I recently begun re-reading Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch (for those unfamiliar with the book, it charts the author's obsession with football beginning when he was just a young boy and continuing into adulthood, looking at the parallels between his team's and his own fortunes in life) and it got me thinking about my own comparisons. Whereas Hornby often found himself living for the weekend and reliving favourite matches in times of boredom, in similar situations I find my mind wandering to how I want the fixtures to play out to hand me the advantage in fantasy football.
No longer confined to the pages of newspapers, broadsheet and tabloid alike, over the years there have been various iterations of fantasy games popping up all over the internet, with my game of choice being the official Premier League version. It was as a schoolboy that I first pored over the points and valuations of the players, attempting to second-guess who was going to fire on all cylinders in the season ahead. Once my team was picked, I'd spend a few weeks monitoring my players and regretting decisions until realising I couldn't make any changes until halfway through the season and then I'd lose interest altogether.
But with the internet came the ability to make constant changes, one a week for free or more for a four-point 'hit'. And with that ability came the addiction. One player might score a hat-trick at the weekend and become the flavour of the week, but in order to fit him into your team would require a bit of shifting around, dispensing two or three people in order to be able to afford him at the expense of other players who, quite frankly, weren't pulling their weight and thus were brutally dispatched so you could flutter your eyelids at your latest acquisition... who then, predictably (in hindsight, which is such a wonderful thing), would draw a blank while for another team someone might have scored a brace against one of the bigger clubs, and you think 'well, if he can do that against them, he'll end up annihilating the relegation fodder', and you dispatch the troops to get shot of that over-priced footballer, who also suddenly seems more overweight than you had seen before through your rose-tinted glasses, and bring in this week's golden boy... you can see a pattern emerging.
These days, I try and refrain from jumping on bandwagons, instead trusting my own judgement. I've had success on a small scale over the years, either winning or coming as a runner-up in a private league I've set up with 15-20 friends on a regular basis, so I'd like to think I know vaguely what I'm talking about. But I used the word addiction earlier, and never a truer word was spoken. It infiltrates my thoughts during the duller moments of the day, and has led to me scribbling various wish lists and formations on scraps of paper that spill across my desk. Of course, there's no way of knowing what the future holds, but you study the form and the fixtures and you think you've got an advantage over those who don't tinker with their team, much like those who hang around betting shops and racing grounds all year long. But when it comes down to it, who am I to say that I am standing on higher ground than them?
For the first time, I've entered a fantasy football league with monetary prizes, both monthly and for the final standings. At the same time, a friend and I have begun a weekly competition with £5 to whoever gains the most points per week. And although it is far from dominating my life, as Hornby chronicles in Fever Pitch, I find myself hoping that the football team I support actually concedes when they are playing an opponent with a player that I have in my fantasy team. Obviously I want my team to win outright, but it's a clear sign that my interest in the sport is now divided – once it was all about the league standings; now it is split between the Premier League and (my fantasy league) the Premier Inn League.
No longer confined to the pages of newspapers, broadsheet and tabloid alike, over the years there have been various iterations of fantasy games popping up all over the internet, with my game of choice being the official Premier League version. It was as a schoolboy that I first pored over the points and valuations of the players, attempting to second-guess who was going to fire on all cylinders in the season ahead. Once my team was picked, I'd spend a few weeks monitoring my players and regretting decisions until realising I couldn't make any changes until halfway through the season and then I'd lose interest altogether.
But with the internet came the ability to make constant changes, one a week for free or more for a four-point 'hit'. And with that ability came the addiction. One player might score a hat-trick at the weekend and become the flavour of the week, but in order to fit him into your team would require a bit of shifting around, dispensing two or three people in order to be able to afford him at the expense of other players who, quite frankly, weren't pulling their weight and thus were brutally dispatched so you could flutter your eyelids at your latest acquisition... who then, predictably (in hindsight, which is such a wonderful thing), would draw a blank while for another team someone might have scored a brace against one of the bigger clubs, and you think 'well, if he can do that against them, he'll end up annihilating the relegation fodder', and you dispatch the troops to get shot of that over-priced footballer, who also suddenly seems more overweight than you had seen before through your rose-tinted glasses, and bring in this week's golden boy... you can see a pattern emerging.
These days, I try and refrain from jumping on bandwagons, instead trusting my own judgement. I've had success on a small scale over the years, either winning or coming as a runner-up in a private league I've set up with 15-20 friends on a regular basis, so I'd like to think I know vaguely what I'm talking about. But I used the word addiction earlier, and never a truer word was spoken. It infiltrates my thoughts during the duller moments of the day, and has led to me scribbling various wish lists and formations on scraps of paper that spill across my desk. Of course, there's no way of knowing what the future holds, but you study the form and the fixtures and you think you've got an advantage over those who don't tinker with their team, much like those who hang around betting shops and racing grounds all year long. But when it comes down to it, who am I to say that I am standing on higher ground than them?
For the first time, I've entered a fantasy football league with monetary prizes, both monthly and for the final standings. At the same time, a friend and I have begun a weekly competition with £5 to whoever gains the most points per week. And although it is far from dominating my life, as Hornby chronicles in Fever Pitch, I find myself hoping that the football team I support actually concedes when they are playing an opponent with a player that I have in my fantasy team. Obviously I want my team to win outright, but it's a clear sign that my interest in the sport is now divided – once it was all about the league standings; now it is split between the Premier League and (my fantasy league) the Premier Inn League.
