2021/22 Prediction League; Game 1 v Wycombe Wanderers (away)

[Div3North]

kk

Originally Posted by Chimer

Nige Sets The Pace as The Cock-Eyed Suffer

Well that was a great way to start, wasn't it? Fancy forgetting to enter your own competition on the opening day - and things didn't go as well as they might have in Wycombe, either.

But some people got what they wanted - sort of ......



and one point is what you got, Kiwi



For those not in the know, this references Bishop Desmond Tutu, South African anti-apartheid and civil rights activist. LongLost is therefore predicting a two-all draw (2-2, see ). By mathematically doubtful extension, Div3North has determined a half-Desmond is 1-1 .... we do usually allow such frivolities, but may resort to VAR if appropriate.

Preliminaries over, just 4 of you jumped ship on day 1 to the extent of forecasting black defeat, and unfortunately you were right . Only Nige B hit the spot exactly, his 2-1 prediction getting him 5 points, 3 for the right outcome (us losing), 1 bonus point for "Wycombe 1" and another bonus point for "Stanley 1". That's how it works, OK? The other cynics all got 4 - Shurm and StanleyJosh both getting their bonus from Wycombe's 2, and Taypot from Stanley's 1. And roughly half of the rest of you started off with a single bonus point one way or the other.

I don't publish a table until about four games into the season, because it becomes harder to add new players once the table exists, and hopefully there'll be some more joining over the next few games (me, for one ). And something else that helps me and reduces the chances of cock-ups is if you make your forecasts with Stanley's score first, whether we're at home or away. Pretty please?

So off we go to Rotherham for a little Caraboa diversion (our prediction league only includes the 46 EFL fixtures, not any cups or playoff games) before we welcome Cambridge for a good whamming next Saturday. Things can only get better .....

On Stanley On!!

If you hadn't been watching the flipping underwater tiddlywinks from Tokyo, you might have remembered ............. AND I texted you at 2.30 to remind you!

Doh!

[StanleyJosh]

Originally Posted by Chimer

Good point well made. Of course I meant Ipswich

Haha how have you got away with that

[Chimer]

Originally Posted by Div3North

kk

If you hadn't been watching the flipping underwater tiddlywinks from Tokyo, you might have remembered ............. AND I texted you at 2.30 to remind you!

Doh!

Tis true .......

[Div3North]

Originally Posted by Chimer

By mathematically doubtful extension, Div3North has determined a half-Desmond is 1-1 ....

And a 0-0 draw is a Goalless Desmond ......

[VALAIRIAN]

Originally Posted by Div3North

High Wycombe Wanderers

V

Accrington Stanley

2021/22 Prediction League Game 1; v The Low Wycombe ChairPersons (away)


A famous actor, known for his outstanding performances in Greek Tragedy, took his torn trousers to a tailor
The tailor said "Euripides?"
"Yes", said the actor: "Eumenedies?"

They do say, do they not (very Russell Harty!), that you should start as you mean to go on; and so, on the first day of the Hibernia League season, Willie Miller's summary on a short passage of play from Dundee 2 St Mirren 2 which earned Dundee's Max Anderson a 69th minute bath ...

"That's an incredible challenge. He's nowhere near the ball. It's an absolute assassination"

The sign of things to come, mayhap? Oh, and by the way, Celtic are currently in the relegation play-off spot in the SPL; and Kelty Hearts beat Cowdenbeath 2-0 in their debut game in Scottish Div 2 .....

One of my joys over the summer break every year is to trawl the pre-season transfers, to gaze in awe on the things that some parents do when naming their children (personally I think people should have to pass an exam before they're allowed to have children, but that's a different story) and other joyous naming experiences ......... and my two favourites of this year are the new Crawley loanee (from Stoke) who rejoices - well, I hope he does - in the fore-names Blondy Nna (Noukeu), and Luton Louts' new forward Admiral Muskwe .......... I understand that manager Nathan Jones has aspirations of putting together a formidable new midfield, playing the Admiral centrally between Air Vice Marshall 'Tornado' Fixedwing and Brigadier-General Jankers

Last season was a funny season (right up until we missed three penalties in the Euros Final); but did you know, around Europe, that;

Atletico won La Liga for the first time in 7 years
Rangers won the SPL for the first time in 10 years
Lille won Ligue Un for the first time in 10 years
Inter won Seria A for the first time in 11 years
Sporting Lisbon won the Primeira Liga for the first time in 19 years

I reckon there's a chance for us yet!

And on the final day of 2020/21 season ref Graham Salisbury refereed the last game of his career (Wigan v Swindon) - his 558th game (or 540th, or 588th, depending which stats you believe) over 21 years .......... and his Fourth Official that day was his son Michael Salisbury, who was then a Championship Referee but has just been appointed to Select Group 1 (PL refs); and he lives in Penwortham! Respect all round! And former ref Lee Mason is now the first dedicated VAR referee ....... apparently ....... at least he doesn't have a whistle, but that doesn't mean he won't carry on getting it wrong .... and among the new appointees to the list for League One and Two games is - a 'first' - Rebecca Welch, who was Chief Whistler last season for Div 2's Portly Value 2 Harrogate 0 ........... and if she's good enough (which she clearly is) then she's welcome, as far as I'm concerned - so we'll have no misogyny or chauvinistity; as the old advert (nearly) said, "The future's bright; the future's Lady Referees"

High Wycombe, often referred to just as "Wycombe", is a large market town in Buckinghamshire; lying in the valley of the River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills (sounds lovely!), it's 29 miles west-northwest of Charing Cross, 13 miles south-southeast of Aylesbury, 23 miles southeast of Oxford, 15 miles northeast of Reading and 7 miles north of Maidenhead. In 2016, it boasted a population of 125,257 (up from 3,184 in 1841) and it's the second largest town in the county of Buckinghamshire after Milton Keynes. (I want to know where Low Wycombe is ...........)

The town once featured, I discovered, a Roman villa .... well, no, I didn't discover the Roman Villa, but I did discover that they had one ...... it was built around 150–170 AD and has been excavated three times, most recently in 1954; you'd wonder, rather than digging it up three times, why they didn't just leave it dug up the first time, but that's why I'm not an Archie O'Rologist. The name 'Wycombe' would appear to come from the River Wye and the old English word for a wooded valley, "combe", but according to the Oxford English Dictionary of Place-Names the name, which was first recorded in 799–802 as "Wichama", is more likely to be Old English "wic" and the plural of Old English "ham", and probably means "dwellings" (that's 9th Century "thinking outside the box" for you). Wycombe appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 and was noted for having six mills. Nowadays it's best claim to fame appears to be that it's twinned with Kelkheim in Germany ... and it has no mills ..... just like Solihull has NO MOORS!

By the 1920s, much of the housing of Wycombe had decayed into slums. A slum clearance scheme was initiated in 1932, and many areas were completely demolished and the residents moved to new estates. Some of the districts demolished were unutterably disgusting, such as Newland, where most of the houses were condemned as unfit for human habitation, with sewage pouring down the street and people sharing one room in cramped quarters of subdivided flats. Things had improved by 1940, because from 1940 to 1968 High Wycombe was the seat of RAF Bomber Command. It's other claim to fame might be that it was the home town of Benjamin Disraeli, who went on to be the Prime Minister of Israel several times; it's other famous residents included Jean Shrimpton, Geoffrey de Havilland, Colin Baker (one of the incantations of Dr Who), Matt #questionofsport Dawson (and I'm not watching it EVER AGAIN! #bringbacksuebarker) and Heston Blumenthal - he of the weird recipes that they sell in Waitingrose .....

This week's Starter for Ten, then; Wycombe now play at Adams Park, but for 95 years up to 1990 they played somewhere else ........ so what was their previous ground called?

The exact details of the formation of Wycombe Wanderers F.C. have largely been lost to history: however, it's said that a group of young furniture trade workers started a team to play matches, which led to a meeting held at the Steam Engine public house in Station Road, High Wycombe in 1887, which saw the formation of Wycombe Wanderers F.C. It's highly likely the club was named after the famous Wanderers, winners of the first FA Cup in 1872. They played friendlies between 1887 and 1896, when they joined the Southern League, entering the FA Amateur Cup in 1894 and the FA Cup in 1895.

In the summer of 1908 they declined the invitation to retain their membership of the Southern League and decided to pursue amateur status instead of professional football, joining the Great Western Suburban League and remaining there until the outbreak of WW1. After the war Wycombe joined the Spartan League; in March 1921 their application to join the Isthmian League was accepted, and they stayed there for decades, until they were hit by the abolition of Amateur Football as it had been .... eventually they joined the Gola League (hands up if you remember that!) and after a relegation and another promotion they joined the GM Vauxhall Conference; in 1992/93, managed by Martian O'Neill - having missed out on promotion on GD to Colchester the year before - they hit the dizzy heights of League Football (Division 3, which still contained Scarborough, Torquay, Hereford and Darlington) ... HWW finished fourth and won the playoffs (beating PNE) to gain promotion; Northampton Town finished bottom of the League but retained their place .......... and it wasn't to do with re-election

Second Starter for Ten, then; why were the Cobblers not relegated from Div 3 that season?

Their current squad is 31 players, of whom 20 are 25 years old or more .... heading the lists of an - errm - "experienced" group are The Remarkable Mr Akinfenwa (39), Matt Bloomfield (37), GK David Stockdale (35), Gareth McCleary (34) and newly-signed Sam Vokes (31) ............ (isn't McCleary the bloke with all the choirs on the tele?)...... Having gone up in 2019/20 they came crashing back down last season, although they nearly pulled it out of the fire (not clear why it was in the fire in the first place), missing out by one point and some goals to Lucky Lucky Derby County

Eight players left in the summer, including CB Darius Charles (who went back to the Wombles), Ugandan striker Karl Anthony Uchechukwu Mubiru Ikpeazu (who joined Middlesbrough) and Nigerian RMF Fred Onyedinma, who now plays among the Louts ............. Nine signed up, best known being Slumberland's MF Josh Scowan, Blackpool's Sierra Leonian LW Sullay Kaikai, Welsh GK Adam Przybek from the TractorBoys (who are signing everything that has a pulse in East Anglia at the moment), and SurplusStokeStriker Sam Vokes, for whom they had to pay for .... isn't it

They've had an ok pre-season, stuffing both Aylesbury United and Hanwell Town 3-1 ...... in the EFL Cup they visit Exeter, and in the Troffy they're with Burton, the MK Donuts, and Aston Villa's Reception Class .... after us they go to Cheltenham, then it's Wigan (a), Lincoln (h), Sunderland (a), Ipswich (h), Oxford (a) and Charlton (h), so by then they'll have a pretty good idea of what sort of season it's gonna be

Our head-to-head shows 8 wins for us, ten draws and five defeats ........ of the eight wins, seven have been at Adams Park, and we've only lost once to them since the end of 2012; they've never scored more than two against us in any game, whereas we did them 4-0 away (as you might recall) in April 2018 and 3-1 in March 2019 ........... so that's jinxed us, then!

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which appears, strangely, to be 3.00pm on Saturday 7th August ....... much too early to start predicting, although favourites to GreasyPole seem to be the three teams who came up last season plus AFC Wombles ......... we'll see ...... but I do quite fancy some of our signings this year, and no-one's pinched the Bishop of Wham or the Dean of Northern Ireland ..........

And Wycombe's ground before Adam lent them his Park (actually, he was called Frank Adams - a former player - who bought the land next to the General Hospital and donated it to the club) was called Loakes Park, and the Cobblers stayed in the League in 1994 because Kidderminster and the Harriers (who won the Conference) didn't meet the League's stadium capacity requirements .......... Batards!

And a quick mention; Me and Chimer ("Chimer and I", signed, The Grammar Police) aren't getting any younger, and we've been doing this now for eleven years, this being the twelfth (this is Game 496, and by the end of the season it'll be 541 - would have been 552 but for Covid Season 2019/20 ....... and there's not a lot of you playing, so we've obviously bored off the others .... and if anyone fancies taking the PL over for next season, Chimer will copy you his algorithms (it's not illegal if you're over 18), and I'll bequeath you my brain, and my enormous cast of supporting players (Hereward the Wake Up It's 4.30 just for one) .......... Let us know; we might mention it again!

Good luck to everyone! ............. Keep the Faith! ............ And thanks for playing!

Seems like yesterday................