Sigh.

http://smash.loopy.co.uk/offl/content_files/SelectYourTeam.xls

Manager of the Week: Steve Tierney, Abeerden, 14 points.

It Can Get A Little Dirty

Chairman Denies New OFFL League Season Rumour

What nonsense.

http://offl.littlesmasher.com/SelectYourTeam.xls