The Hootoo Superbowl
Created | Updated Dec 19, 2003
Part One, The Build-up
And Lo! it came to pass that in the Year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Three, the noble Blatherskite the Mugwump spake unto his fellows of the American Football Forum saying,
'The time has come for a Champion to be chosen from amongst our number. Let us therefore enter unto competition that a worthy winner shall emerge and take his rightful place in the hallowed Hootoo Halls of Fame.'
Therefore did seven brave challengers step forward to contest with the noble Blatherskite ...
Okay, enough of the hilarity! The facts are, that before the start of the 2003 NFL season, (back at the end of June, in fact), Blathers suggested that the members of the American Football Forum should take part in a suitable Fantasy League to play through the coming season and provide a little extra amusement (and as a break from posting abusive comments about each others favourite teams).
Eventually the details were thrashed out and, as he had suggested it, (and as no-one else wanted the job), by unanimous acclaim - Blathers was appointed as Commissioner of The H2G2 American Football - Fantasy League 2003. The Free Fantasy League from Yahoo was chosen and with seven brave volunteers signing up to join the Commissioner, the League was ready to start.
Teams and Managers
- Bearwood Budgies Bright Blue Shorts
- Blathers Mugwumps Blatherskite the Mugwump (League Commissioner)
- Blues Sharks Blues Shark
- Friars 3.0 Friar
- Glasgow Tigers Ku'Reshtin
- Penketh Patriots Egon
- Pennsylvania X-Men Jimi X
- Wildmans Warpigs Wildman
The Semi-Finals
I'll leave the technical details of how the league works to the bottom of this article, suffice it to say that after 14 weeks of unrelenting struggle1 the league section of the season has drawn to a close and the qualifiers for the Championship Play-Offs were finally decided. Intriguingly, both matches turned out to be titanic transatlantic tussles2.
Number 1 Seed against Number 4 Seed :-
Blathers Mugwumps versus Wildmans Warpigs
Goliath v David, the expert v the novice, West Coast USA v East Coast Scotland... This play-off featured the League Commissioner with years of fantasy football experience against a complete beginner who had never touched the stuff before3.
However beginners luck can only carry you so far! As a contest this match-up was doomed right from the moment that Wildman decided on a last minute gamble by changing his Quarterback just before the closing time for changes - as a gamble this was right up there with putting your life savings on tartan at the roulette wheel! I'll spare my blushes by not revealing the final score, but let's just say that Blathers Mugwumps turned in the second highest score of the entire season so far to take the favourite through to the Hootoo Superbowl.
Number 2 Seed against Number 3 Seed :-
Penketh Patriots versus Friars 3.0
A windy Post Correspondent v a 'Windy City' Researcher, The manager who has kept exactly the same pool of players since the start of the season v a manager with so many teams in different leagues that he's reduced to numbering them so that he can tell them apart.
This match-up resulted in a closer contest than the other Semi-Final4, but not much closer! Just to show Blathers that he can't rest on his laurels5 the Penketh Patriots rose to the occasion by posting the third highest score of the entire season, only one point behind the Mugwump's total.
In order that no-one feels left out, there is also a Consolation Play-off for the other places in the League. The games there were:-
Number 5 Seed against Number 8 Seed :-
Pennsylvania X-Men versus Blues Sharks
Number 6 Seed against Number 7 Seed :-
Glasgow Tigers versus Bearwood Budgies
In keeping with the high scoring matches in the Championship play-offs, Jimi X's Pennsylvania X-Men racked up their highest score of the season just behind Egon and Blathers. Thus, this week-end produced 3 of the 4 highest scores returned in the 15 weeks played6. In the other tie we had the only form upset of the week when Bright Blue Shorts' Bearwood Budgies sneaked past Ku'Reshtin's Glasgow Tigers to earn a spot in the 5th/6th place play-off against Jimi.
So the stage is set - The preliminaries are over and done with - Nothing now remains except to introduce the contestants, (Trumpet Fanfare, Roll of Drums, Fireworks, Lasers, etc, etc,)
The Big Match - Hootoo Superbowl 2003
BLATHERS MUGWUMPS versus PENKETH PATRIOTS
Okay, lets have a good clean fight, 2 falls, 2 submissions or a knock-out. No biting, swearing or tickling. Any eyes gouged out to be handed back after the... Oh Sorry - wrong sport! (Or then again, maybe not).
Now that the excitement has everyone on the edge of their seats, I'll have to leave you all in suspense, waiting for the next report on the thrilling finalé to the H2G2 American Football - Fantasy League 2003. (That's always assuming that the Post Team don't come to their senses and decide not to clutter up their pages with my ramblings).
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How it Actually Works - the (even more) boring bit
For the benefit of anyone who has managed to last this far and would like to know the details of how this Fantasy League works, here are the details.
Each match is decided by a points total based upon the individual performances of the players in each team's squad. To ensure a fair balance for each match, each team is required to consist of; one Quarterback, two Wide Receivers, two Running Backs, one Tight-end, one Kicker, one Defence and a slot player who can be either a Wide Receiver or a Running Back as the manager prefers. The actual 9 players for each team who take part in each match are selected from a squad of 15.
Of course, if each manager was allowed to pick any player he liked to fill a particular place in his squad then you would find the same star players in nearly every team, in fact you might well end up with exactly the same players on both teams! To prevent that happening we have the Draft.
The Draft is just based on the same principle as a school playground 'bounce' game - each team captain takes it in turn to pick a player from those available until the team is complete. Ideally that is the method used in fact - each manager picking in turn. But as the H2G2 League spreads from the West Coast of the USA to the East Coast of Britain it would be impossible to have everyone on line simultaneously for the time required to pick 120 players, one after the other. What did happen was that each manager had the chance to rank all available players in the order that they would like to sign them7. The Yahoo computer then took care of the draft for us, picking a random order of choice and then allocating players according to the rankings set by each manager and making sure that each team had a proper balance of positions.
Of course, these rankings were based on previous seasons performances (and pure guesswork), so that it was necessary for the managers to keep an eye on their squads and change any players who were not performing adaquately, or who were injured, or were on a bye week8 or were otherwise unavailable. Not every manager was perfect in this respect however, it was not unknown for a team to get zero points for a position because the player in question was sitting at home in front of the TV, watching the Football!
If anyone has actually been interested enough to read all the way down here, then remember that there's another season next year and we'll probably be looking for participants for The H2G2 American Football - Fantasy League 2004. All you have to do is join in along at the American Football Forum and wait for your chance to sign up.
