Tom D Holds On As Season Fizzles Out In Swindon Sunshine
Everything was up for grabs as Mrs Chimer and I set out for Swindon on Saturday morning. Having received Tom D's PM, I knew he had marked Mab out of the game
by posting the same prediction of 2-1 to the Stan-er-lee (though he assures me he hadn't looked at the thread first
), but Leylandii's final bid wasn't in
. 4 points and a maxi behind, only a maxi which wasn't a Stanley win could pinch a last day victory for our tall tree.
Well, as you're probably aware, the day didn't bring a Stanley win
. For the previous 45 games, Leylandii had forecast 45 Stanley wins
- 38 2-1, 6 3-1, and just one 2-0, against Newport recently. A few more forecasts of clean sheets and he would have been a runaway winner, methinks. So what were the chances of him going 0-3 this time?
Well, 0-3 is exactly what he put
- but he always puts the home team score first (which I hate 'cos I have to think to reverse it putting it into my spreadsheet
). So no points is exactly what he got
- in common with everybody else except Kiwi John and Nige B, who both forecast Swindon wins for the hell of it, as far as I can see
. Kiwi even got a bonus point for guessing we wouldn't score for the first time since Christmas
, but failed to move up the table as a result. Nige's 3 points, however, did move him up from 13th to 11th, at the expense of MikeA and AccyTom18.
Nobody else scoring points meant, obviously, no other positional changes anywhere, so
Tom D becomes our champion
and wins absolutely nothing, with a 4 point margin over Leylandii, and Mab a further point behind. Mab, incidentally, forecast 45 2-1 Stanley wins over the season
, with a rush of blood to the head causing him to go 3-2 for the Exeter game three weeks ago. And Tom also went 100% Stanley
,but with a lot more faith in defence and keeper shown in the shape of 1-, 2- and 3-0 forecasts. Not sure 100% Stanley will be such a good tactic next season
.
23 of us managed 40 or more predictions over the 46 games, with just 10 not missing even once. 9 of those 10 finished in the Top Ten in the final table, Lord S being the exception in 16th. Cashman was the non-ever-present interloper in the Top Ten, making 7th place from 45 entries - 3 more points from the game he missed would have seen him 4th. And the 23 40-plusses filled the top 22 places, the exception being Kiwi whose self-sacrificial tactics over 45 games
saw him down in 25th behind Proccy Fan (31 goes) and LongLostSon (29). Two more regular irregulars were Chrisr (played 21) and Dav007 (27), finishing 26th and 27th. Some late joiners in the form of Accyborn, Ferret Man and Jimmy Clitheroe might be regulars next year, and hopefully a few blasts from the past may return to swell our numbers then.
I always like to have a look at average points per go, to see how our irregulars might have done if they'd entered regularly - taking Tom D's 2.57 as the benchmark, the only people to beat that were SalfordImp and Lord Love Rocket (that's the second time I've had to type that this season
) who each entered once and scored 3 points, and, more significant statistically, JimsLad, who averaged 2.83 over 12 entries and might have been a contender
.
We must honour visiting players from Morecambe (M Red), Carlisle (Northern Soul), Lincoln (SalfordImp), Yeovil (Benboy) and Newport (ncfc1 and Accy Mad not AccyMad) for taking the trouble to seek us out, especially as, with the possible exception of SalfordImp, I don't expect we'll be seeing them next season. But I'm sure Morecambe Red, at least, will be heard from on other threads as our League 1 season develops.
All that remains
is for me to attach the final table, add a few emoticons (luckily twenty-eight doesn't play our game so I won't have to explain what they all mean
) and press the submit button.
So, roll on ........League 1
. See you in August .....
On Stanley On!!