Afternoon all and we are a week away from the new football league campaign and yet another attempt to see if we can get ourselves up and out of the depths of League 2! I have been granted an extension to my contract, despite what some might otherwise want (!), so let’s get into the new campaign!
Looking at how I started the intro last season, ahead of Sadler’s first season in charge, it YET AGAIN (!) looks like the very same story heading into our first game this season!
I mentioned: ‘trying to get over the last season’; ‘failed hopes and disappointments once again’; ‘hoping a new season would bring more cheer’; ‘that the newly assembled squad Sadler has put together will rise in performance and consistency’; ‘hoping that ‘Sadlerball’ wouldn’t be an issue we were all discussing as the season went on…’ sigh…
Anyway, let’s move on and get back to introducing a new season’s prediction league. Last year saw a decent contest between numerous predictors, the lead changing hands a good few times and no one running away with it - just as we like to see!
It also saw some of our more ‘seasoned campaigners’ charging up the table and making a later surge for the title, but in the end Shrewsbury-Saddler held on to win the 2023-24 season!
It was a fair contest, good sportsmanship being shown throughout and maybe, just maybe, a few people showing a more chilled attitude to keep it contested in the spirit we all want it to be - no chucking of golf clubs or tennis racquets, no spitting out of dummies, no grabbing the mic and making unnecessary rallying calls to raise the temperature; just a nice, civilised prediction league!! Maybe we’ll get that this season too, but there’s always room for some banter and antics, especially if the painful torture of League 2 football week in week out, drives us to despair!!
Last season, we were going to try and introduce one or two new things with a 2 tier split midway through the season, but the general consensus was that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” despite what Richard O’Kelly might think! So, we’ll proceed as normal, and keep the prediction league train rolling along on the same track.
For those who haven’t played before or are new to UTS, here is what you do (if you want to take part):
- Choose 3 of the games from the game week post, that has the set of fixtures on, and predict their result and scoreline;
- You score 2 points if you get the exact scoreline correct and 1 point if you get the result correct but not the scoreline (e.g. you predict Walsall 0 v 7 Bradford City but it actually ends up 0 v 5). So you are playing for 6 points each week.
- After the games are finished, a table is created and updated on a weekly basis to show how people are doing.
- There are weekly winners announced and we keep track of how many weekly wins there are for people across the season alongside the overall winner with most points accumulated.
- If games get postponed, you can either change your predictions or I will keep a record of p-p games so that any points can be awarded after the re-arranged game is played.
- If a game week ends up with less than 6 games taking place due to postponements, then it will be voided and that game week carries over to the next round of matches.
- There should be 46 game weeks but may adjust depending on point 6 above.
- Anyone who misses the start of the season / first few games is still more than welcome to join in the fun! The ‘window’ doesn’t close with the first games of the season and who knows, we may be desperate for some ‘signings’ to join us as we go!
Key Rules:
- You must have the predictions in before the kick off of the games chosen otherwise they are void.
- If you miss some games (for example at 3pm but there are 2 games at 5.30 kick off) you can still predict the later games.
- If someone doesn’t predict for 5 game weeks in a row, they will be taken off the table, but can join back in again and will be re-instated into the table if so.
- If you mis-copy games so the teams are wrong then they will be void as well (if you can’t get that right then tough luck!)
- Predictions can be PMd to me if you would rather avoid any skullduggery from certain people ‘copying’ predictions, although we are all big girls and boys so shouldn’t need this really!!
- Some fun banter and predictor sledging is permitted and all part of the friendly yet competitive edge to proceedings but keep it decent and resist too much self promotion or adulation - remember pride comes before a fall and you’ll just end up looking a bit of a wally!!
Here is the final table from last season so you can study form and who to look out for or needs knocking off their perch!
… not liking being on page two 
… even 
