Thank you

10 years eh? It's been fun, sometimes time consuming but always fun. In 1995 after the Daily Telegraph had been running a fantasy league for a season or so I like others decided to set one up, got a few people interested and here we are. Just 8 teams, companies in fact, took part in the first ever N&R FL in 1995 and people like Godders, Danny Rose, Singleton, Kennett, Oakers and Crowley are still playing today.

Writing this takes me some time and is always an indication of how busy I am but I can always find time to write down stuff thats in my head although recently I have been so frickin' busy that time has been a rich commodity. And then Blogger has been a real pain in the arse the past few weeks too. I wrote a whole poxy article on each manager the other night and then Blogger fucked up and lost it all for me. Oh well, you lot will never know how funny it was!

It's the World Cup starting today, my first living outside of the country. The people and the media here are surprisingly quite up for it, but it's hard to explain to them what it is like back at home, or even in the tiny villages of Africa or shanty towns of South America or the hectic streets of Tokyo. They don't get it, which is a shame. I was reading the other day a newspaper article which sounded truly astonished that the World Cup will have more television viewers than the Superbowl. Why is that? Well, it's the game that we gave the world, it is the world's game. The beautiful game.

I intend to see as many matches as possible. They kick off at 8am (breakfast), 11am (lunchtime) and 2pm (afternoon tea) here so there could be a lot of "meetings to go to." I will be writing all kinds of poop on my blog about the World Cup, so pop by at www.chicagoaddick.blogspot.com

So finally, a big thanks to everyone for taking part, congratulations to the winners, tough titty to the losers and of course an extra big thanks to Mark Simmons for doing all the scoring.

I have said before that the N&R FL is a vein between my old life working and living in London and my new one here in Chicago. Thanks for keeping in touch, it means a lot.

See you all on the 27th.

Come on England!

Nobs

End of season beers

You are all cordially invited to Valentes on Tuesday June 27th at 4pm where Nobby and Ready will be hosting the 10th N&R FL end of season prize giving. We hope you can make it, it will be great to see you all and please put the word around.

There are two World Cup Quarter Finals that day at 4 and 8pm, and Valentes has a big screen plus of course we can gather outside too if the weather's kind.

I will hand out the prizes and the winnings but will take next years £25 entry money out. Ready and I will also be collecting money from others for next years competition, so please bring the money or a cheque book.

We look forward to seeing you all. Email me at simon_newport@ars.aon.com or Ready at
keith.read@layton-blackham.co.uk nearer to the day if you have any questions.

See you on the 27th.
Nobby & Ready

Ping Pong Bish Bash Bosh

Week 40's scores confirmed Suzie Syrett as the first ever female champion of the N&R FL after finishing top of the table with a 79-point margin. Her lead became unassailable in the early part of March and there was little doubt, barring a miracle, that she wouldn't sail to a glorious title win, even though her lead was cut back slightly in the last few weeks.

Sooz first took the lead in mid-January, lost it to Godders for just a week in the first week of February, but reclaimed it back straight away and then the lovely blonde just accelerated away purring all the while like a 911.

In 2nd Paul Kelleher held onto his prize pretty comfortably but it was Rob Munden who had the biggest say in week 40, surging into 3rd place to finish 4 places higher than he did last year, which was at that time his best ever season. Rob leapfrogged Hilary Ryan, who stayed in 4th, and the unfortunate Glenn Francis who slipped back to 5th after a poor final week.

Chris Waterman, who spent plenty of weeks in the top 3, ended up in a career best 6th and ex-London AIG colleague, but now plying his drinking in New York, Barry Paull sneaked in the back door to pip Ben Graves in a race for 7th, after a weekly winning score of 40.

What will please Barry most was that he knocked Godders out of the prized positions after Pete scored a round zero in the final week.

The final pink tenner will go to Mark Simmons, who keeps up his knack of seasonal prize winning.

Those that were so close yet so far were the lovely Kirsty Baillie, who crept into 11th, the AIG ladies Barwick and Higgs who were 12th, Sweaty, who had a great season and deserved something and Francey who was 14th.

A bit further behind was Wenners, who in the first half of the season carried great hopes but let his family down in the end and Mark Dewberry likewise. Dewbs was even in the top 10 just a month or so ago.

Below them Kennett, Nobby and Plummer just ended up making up the numbers.

Egg on face for Giles as Dom escapes

So Giles Crowley, who didn't feature in the bottom 6 until week 39, ended up with the egg on his face alongside Tim Feldbruegge, Brian Rutter, Neil Cryer, Rob Beere and Nigel Tatlock.

This only possible after Dom Barrett found an escape route after lounging in the bottom 6 since November last year. A big well done to the little one.

Two other managers that were in trouble but escaped without too much fuss were Danny Rose and last season's champion Pete Doyle.

Dom ended up pipping Giles by more than 20 points and was in fact only 2 behind Danny, after a strong last few weeks of the campaign.

The wooden spoon goes to Tim, who managed to stay crap all season, whereas last year he bucked up his ideas after Easter and escaped re-election with comparative ease.

The 'prize' as always for finishing in the bottom 6 is a pint or two. Therefore Nobby will be expecting Tim to be buying a few cold ones during some World Cup watching lunchtimes, whereas Giles, Nige, Cryer and Rutts should stand Ready one or two when they next see him in The Lamb.

For Rutts, he will get his 25 quid back after pretty much owning the penultimate place since week 17, so £25 will find its way into Brian's hands and probably not long after the barman's for the exchange of a few pints of Fosters.

Ready pops into 23rd place

Ready hijacked the midtable position after week 40's scores, dropping nicely into it from 21st to collect the £25 prize money. It was his 2nd time there in 4 weeks but Alex Boswell will feel the most aggrieved after landing on the spot 6 times since the end of Janaury and missing out by just one point. Greg Harris was another frequent visitor (3 times) in the last couple of months but ended up in 20th.

How the prize money was won

This is a rundown of how the 2005/6 prizes were won. Prizes will be paid by cheque in GBP. Congratulations to all the winners, particularly the two ladies in the top 4, a first after 10 years of competition.

N&R FL 10th Champion – £200 + the prestigious winners trophy
Suzie Syrett
Runner Up - £140
Paul Kelleher
3rd place - £115
Rob Munden
4th place - £100
Hilary Ryan
5th place - £75
Glenn Francis
6th place - £50
Chris Waterman
7th place - £30
Barry Paull
8th place - £10
Ben Graves
9th place - £10
Peter Godfrey
10th place - £10
Mark Simmons
N&R FL Play-Off winner - £50
Paul Kelleher
23rd place - £25
Keith Read
Penultimate place - £25
Brian Rutter
Best weekly score - £25
Mark Dewberry
Worst weekly score - £25
Nigel Tatlock
Team Challenge – The N&R team trophy
AIG
Managers of the Week – £5 each
List to follow
The Bottom 6 - Treating Ready to lunch during the summer, and you never know, Nobby might make it too?
Giles Crowley
Nigel Tatlock
Robert Beere
Neil Cryer
Brian Rutter
Tim Feldbruegge

Play-Off Final - Rushden & Doggie style

Back in week 39, the N&R Play-Off final took place. Wembley was unavailable so no doubt it took place in some dark little alley somewhere judging by the participants:

The Folkstone mighty mouse, The Crouch-Ender and the King of Sleaze.

Week 39 produced a wide range of scores but it was PK who came out on top and will pick up the £50 prize. Here were the final standings:

1. PK 65 points
2. Oakster 54 points
3. Mighty Mouse 42 points

Congratulations PK.

My Life & Times - Rob Munden

This season's questionnaire - My Life & Times only had a few entries, which was a shame, but we can always rely on Rob Munden not to let us down.

Attached to the final scores email is Rob's latest in a long line of N&R Q&A's. As always it's witty but with a decent slab of candidness as well. He's even nice about his wife, which is good because Ready & I are taking her off to Thailand next week....

One game, two winners and a bunch of losers

Breaking news 8888 Week 40 scores
The final week and only one game, although what a game it was, produced some half decent scoring in week 40 with US Eagles and Ken Bates beard sharing the first prize with 40 points each.

Birds Glasgow kiss and Ping Pong Yo-Yo were just a point behind with Rushden & Doggers two more back alongside Chicago Addick, who despite some late night phone calls to the Italian Referee's Federation, didn't do enough to make the top 10!

At the bottom of the scale were 6 managers who all scored negative points, however ruling 26, section 8, sub-section 66 reads that more than 5 games must of taken place in a week for the score to count towards the worst or best weekly score.

Of course, despite this -6 from just 1 game is kind of shite and Rochdaletastic, Rogering Daisy Wright and Meg & Hannah's bears should all feel like they let their friends and families down.

Rapid Ginger who managed -5 score exactly a year after he swept to the title should be ashamed of himself too and Kingas bottlers and Repka is innocent, who didn't do much better with -2 points, probably have their wives tell them enough that they are inadequate.

Team Challenge - AIG take title after long wait

After years of trying with probably a dozen managers or so in the 10 years since we began the N&R FL, AIG finally picked up the N&R Team Challenge trophy winning by more than 25 points. So huge congratulations to Chris and the team, and nothing will give us more pleasure than presenting the trophy to the boys and girls who have been an important part of this league since it began secretly in the lower bar of the Elephant.

Chris himself can be proud of his achievement leading his team to victory, although it was Hilary Ryan who was their highest placed manager and all of this was done despite Neil Cryer being pants.

In the runners-up spot were new boys Miles Smith, although Sweaty is an old hand at this and had one of his best ever seasons. 3rd place was Aon Re's facultative team, the same finish as last year. They were badly let down by boss-man Rutts, but I'm not going to tell him!

In 4th was Aon's property team, now joined by Dickie Norman, back at home after 3-years in Bermuda. 5th was the last two years' champions Marsh, closely followed by Lee, Greg & Alex at the RSA.

Another new name on the list was Aspen Re, where Dom and Plummer are holed up. A disappointing season for Plummer and a normal one for Barrett meant that they were well down the table in 7th.

In 8th place was a dismal Yanks and Ex-Pats team, only held together by a great season from Barry Paull (I bet he wished he stayed in the AIG one!). In 9th was JLT who improved on last season's bottom place (just) and finally the wooden spoon went to Zurich in what will be Alan Oakley's last season at the Swiss giant. He moves to MARP in the summer.

The final table will appear alongside the final table email