2017/18 Prediction League; Game 18 v Newport County (home)

[nige b]

2-0 Stanley please

[Chimer]

Draws, Errors, Omissions - and a Rampant Monkey Hanger

Well, I’m deeply hurt . For whatever reason, I never got round to doing a write-up after the Cambridge game a fortnight ago – and nobody noticed! But I’ll forgive you , and cover two games in one go now, with Akinfenwa looming ominously on the 48 hour horizon …..

So, after the Barnet goal fest , four games have yielded four draws , one decided by losing a penalty shoot-out , and just two goals . Only two games counting for the Prediction League, of course, and draws do tend to shake up the table a bit more than regular Stanley wins, especially if anyone picks up a maxi.

Which nobody did in the 0-0 at Cambridge. So the 8 fence-sitters took 3 points, and 3 more of us got a point for “Cambridge 0”. Monkey Hanger climbed from 6th to 3rd, Ossy Kid from 11th to 7th, Cashman from 12th to 10th, and DaveinGermany and MikeA dropped out of the Top Ten as a result.

4 of the other 3 pointers, Kiwi John, Ange B, Football19 and LongLostSon moved up from 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th to ……. 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th, all at AccyBeMe’s expense. The last 3 pointer was NigeB, who managed a mid-table move from 15th to 13th. The 3 single pointers did less well, 1 point not being enough for either D, Tom or Andy, to hold off Monkey Hanger’s rise, though it was enough for me to swap places with Wynonie down in mid-table .

Passing swiftly on to 1-1 at home to Newport, and praising the Gods of Football for us not giving up at the end , this saw Monkey Hanger consolidating his advance with the only maxi of the day, sweeping him onto the tabletop 3 points clear of Mab. Ossy Kid and Lord S were the only Top Tenners to take 3 points, moving closer to the podium in terms of points, but not in places, remaining 7th and 8th. Above them, in the battle of the Ds, Andy’s point took him above Tom’s blank into 5th.

DaveinGermany and MikeA, who were also amongst the single pointers, moved up to 9th=, joining AccyMad, making it 11 people in the TopTen, and pushing Cashy back down to 12th again. The final 3-pointer was LongLostSon again, this time making a more significant gain from 26th to 22nd. About half of the rest of us got a point for “Newport 1”, resulting in a bit of switching around, including Wynonie reversing my previous gain . And our regular and welcome visitor from the Valleys took a point for “Stanley 1”, giving him a slight but significant lead over Morecambe Red at half-time in the fiercely contested race for the Strangers’ Cup.

It’s gone a bit flat lately, hasn’t it? Roll on (literally, in the case of YFB ) the Chairboys on Tuesday night. Time to get back to winning ways, methinks. On Stanley On!!