A look at the managers - part 1

Let us start with last season's Champion Ryan Saveall. I bemoaned the low scoring before Christmas, but a remarkable improvement in the second half of this campaign would have meant that Ryan would only have finished 9th with the same score this season! As it was Ryan 4th at one point never built on his excellent start to this season - he obviously had both hands full with Soozie's charms - and after qualifying quite easily for the Title run in, he just flopped into a disappointing 21st place. But he won't be the last N&R manager to suffer that 2nd season syndrome.

Ready, another ex-champ and last years runner up will also be disappointed. Keith also had a fairly good start and hovered around the top 15 for the majority of the season. But after qualification for the Title Race, he ran out of gas and ended up 24th. The sexy Barwick & Higgs played with my emotions this season. They were top 8 up until week 28 of Div 1, and reached the summit for 3 weeks in October. However the ladies normally spot on in the transfer market may have got it wrong a couple time this season, and at the play-off stage started down in 15th. They did come strong though and thought they would challenge the leaders, they did to 10th in week but they came up short.

NY Eagle Barry Paull is always a candidate for honours, but this time he had, for Barry, a very poor 1st half of the season. He got dumped unceremoniously into the Plate but came out of it well and ended up collecting the runners up prize behind his old mate Godders. Pete after his title winning days back in the 90's has found the N&R FL a real tough nut to crack in recent years, particularly now he has to work for a living! Last year he had the embarrassment of finishing last in the Premiership, this time he was dropped into the Plate, but came up smelling of roses by winning it and it's good to see Godders name on a prize once again.

Mark Dewberry has had a couple of good N&R years, especially last season finishing 5th. This time he was up there challenging until Christmas, but then rolled down like Mrs Christmas' stockings. He ended up in the Title Race but struggled to make any inroads and ended up 22nd. Kirstie, the bird with those lips you wanna see suck on a plum, had a poor season. An okay start, well she at least picked players from the right list, but then after September it was a struggle. In the Plate she never got going and finished sucking air in 17th.

Do we have a new consistent N&R manager? Johnny McGowan 7th last year and 3rd this. Great achievement from the lifelong Blues fan (no Johnny come lately here) and only 3 weeks outside of the prize positions - well done John. Razor Nathan had a cracking first season last year and at times in this he looked like he could repeat it. Unfortunately he came unstuck at the change-over missing out of relegation and giving the Plate a crack, but too far behind the challengers to give the Title a go. There were a few mangers that the play-off's were rather unfair for (in fact Ready and Nobby were two of them) and Razor sure told me so in an email. Sorry mate but come back next season.

Mark Simmons kept up his magnificent record of always collecting some prize money. This time it came in the final week grabbing last place, by using his final transfers to good effect. Well deserved though as Mark spent the majority of the season challenging for the title.

Wenners once finished runners up (04-05) but has not since reached those dizzy heights. He did give it a good go this time though, and led the table in the very early weeks but ended just a bit short and finished 11th. Stable mate Shay Reddy won prize money in his first year last time out, it wasn't as fruitful this season. He did make the Title race but came away empty handed. Oakers, oh Oakers. After a couple of much improved seasons, due to German efficiencies, Al (another non-plastic Blue by the way) was back to his old ways this season and took the unwanted tag of the worst manager in 2007-08 out of all 55!

Tatters had again satisfy himself with the 2nd tier, last year he came 4th and therefore got promoted, only for him to get slung out again before redeeming himself once again by this time finishing 4th. Soozie has found a new bloke but it appeared to distract her this season finishing 18th, her worst placing since the 1998-99 season! Sooz - dump him.

Francey is another fantasy old timer and last season actually made a small profit on the his excursions. However it was back to normal for Ian this time, winning nowt and being faced with buying the annual AIG ruby murray. Glenda Francis started with such promise, but has slowly become more useless as the years move on. His fantasy football is much the same.

Ian Kennett, the Newcastle United of the N&R FL. Well supported, big capacity, sleeping midget but never won a thing. Nothing changed this season, although Ian won't mind as the Folkestone Red is still sobering up after last week's events. John Littig ploughs his trade in Philadephia now. Great movie, great cheese steak, fucking terrible fantasy football managers. John dropped to the Plate, and well that was it.

Part 2 to follow.