My kinda town

I have Paul Kelleher and Lee Day in the Windy City this weekend, and I'll be catching up with them tomorrow. They got here last night and leave Monday. Lee knows the city pretty well, it's the 3rd time he's visited me and he came here as a school kid to play rugby. I also understand he is well known at various chicken joints around the city!

I'm lookin forward to it, although I sprained my ankle last week playing football and am currently hobbling around on crutches - Pk, Lee, beer, crutches - a recipe for disaster I would say....

Week 36 reminder

Man U finished Arsenal's title hopes off with a 2-1 win at OT, this despite a fine performance from the Gunners. Ronaldo did slightly better from the spot than he did against Barcelona. Hargreaves got the winner with a screamer.

Liverpool beat Blackburn (yawn) and Emile Heskey got as last minute equaliser at Stamford Bridge.

Bolton kept up their hopes by beating West Ham 1-0, but don't worry Hammers' fans, you have your 40 points. Villa thrashed Derby 6-0 at No Pride Park. That's 76 goals conceded for The Rams this season - there is no sympathy if you have a Derby player in your team!

Foolham beat Reading to keep Steve Coppell's lot right in the doo-doo. McBride scored, his 3rd of the season.

Wacker racing on

Breaking News 88888 Manager of week 36
The Title Race managers showed their quality in week 36 with a dominant performance in the MoW competition. PK picked up the fiver, his fifth of the campaign. His lead now at the summit of the league looks almost unsurmountable.

Johnny Mc is keeping up the pressure though, John hit 62, Baz 57, then Steve Black was up there with 54 and his mate Michael Stout scored a point less to keep up their hopes.

Shay hit 51, Helen 50 and Kennett and Nobs 49. The best Plate manager was Hilary who also mustered 49, two more than next best Martin Lee, his best since February.

AIG-ites Barwick & Higgs scored 48 and their New York correspondent Barry Paull scored 47.

The weeks lowest score was 7, by Megan McLeod.

Uncle Nige

Breaking news 8888 The Plate - week 36 news
A new leader in the Plate, In Tatters go top after week 36 replacing Premiership he we come. NY Eagles and Carnarvon Kickers remain where they are but Pure Irish are up 3 to 5th dumping Last Train to Seaford out of the top 5.

The rest of the table is pretty static, although Lovejoy and Rooney & Ronaldo's Revenge both improved their places.

Black & Stout chase prize money

Breaking news 8888 The Title Race - week 36 news
Well there was a little doubt creeping in but Tally.Wacker.co.uk stormed further ahead in the Title Race in week 36 after 65 point haul and only 5 weeks left. 2 Infinity & Beyond and Runningoutofroubles both kept up the pressure though and it leaves Egg & (Stevie) Bacon looking over his shoulder.

The No-Hopers gain a place in their superb efforts to grab some prize money - just 35 points from the top 10. And What the hell doing likewise up 3 places. Little Red Devils were also a climber.

At the bottom Nobs Jockeys gained two spots, Tora Tora Torres slip to 24th and Arsene Knows stay in the penultimate place.

Having a Brazilian

I love this - ever wondered what your name would be if you were Brazilian and one of their best footballers?

Click on here: http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml

Thieves again target player's homes

Thieves took advantage of the " Battleof Britain" Champions League match Between Liverpool and Arsenal last week burgle two more footballers homes.

The first unfortunate player was Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard. The crooks got away with countless items of football memorabilia including many of Gerrard’s own medals. Amongst the items currently being hunted by police are:

2 FA Cup winners medals
A FA Youth Cup winners medal
2 League Cup winners medals
A Champions League winners medal
A Uefa Ccup winners medals
2 Super Cup winners medals
2 Charity Shield winners medals

They also took a number of personal awards including player of the year, young player of the year and his much cherished MBE.

The other unfortunate player to be targeted was Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas. Thieves are thought have escaped with a kettle, a toaster and a pair od cufflinks.

Well done Shots

Really pleased for Aldershot tonight. Back in the early 1970's before my Dad finally buckled into taking me to The Valley, a highlight of a weekend staying with some family friends in Camberley was a trip to their local ground, The Recreation in Aldershot to see my first ever football match.

We sat in a rickety old stand in a ground surrounded by trees as high as the floodlights, which cast shadows over the pitch. I am sure the final score was 2-2, and the opposition was either Southport or Stockport, or was it Chesterfield? Or Workington. Ah, never mind but I remember The Rec well. I've never seen Charlton there, although according to Soccerbase we have lost in all four visits, but I did see another game there in later life.

Not helped by a 19-year old fantasist called Spencer Trethewy, who I remember being on Wogan, Aldershot FC went bust in 1992. Trethewy ended up in prison but is now owner and manager of Chertsey Town! A ground swell of local support from fans and honourable businessmen helped recreate the club as Aldershot Town just a few months later. They dropped 5 divisions and started again.

One of those in the thick of the Shots rebirth was an old work mate of mine called Graham Brookland, who I'm glad to see from their website is still working at the club. I used to love talking to him about football because, well he got it didn't he? And he is still living his dream.

Congratulations to everyone involved with Aldershot tonight. There is a 1,000 of them winding their way back from Exeter, back in the football league after 16 years. Enjoy the Scrumpy!

Week 35 reminder

Arsenal and Liverpool cancelled themselves out of the Premier League title in week 35 after a 1-1 draw. Chelsea kept up their hopes beating Man City 2-0 with goals from Kalou and a o.g. by Dunne. Boro nearly unrailed United's ambitions with 2-2 draw at home to Man U in what was one of the best games of the season.

At the bottom Wigan had a massive win at home to Birmingham, Taylor scoring a brace. Newcastle won again at home to a poor Reading. Viduka, Martins and Lil Mickey Owen getting the goals. Sunderland beat Foolham 3-1 at the Cottage.

Super Plums

Breaking News 88888 Manager of week 35
A 3rd MoW for Baz Plummer, 59 points in a reasonably low scoring week, 5 more than Hot Helen and a whole 13 more than Huw Thomas in 3rd.

Next up was Nobby and Stouty this side of the Atlantic both with 44, Pk managed 42 to keep up his title hopes, followed by Ian Kennett with 40.

A host of managers scored 38, which was the best score in The Plate by Paul Long. Shay Reddy and Chris Wright matched him.

Other credit goes to Johnny Mc, Barry Paull, Wizzo, Catherine & Karen and Godders.

Completely discredited was Francey with 2 points, the worst score for 7 weeks and the joint 10th worse of this season.

Plummer's title hopes no toy story!

Breaking news 8888 The Title Race - week 35 news
Barry Plummer is warming up nicely as we approach the business end of the season in the Title Race. 2Infinity & beyond are now 45 points behind Egg & (Stevie) Bacon and 73 behind Tally.Wacker.co.uk, which might just be too much to ask.

Runningoutofroubles slip to 5th and Ajax Treesdown to 6th. Get him Big Dave kept up the pressure and jump to 7th at the expense of Barretts the Bollocks.

Further down Flighty Feet and The No-hopers gained good ground. Helen's Hotties also moved up a couple of places from 22nd to 20th. Arsene Knows stay in the penultimate prize place.

Character reference

I have a mate here (a previous N&R FL manager) who I asked to give me a character reference for my immigration stuff for Bermuda. Fortunately I checked it first before I forwarded it straight on to HR! This is what it said:

"To whom it may concern

I don’t really know Simon, but I know of him through his notoriously violent drug fuelled rampages and all too frequent appearances on local television news.
In his defense I understand that he has brought his pyromania somewhat under control, and has not started a fire in a government building for some six weeks.
His syphilis is no longer contagious, and there is no conclusive DNA evidence linking him to a series of armed robberies in the Chicago area last year.
I would be happy to provide you with the number of his local Police department should you need any further information, and would recommend you do not attempt to approach him.

Yours faithfully,
Nicholas Davies"

Nipples point the way

Breaking news 8888 The Plate - week 35 news
The top 4 remain unaltered in week 35 as we draw towards the end of the season. NY Eagles made up the most ground, closing in on In Tatters in 2nd. In the prize zone for the first time are Hargs Hammers, clearly having a better end to the season than Curbs.

Lamb to the slaughter jumped a spot as did NotmadeinSheffield and Lovejoy's luvvies.

The big, big news this week was not that Tim Feldbruegge was about to become a Dad, more on that another time, but him and Dennis actually moved off the bottom of the table for the first time since WEEK 3! Double congratulations to Nipple Antennae and perhaps a consolation 20 bucks will help buy some diapers (nappies to you).

Premiership +

Haven't done this for a while. The final straight of the Premiership race, and after Chelsea succumbed to a late Emile Heskey goal it looks like it's Man Yoo by a length. Arsenal were desperately unlucky to leave OT with nowt on Sunday after dominating the game for long periods, particulary the first one. But Ronaldo's 38th goal and a cracker from Hargreaves almost certainly gave the Red Devils the title.

In fact United could win the title at Stamford Bridge like they did last year, didn't they? Put that one in your Ruskie pipe and smoke it (outside of the stadium) Roman!

Arsenal have only a Champions League place to play for - another trophyless season for Arsene and Liverpool could still slip up, especially with all the crap that is going on behind the scenes. Wasn't Liverpool and Anfield once the home to conversative uniformity?

Everton have had another great season under Moyes with a small squad and some injuries but will have to settle for a UEFA cup place and then Portsmouth, Blackburn, Villa and Man C battle it out for the last one with Pompey having two opportunities.

Derby are gone and have to gain another 5 points to beat Sunderland's lowest ever points tally - unfortunately they only have 4 games left not 4 months! To me Bolton and Fulham have gone, although I was impressed with Foolham's win at Reading on Saturday.

Bolton have had that Charlton look ever since Big Sam left and Little Sam was brought in to change their style. Yep, that worked. And Steve Coppell's Reading, who have the worst goal difference other than the Rams are still in danger but I think Wigan, Birmingham and the Andy Reid inspired Sunderland will be ok. Oh come back fat boy.... please.

Week 34 reminder

Just to remind you what happened and where for this scoring week.

10 man Arsenal fought back from 3 goals down at The Reebok to give them their first win in a while, whilst denting Bolton's survival hopes. A JLloyd Samuel o.g. in the last minute put another nail in Gary Megson's coffin. Do you think JLloyd's parents were dyslexic?

Derby and Fulham played out a 2-2 draw, which relegated Derby with 25 games still to go and all but doomed Fulham. Paul Jewell meanwhile was spotted leaving early as he had to get home early to set his camera up.

United won easily at home to Villa, Rooney scoring twice, and Defoe got two more for Pompey in their home win over Wigan. Andy Reid, probably a big reason why the Addicks won't go up this season continued to set the Stadium of Light alight with a last minute winner at home to Wet Spam.

On the Sunday Chelsea bored everyone to sleep with a 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough, Liverpool beat Everton in the 'calm down, calm down' derby and Newcastle came alive slaughtering the Spuds 4-1 at White Hart Lane.

Ben Dover

Breaking News 88888 Manager of week 34
Ben Graves won his 3rd MoW title in week 34 sweeping to 65 points and closing the gap on the Title Race leader Paul Kelleher, who scored 17 points less.

Mark Wenman showed his intentions with a masterful 64 points, and Ian Kennett popped up with a 59, three more than the lovely Catherine & Karen.

New top 10 manager Rob Munden got 54 alongside Johnny McGowan and Chris Waterman, who excelled for a second straight week. That is two of his top three weekly scores of the season in 14 days. Chris is now in 8th place in The Plate.

Howard Grace did well with 53, Wizzo (I saw Pete Coleman recently and he asked after you Dave) and Tatters both nobbled 52 and Kirsty and Plums weighed in with a 51.

The lowest score of the week was from Alan Oakley with 10.

Premiership - you're having a laugh!

Breaking news 8888 The Plate - week 34 news
The top 6 remained unchanged in the plate still led by fantasy stalwart Godders' Premiership here we come, which if he is referring to Charlton, must make him demented! Just 4 points behind are Nige's In Tatters though and NY Eagles are also in close contact.

Hargs Hammers and London Irish swap places outside of the top 6, but any manager all the way down to mid table still has an excellent chance of winning some prize money.

Down at the bottom Nipple Antennae closed to gap to just 6 points on Herr Oakers.

Graves digs in

Breaking news 8888 The Title Race - week 34 news
Despite a small case of cheating this week being put down to drunkeness, Ben Graves had a storming week 34. Egg & (Stevie) Bacon closed the gap on long time leader Tally.Wacker.co.uk to just 15 points. Runningoutofroubles and Ajax Treesdown are almost 60 points behind - is it a two horse race between the two Aon boys?

2 Infinity & Beyond had a good week and closed the gap on 3rd to just 7 points and remember Plummer is been there before. Inter Thepub climbed a slot to 10th, handing off Student Uprising to 11th on route.

Obafemi & the Femidoms jumped 7 places in a very fine week indeed for Wenners. Flighty Feet also gained some ground as did Little Red Devils.

Conversely Arsene Knows' mimicked Arsenal's real life form and slumped 5 places to the penultimate 26th place.

Leaving Chicago

After four and a half years I will be leaving Chicago and moving once again, this time to the island of Bermuda, otherwise known as the Island of Insurance! Immigration has yet to be approved, so there is a still a chance the British Colony turns us down but all being well we will only be in Chicago for another 5 to 7 weeks, sad as that is to think about.

This has been going on for some time, and although I have been to Bermuda a number of times since I came to the States, I spent two hectic days down there in January to discuss the opportunity presented to me by Aon to lead their property team. Then just last week we spent 5 days on the island with a relocation company representative, realtors, human resources, my new boss and new colleagues. It was an exhausting, eye opening affair.

Last summer my big boss in New York suggested that I might like to live and work in San Francisco. I wasn’t keen, nothing to do with the location because San Francisco is beautiful, but it was too far from the UK. I turned the chance down but it got me thinking about my future and evidently it got my company thinking about it too.

I moved to Chicago at the end of 2003 for a number of reasons, although if someone had told me then that I would still be here over 4 years later, then I wouldn't have had any of it.

This has been a very hard decision, I guess I assumed that back to London would be where I would go next - it is where my son is, my mates are, my brother, my football team, and it is 70 miles from my parents. London however was not where the job opportunity was that offered itself in Bermuda. Career wise, financially and excitingly the next chapter of my life and one half of the dream fantasy football management team will be on an island in the Atlantic Ocean 21 miles long and 2 miles wide.

I'm going to miss Chicago, it truly is a great city and one of America's best kept secrets. Give me Chicago over Los Angeles, New York, Miami, San Francisco and Boston any day of the week. I'm going to miss my home, on which I have spent a lot of money upgrading it to the point it is now the end result of the dream I had when I bought a tatty, uncared for large brick loft in what was an old lamp factory 3 years ago but I've decided to keep it as the Windy City will forever be a home for me.

Bermuda was described to me as a bubble last weekend. At times life is not real, dreamlike one minute and nightmarish in another. It certainly is not for everyone, I would never have gone there in 2003 on my own. It is a place for couples and young families or retirees. I know it will take a huge adjustment but as someone said to me recently - a couple of years down there can't be bad for my career, my stress levels and my sun tan.

One thing I am certainly looking forward to is Bermuda's Britishness. It is one of the British Empire’s best preserved legacies. Discovered in 1503 there is history, beauty and culture everywhere and after more than four amazing years living in America, I can’t wait call football football and not bleeding soccer, watch cricket (two days are declared a national holiday in July to watch the two ends of the island play each other), rugby, go to a real pub, drink tea with hot water and milk and a bit of BBC as well thrown in for good measure.

Quite a few of you have come to visit me here in Chicago, and you have all kept in touch for which I thank you. The N&R FL is my little connection to my old life in the London Market and you certainly find out who your friends are when you do something like I did in 2003. I am sure Messrs Down, Paull, Foulger, Long and the tall Croat Davor all agree with me.

I am looking forward to a visit from Paul Kelleher and Lee Day in a couple of weeks, probably my last visitors to My Kinda' Town. I hope you are not shy and some of you get yourselves down to Bermuda too. The warm English beer is on me!

2007/08 Prize Money announced

Drum roll..... Sepp Blatter has given his go ahead to this year's N&R FL prize money pot, although he did insist that the lady manager's wear their shortest skirts at the end of season drinkie-poos (date and venue to be determined).

So here goes:

Play off Winners
Champion - 220 and the famous N&R FL trophy
Runner Up - 150
3rd place - 110
4th place - 85
5th place - 60
6th place - 50
7th place - 30
8th place - 25
9th place - 10
10th place - 10
26th place - 10

Play-off Losers plate
Winner - 60
2nd place - 40
3rd place - 30
4th place - 25
5th place - 20
6th place - 10
27th place - 10

Others
Best weekly score - 40
Worst weekly score - 40
Premiership week 32 winner - 30 PAUL KELLEHER
Championship week 32 winner - 30 BARRY PLUMMER
40 x Manager of the week - 5 each
Team Challenge winner - Special trophy

63 prizes in all. Any prize money is in GBP and will be exchanged into US$ if won by a manager Stateside (as unlikely as that appears!). Any prizes tied will be shared.

Nobby & Ready's decision is final.

Road to Wembley - Play up Pompey

West Bromwich Albion lasted just a round as our Road To Wembley team. However for long periods of their semi-final game against Premiership Portsmouth, the Baggies played the better football and controlled the game with veteran Kevin Phillips, Zoltan Gera and Roman Bednar all causing Portsmouth's defensive pair of Sol Campbell and Sylvain Distin problems.

34-year old Phillips, who has scored goals for fun his whole career found plenty of space dropping deep and tested Pompey early on with a long-range shot just over the bar before a neat lay-off that ended with Zoltan Gera causing problems for a fumbling David James with a low shot.

Portsmouth were all at sea going forward, with Baros wasteful and Kanu barely contributing as Redknapp looking increasingly agitated on the sidelines.

But Pompey came out better second-half goal and 54th minute goal from Pompey's very own veteran KANU was enough to send Portsmouth through to their first FA Cup final in 69 years.
Ex-West Brom striker Kanu side-footed an easy chance to see off the Baggies after Dean Kiely had denied Milan Baros and Zoltan Gera had failed to clear. The replay did show that Baros looked to have handled in the build-up to the goal.

Later Baros missed a simple chance to seal the win and they were almost made to pay but Robert Koren's shot hit the bar and Ishmael Miller fired wide late on.

"You know what these officials are like, they tend to bottle it a little bit in these big games. I'm gutted, I don't think we deserved to lose. We can hold our heads up high, Portsmouth have been very lucky." - Kevin Phillips

West Brom: Kiely, Hoefkens, Albrechtsen, Clement, Robinson, Morrison (Brunt 60), Koren, Gera (Kim 75), Greening, Bednar (Miller 60), Phillips.

Subs Not Used: Danek, Pele.

Attendance: 83,584

Portsmouth will play Welsh sheep shaggers Cardiff in the FA Cup Final on May 17th at Wembley stadium.

Road to Wembley - West Brom Boing Boing

Who would have thought it? West Brom, Barnsley, Cardiff and Pompey in the final four. Fergie's bemoaning the fact that the cup's been devalued because the semi's are at Wembley, sorry I thought he did that when he put out Man U's 3rd XI a couple of years back?

Why not let them have their day in the sun - even the Welsh sheepshaggers (no offence Huw!). Albion look the favourites to me - Pompey without Defoe are up for the taking I reckon. Kevin Phillips, aged 49 has already scored 22 goals this season and I'm lumping money on him and Simon in The National to give me a nice win double this weekend. Oh go on then, throw in Barnsley as well.

Boing, Boing....

What it all means

So we have split the divisions. Sepp Blatter and FIFA are currently deciding on the proposed prize money split. The majority of the wonga will go to the sides in the Title Race but a fair amount of cash will be put aside for what we call The Plate competition.

The best 26 teams will now chase the big money and the coveted trophy, hand engraved by Thai lady boys that Ready knows. There will also be some other prizes for silly things such as best weekly score, worst weekly score, penultimate places, biggest tits, worst underwriter - that kind of thing - Martin Singleton will start favourite for both of the last two prizes.

There are fully 8 weeks left and plenty of points to play - hopefully splitting the league will mean almost every team still has something to play for and cash to be won. The Manager of the week will continue and the final placings will go to decide how teams line up next season.

Any questions call Sondhi Boonyaratkalin and ask for the engraving department.

Week 33 reminder

Darren Bent scored again - I told you lot you should have put him in your teams. This was at home to Pompey. Youngster O'Hara got one too. Bikey scored twice for Reading in their crucial win over Birmingham. Newcastle got their first win under Keegan, 2-0 against Fulham, oh that probably doesn't even count.

Ashton equalised Yakubu's goal at Goodison Park and Michael Chopra got a vital winner at Villa Park.

On Soooper Sunday, Arsenal lost to Chelsea after a magical substitution by Avram Grant. Drogba scoring twice after Arsenal looked home and dry. In Manchester United wiped Liverpool away 3-0 and it now looks like a three-horse race. Who am I kidding - it's only one isn't it?

Kelleher leads title race

Breaking news 8888 The Title Race - week 33 news
200 points separate the top 10 teams in the race to the title. Anyone who finishes in the top 10 will win a cash prize but between 10th and 1st there is a difference of £210.

Tally.Wacker.co.uk leads the way, 32 points ahead of Egg & (Stevie) Bacon. Ajax Treesdown and Runningoutofroubles make up the top 4, but they are now joined in 5th by ex-champion and serious contender 2 Infinity & Beyond.

Boys on tour are nicely placed in 6th with Barretts the Bollocks in 6th, all coming up from the Championship. Coming from behing again are 7th but again the 2nd tier provide us with two more teams Get him Big Dave and Student Uprising.

Outside of the top 10 there are 4 teams led by Inter Thepub all chasing the leading pack and hoping to get their hands on some prize money.

At the bottom are Megan & Hannah's Bears, 18 points behind Nobs Jockeys, currently occupying the penultimate prized place. Hannoi Utd sit above Nobby.

Pete's sake

Breaking news 8888 The Plate - week 33 news
So the final phase of the season kicked off with 27 managers contesting the plate and £195 of prize money. Old fantasy stalwart Pete Godfrey's Premiership - here we come (I don't think so Godders!) lead after week 33 scores, just 14 points ahead of In Tatters. Next come NY Eagles, who along with Nigel and Pete must be favourites.

It's nice to see some new faces up amongst the top teams. Howard Grace's Carnarvon Kickers and Last train to Seaford are not far behind, then Rochdale at Lloyds followed by a good outside bets, London Irish and Hargs Hammers.

Less than 100 points separates another experienced fantasy manager Chris Waterman and his and Californication. Lamb to the slaughter and another previous champion Red Bull Ginger follow them.

In the prized penultimate place currently is Herr Oakers nicely sandwiched between Nipple Antennae and Nancy Lollygaggers.

A+ for Aaron

Breaking News 88888 Manager of week 33
Aaron Barden swooped his 3rd MoW award in week 33 with 84 points. Another fiver in his coffers then. The next best score was by the forgooten Croatian Davor Duvancic, with 79 - his best of the season and. Mark Dewberry equalled that total. Ready got 78, Sweaty 77, Godders and James Down 72 and Razor 71.

Other mentions must go to Nobby, Mark Simmons and Glenn Francis.

Best weekly score - top 10

It's been a while, so lets see whose winning - remember there is a prize for the best weekly score:

1. Paul Kelleher, week 22, 112 points
2. Michael Stout, week 22, 100 points
3. Mark Simmons, week 22, 99 points
4. John McGowan, week 26, 98 points
5= Danny Rose, week 26, 97 points
5= Rob Munden, week 26, 97 points
7. Simon Newport, week 26, 96 points
8. Barry Plummer, week 21, 95 points
9= Helen Peters, week 22, 94 points
9= Soozie Syrett, week 26, 94 points