According to my sources… drama, intensity, change and travel will be the keywords for 2010. Unfortunately, world conflicts and disasters tend to feature during Tiger years also, so it won’t be a dull 12 months for anyone. The Year of the Tiger will bring far reaching changes for everyone. New inventions and incredible technological advances have a good chance of occurring. Of all the Chinese horoscope signs, this year is one to be active – seizing opportunities and making the most of our personal and very individual talents. Everything happens quickly and dramatically in a Tiger year – blink and you could miss an important chance of a lifetime!

Deep stuff, I think you’ll agree!!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, 2009 was massive too… Barack Obama became the American president, the world economy crashed like never before, Michael Jackson died, swine flu became a world health scare, the war in Afghanistan raged on, the Tiger Woods brand took a major hit, Twitter became a phenomenon…

An intense year all round.

And in the world of our fantasy football league, it has been much the same… teams have risen and fallen… the lines between luck, idiocracy and skill have blurred like never before… and the banter that makes it one of the greatest events of the year has eclipsed even the story of Lindsay Lohan breaking up with that Ronson girl.

This latest update includes two weekend of games and some mid week action, so it’s not surprising that there has been some big movement – with Dai Spesh quickest off the mark with 168 points (up 54 places), followed by Dave T, Emma G and Cameron B all over 150 points each. On the flip side it was a bad fortnight for Stacey with just 15 points (down 21 places) and also Baker, Jalal, Rhys and Danielle all scraping 30 points-ish.

Liz & Laura Crispie had a tough week down 26 places, as did Ian Graham. Leigh and Craig also had a poor run of form down over 20 places each. But it was a tale of two halves, as Matt J, Danielle R, Louise D and Chris J all climbed a healthy 30 ranks each.

So going into the New Year, it’s interesting to see that Lampard is the most chosen player (in 88 teams), closely followed by Stevie G (85) with a bit of a gap then down to Rooney (57), Owen (53) and Bent (52). The top scoring player is currently Drogba (190 points) but with a month out for the African Nations will he stay there? After him, its Rooney (155 points), Dunne (132 points) and Vermaelen (131 points).

But what it really comes down to are the value for money players, those little bargains that the select few have found, those wild cards that have come good. Interestingly the best value player at 74 points per £1million is someone called Craddock – who features in not a single team!! After him, its Johnson on 65p/£ (26 teams), Bowyer on 56p/£ (in just one team), Carr 51p/£ (again just one team) and Etherington 48p/£ (astonishingly also in just one team!!)

So I think I’ll leave it there for now and just wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Ho Ho Ho…

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

£6 goes to M Davey who was the October Manager of the Month with 270 points, closely followed by Jock with 244 and Cameron with 237.

£5 goes to Emily who climbed a massive 82 places in the month, closely followed by M Davey up 77 and Jock again up 76.

Since not a single person finished the month on a multiple of 100 and would therefore have claimed £1 each – for this month I have extended the prizes to those with a multiple of 10 but just 50p each – this means that all these jammy people have opened their account: Quirky, Fitzpatrick, J Cann, Wheeler (D), M Davey, Cameron, Caden Oestrich, Joanne S, James M, Andrew Edwards, A Kyle, Steven Williams, Nicolas Threasher, Tim Littler, Jake Alexander, Jon Griffiths, Nia Williams and Mat James!!!

At the top of the league we still have Luan but Andy G has climbed into second place pushing Anna and Joanne down a slot, whilst Tom Jones is up into 5th followed by Sibley in 6th whilst Michael and Cameron enter the top 10 at the expense of Keivan and Lyons.

Some of the mini battles that are going on look like this:

Marshall vs Edwards is too close to call at 537 vs 527
Lyons vs Brown vs Quirk is also hottening up at 566 vs 471 vs 538
Baber vs Jones vs Radford may be turning into a two horse race with 338 vs 528 vs 535
Scally vs Baker vs Else vs Stafford vs Dack looks like it has seen its first call for a medic with 533 vs 465 vs 553 vs 474 vs 258

We’ll cover some more inter league stories next week.

In addition to the normal prizes, there will also be a couple of fun competitions this month (with prizes) and all you have to do to enter is leave an answer to one or both of these questions on the website…

1) How many points will be scored in the final 5 International rugby games at the end of the month? (The games are France v New Zealand, Ireland v South Africa, Italy v Samoa, Scotland v Argentina, Wales v Australia and obviously all answers need to be submitted before match day which is the 28th!!!)

2) Name one of the items that you think will be in the Yahoo Top 10 Most Searched List on 1st December. Check out www.yahoo.co.uk (top right) to see the kind of things that Paris Hilton loving, Wayne Rooney worshipping, Royal Mail slagging people are looking for.

Ok that’s it for now. Let’s have some lunch.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

A bunch of European games this week – don’t even get me started on Tottenham’s continuing shambles – I genuinely felt that we could have achieved the same team performance by fielding 5 angry monkeys, 4 lemmings, a giant sloth and by putting in goal a small child with an intense fear of round objects who is standing on ice and has cunningly decided to cover his gloves in baby oil. What a bunch of clowns.

Anyway, Villa won their game, Portsmouth took a 3 nil beating, Liverpool were held to a late draw, Chelsea squeezed 1 pass Roma, the Arsenal young guns ran rampant and got a tally of 5, whilst Man U convincingly put Celtic to the sword. Newcastle and Man City drew 2 all on Monday too. This all means, Jon Ed and Dicky T rise 6 a piece into 4th and 5th. “The cruaders” climb 29 places, “mmm… unexplained bacon” climbs 30 places and the “Alcatraz Swimming Club” continue their rise up 37 spots. A bunch of fallers are grouped together, Oz, Cameron, Leigh and Rob all down over 15 each sitting at 114th to 117th.

As some of you may be aware, we are almost into “Movember”, a wonderful time where each year for charity men grow a moustache (or other facial hair). Apparently it started in Australia but has now grown into a global event throughout the month of November. Its pretty easy – start on 1st November clean shaved and over November gradually (or rapidly depending on “hirsuteness”) grow a moustache. No beards, no goatees, although “ticklers” are allowed!

I thought in honour of this I should share with you this absolute beauty…

http://www.biggerbetterbeards.org/ (brilliant!!)

Also reminds me of that classic fact:

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.

Have a great weekend people.

I’ll be starting to grow my Ming the Merciless beard or maybe it’s time to bring back “The Handlebar”?

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

[remember to enter the fun competitions - it's not hard - and you could be quids in…]