09 Mar 2013

Gameweek 29 - One Week Later, Where We Stand

Greetings fellow FPL hacks,

It’s been five days since this entire election malarkey began and with it the end of life as we know it, frankly, as every other institution remained ground to an emphatic halt in the face of changing political winds. Five days of oh-so-slow, exacting foreplay that was supposedly meant to culminate in an arduous, intense release which, in the spirit and letter of the events that preceded it, is yet to happen.

Enough about politics though, let’s explore the happenings of recent weeks in the broader, all-encompassing context of fantasy football.

It’s been a week of deep soul-searching and consternation, for some more than others. For myself particularly, the last few days have been a timely tonic, a chance to look inward, an opportunity to get away from it all (by immersing myself in it all, oddly enough). They say time heals. It doesn’t. The events of Saturday 2, 2013 are as clear as day, the nonchalant manner in which they were executed still vividly jarring now as they were then.

The dial read 2:25 pm local time as the computer purred along in an atypically guttural manner (perhaps a harbinger wrongfully ignored), begging me, willing me to hit the Bookmarks tab. Firefox, privy to the joke it seems, felt faster than usual as I swooped over to http://fantasyfootballscout.co.uk (as I am wont to do). It made perfect sense - I had rather been out of the loop FPL-wise and here I sensed a chance of harnessing all the best bits of advice, fresh and unfettered, as they spewed magisterially from the oracle’s mouth. ‘RvP won’t start’, they crowed… 'captain Hernandez'…'don’t captain Bale!’ 'Suarez won’t do anything!’ There I was listening, calculating, plotting… hastily careening over to the FPL transfers page to seal my fate…

It’s a little over 5 pm as I churn this article out. A president-elect is preparing his acceptance speech as a runner-up bemoans the vote as having been impugned (that’s normalcy back, eh?) – but that is not important. What is important is the red flags that bedeck my classic leagues pane, the measly result of my impish impudence from the week before. My meagre 46 points stick out like a sore thumb. I mull at last week’s XI, picking off at it, re-envisaging terrible decision after terrible decision. I console myself, ever so slightly, by going over my quite decent run of form over the last few weeks. Fantasy football should never be this serious - but it is.

And that is where we stand.

Sombrely,

- denniskig at 14:08