The Cottage Cup I am delighted to announce the rules for our second and main knock-out competition: The Cottage Cup. History The idea behind this cup was fairly simple: any current or former Fulham players score extra points. This competition rewards those with the nerve to select Fulham players and it's surely good news for everyone that we are playing a little bit better right now. The Cup had no sponsor last year and so it will continue. It was last won by frogman27. Schedule The Cottage Cup was originally planned out with a Champions League style group stage. However due to time constraints and my annual hard drive fail, it will be be a slightly slimmed version. As such, our 23 teams will be split into 7 groups of 3 and 1 group of 2 (would be much more convenient to have a number divisible for 3 or 4 next year!). Rounds will take place over 3 game weeks (weeks 22, 23 & 25) with each team playing the other two teams once. The group of two will play each other three times. The eight group winners will then enter a straight knockout in gameweeks 27, 28 & 30. Competition rules The heart of this competition is in the additional scoring rules. Firstly, any players who play for Fulham (e.g. our players, obviously!) or previously played for Fulham (e.g. Rosenior, Dikgacoi, Smalling etc) will have their score doubled. In addition to this any of these players will score an additional 3 points for any goals, assists or clean sheets they record that week. In the event that your captain has a Fulham connection, these extra points will also be doubled. However, only their base score will be doubled (effectively leading to a triple score once the additional captain points are added). Only points scored by your first eleven will add to your score. I will manually assess these at the conclusion of each game week; I'll try to be as accurate as possible, but please raise any challenges either with me or on this thread and they will be swiftly resolved. It is possible to draw group games. Three points will be awarded for a win and 1 for a draw. Groups will be decided by (in order): game points, ""Fulhamish" points (any bonus points earned from Fulham links), total points and finally a coin toss. In the event of drawn games in the knockout phase, the tie breaker will be decided by which team gained the most additional "Fulhamish" points. Extra points awarded to the whole 15 man squad will be counted at this stage, so even your subs bench could still put you through. If teams are still level after this, the winners will be (in order): the team who scored the most goals in the game week, the team who scored the most assists, the team who scored the most clean sheets (defenders and goalkeepers only, not midfielders), the team who conceded the fewest goals (defenders and goalkeepers only). If still tied, a coin toss will decide. Draw I will confirm the draw next week. Further news The final competition of the year, The Zdeněk Grygera Bowl, will take place in gameweeks 32, 34, 35, 37 & 38. This competition will feature bonus points each week for players whose names start with the two random letters for that week. I also hope to extract my original files from my old hard drive over the next few weeks, to obtain the odds calculations. Feedback is always appreciated!
Surly you are a legend, thank you so much for organising this. If you need an extra goal line assistant to help with scoring let me know.
please log in to view this image Even our Bellend of a manager is impressed and asked that his thanks be passed on. Ta !! PS The Bellend also wondered if having a manager with a Fulham connection qualified for bonus points?
The Draw Sadly I couldn't afford a multi-million pound party in Brazil with fancy dancers and bizarre seeding rules. However, with my trusty random number generator I took to my computer to put the groups in place for the Cottage Cup. So, without further ado: Group A - Tootif, Riley Stoke United, Brad'sBelters Group B - Enter the Frei, Nic's team, Stella Turtles Group C - Louise's Legends, Legen-waitforit-dary, Potters Bar Group D - West London Whites, FFC_Madness, Tony King Group E - SBM Legion, By The River, Ciall Nonnolly's XI Group F - Rodallega Bomb, Riverside Rovers, FantasyFootieClub Group G - Moves Like Dejagah, Fred's boys, Billion$Babies Group H - Life of Pies, It's A Taarabt! Instantly I can see a few interesting group situations at play. Of most interest (in my opinion) are Group A, where we see father against son in the WWDW household, and Group B where n1ck has been completely shafted in a group with the teams placed 2nd and 3rd in the league. All completely random I assure you. Let me know what you think might be the group of death and best of luck to all. In any event, gameweek 22 will see the first round of games as follows: Group A - Tootif v Brad'sBelters Group B - Enter the Frei v Stella Turtles Group C - Louise's Legends v Potters Bar Group D - West London Whites v Tony King Group E - SBM Legion v Ciall Nonnolly's XI Group F - Rodallega Bomb v FantasyFootieClub Group G - Moves Like Dejagah v Billion$Babies Group H - Life of Pies v It's A Taarabt! Onwards and onwards!
This is fantastic work Surlyc. I'm sure my team has peaked too soon and I'll get knocked out straight away! No doubt I'll foolishly use my wildcard at some point soon and ruin my half-decent team. The good news is we will definitely have a prize for the winner of the Cottage Cup (and the other cups and league). The prizes will be kindly donated by our sponsor Marathonbet. If you haven't already got a betting account with them, it's easy to open one up and they offer generous odds on Fulham matches. I couldn't get to the Norwich replay to meet our contact and won't be going tomorrow, but we'll be having a beer and working out the prizes at the Southampton match next weekend. We might have some very exciting news for next season (apologies for teasing, but I don't actually know what they would like to propose yet)!
The big question is, is anyone going to dare put any fulham players in !!!!!! Got Parker on the bench, either him or jordan mutch dependant on who scores more.
Maybe next year the team playing Fulham will get half points? (I'm still feeling that we can stay up right now)
Riether is on my bench as 1st sub. I'm not feeling overly hopeful for today's match and am preying all my starting 11 play today.
The Cottage Cup - round one Results: please log in to view this image So, round one is complete and we can safely say that Fulhamish points were in tight supply. Yet, even with a 3-0 defeat, Fulhamish points could easily have swung two games - Potters Bar came a single Fulhamish point from overhauling Louise's Legends in Group C and It's A Taarabt! and Life of Pies sealed a draw through their hesitation to select a Fulham connection. please log in to view this image There are two more rounds of games in the group stage and no one is eliminated as yet. The next round of games is as follows: Group A - Riley Stoke United v Tootif Group B - Stella Turtles v Nic's team Group C - Legen-waitforit-dary v Louise's Legends Group D - Tony King v FFC_Madness Group E - By The River v SBM Legion Group F - FantasyFootieClub v Riverside Rovers Group G - Fred's boys v Moves Like Dejagah Group H - It's A Taarabt! v Life of Pies Hold tight - maybe our lads will score some more points against Swansea!
please log in to view this image Got your wildcards out boyos. The word in the gunnels down here is that the guy Kostas will be a snip transfer. Sparky Bellend
Mitroglou up for grabs at 6.5 million, could an absolute steel. Holtby looks a good one as well, think he is around ths 6 million mark
The Cottage Cup - round two I actually prepared these results last week and meant to post last week, but various other things (mainly tube strikes) completely threw me off. Anyways, the round two results: please log in to view this image Special mention to Fred's boys who turned the game around with 6 Fulhamish points. please log in to view this image The last round of the group games will be this gameweek, with the games as follows: please log in to view this image Good luck to everyone, assuming that the games go ahead!
