FOR the first time in history the Kenna League title race is more exciting than an American industrialist’s Moscow hotel room.
Thieving Magpies reestablished their position at the top of the table, cutting short the FC Testiculadew tenure of first place to just one week.
Many feared the FCT manager’s accession to the Kenna summit would mark the end of a competitive season but ‘Pies midfielders Pedro (15 points) and Yaya Toure (10) quickly struck back.
WNS and ‘The Burqs’ will be duking it out in two weeks time to see who will avoid an unwanted playoff match to get out of group B.
Elsewhere those struggling in the league are also experiencing Narcozep squeaky bum time.
The Pikey Scum manager’s sphincter may be more resigned than others. Having completed all his cup games, he must rely on the side above him in group D losing by more than 20 points to the group leaders.
And in what situation could you imagine Young Boys being whipped by Two Goals One Cup in a haze of Narcozep?
Other than in an American industrialist’s Moscow hotel room?
FANTASY football has been hit by shocking allegations of historic alcohol abuse going back over a decade.
Alcoholic drinks have begun to come forward to tell of their mistreatment at the hands of ‘diabolically drunk and out of control’ Kenna League managers. Victims could run into their thousands.
Throwing off the legal mantle of anonymity, one pint of lager told the media nothing was done to address irresponsible drinking, and in some cases it was actually promoted by ‘senior figures at Kenna HQ’.
“It was Wednesday when usual punters were genteel and enjoyed their drinks at a reasonable pace. We were completely unprepared for what would happen next.”
The pint said eight men entered the bar and crowded around a table to begin ‘drinking at a rather alarming pace’.
“There was ribald laughter and strange references to someone called Tomas Repka,” said the pint. “They were literally tearing through us without a second thought for our flavour or centuries-old Belgian brewing tradition.
“All they cared about was who would sign Frank Lampard. Dozens of us were left feeling used and empty afterwards.”
Emboldened by their actions, which remained unchallenged by witnesses, Kenna managers continued to abuse a multitude of alcoholic drinks with abandon over the next 10 years.
The harrowing experience of a pint of cider at a transfer window night in October 2012 shows just how unchecked the wild behaviour went.
“No one spoke up about it. There was a culture of silence. It was like a Taboo. Or an Archer’s or a Barcadi Breezer. It wasn’t something people would ever consider talking about. You just had to ‘man up’ and get on with it.”
Fast forward to this summer, and tales of abuse were now intertwined with something far more sinister – trafficking.
A Czech bottle of absinthe who claims to have been abused at the auction this August said: “They make abduction me Prague, input me dark suitcase for long time.
“I very confused and disorientate. They take me dark cellar in London and leave me months.
“Then one day they take me pub. All people drunk but not yet 3pm.”
Continuing in recklessly inappropriate broken English, the absinthe told how it was poured into shot glasses and downed by managers with ‘Godless’ faces who showed no interest in its distilling process or its botanicals.
“No sugar. No spoons. They just tip down me like water. I simple feel shame.”
Confronted with allegations of historic abuse outside Kenna HQ this morning, the league chairman stonewalled the scandal.
“I’ve been at every single auction and transfer window since the Kenna was founded and I have never seen anyone so much as touch a drop of alcohol. We’re a responsible fantasy football league.
“We’ve always organised league activity in public places for the convenience of managers. If they were pubs I’m the last to know about it. I think some of the venues had bars, I really can’t recall.” said the man in charge of the self-proclaimed ‘world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league’.
“Of course, we will be commissioning an independent inquiry to find out where these stories are coming from. That is if this intense media scrutiny doesn’t blow over in a few days.”
MANUEL Lanzini and Stewart Downing became the first footballers in Kenna League history to be part of a cash-plus-player deal, it has emerged.
Two managerial debutants unwittingly made the transaction at last month’s transfer window to set a new precedent, which has left one of them is left with egg on his face.
Attending his maiden transfer night the Two Goals One Cup manager rung the changes releasing five players including the 1.5-points-per-week Lanzini.
The So Good They Named Him Twice manager couldn’t make the window so released the 2.75-points-per-week Stewart Downing and bid via broadcasting app Periscope.
While So Good signed Lanzini for £8m, Two Goals picked up Downing for twelve.
They have effectively conducted the league’s first cash-plus-player deal – Lanzini plus £4m for Downing.
Since then ‘makeweight’ Lanzini has pulled up his socks to score at 2.7-points-per-week.
Downing has slowed considerably to an average of 1.9.
“Well, well. This is troubling,” said the Two Goals One Cup manager this morning outside the club’s Rimmer’s Way stadium.
Downing: his sorrows
For Kenna veterans, it was little surprise to see Stewart Downing become the first player take part in such an arrangement.
Managers under pressure or looking for quick wins at transfer windows regularly use Downing as a scapegoat.
In just over five years, the winger has been signed on 10 separate occasions by Kenna managers.
WILLIAM Gallas once made the infamous threat to pump balls into his own net unless his transfer request was granted.
It would take Chris Smalling to perform a similar stunt 12 times on Saturday for Young Boys to be denied their second Kenna League championship by Walthamstow Reds.
Coming into the last couple of weeks of the season with an outside chance of winning the double, Reds also lost their Narcozep Cup final with Pikey Scum by three points.
“F*ck b0ll0cking b0ll0cks,” said the Reds manager outside the club’s ground The Old Dog Track.
Both Young Boys and Pikey Scum win their respective silverware for the second successive time.
“If I was coming to the pub tonight to watch the Europa League final I would mainly be gloating,” said the Young Boys manager, silently concerned about Smalling’s form after a second own goal of the campaign last night.
TWO assists from Philippe Coutinho and a Jermaine Defoe goal put Kenna title challengers Walthamstow Reds to within 25 points of leaders Young Boys this week.
The smart money is very much still on Young Boys, who have a superior goal count and the only likely starter next weekend of the two sides: Chris Smalling.
The Walthamstow Reds manager will have likely resigned himself to another league second place considering the club have more chance of silverware elsewhere.
The Narcozep Cup final against Pikey Scum, whose manager along with the Reds boss is another Kenna co-founder and committee member, promises to be a ding dong battle.
The Scum manager is looking for his second cup win, having claimed the Canesten Combi Cup in 2008. Whether Memphis Depay, Emmanuel Adebayor and the rest of the team can outperform Reds like they did by two points last weekend remains to be seen.
Taking time from his official visit to the Balkans, where it turns out the Hairy Fadjeetas manager really has been checking for teeth, the chairman said: “As many players already have one foot on the beach or one eye on next month’s Jean-Alain Boumsong Euros, the only thing we can predict about Sunday is it will unpredictable. A bit like trying to book a taxi in the Skopje.”
THE Kenna chairman has slammed the treasurer after it emerged the fantasy football league was NOT caught up in the Panama Papers tax avoidance scandal.
In a heated tirade behind closed doors, which has become the talk of Kenna HQ, a furious chairman was overheard upbraiding the treasurer for ‘inappropriate use of league funds’.
Rumour has it the chairman’s outburst came after he found the Kenna was not listed among leaked documents from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca.
“Are you meaning to tell me,” the chairman boomed audibly from his office, “out of 11 million leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca there isn’t a single one relating to Kenna League funds?
“Do you think anyone runs football for the good of the game? Just look around you. That ‘squeaky-clean’ new Fifa president’s implicated. Lionel Messi’s implicated. Andy Cole’s implicated. Even Gabriel Heinze’s mother is implicated. Mrs fucking Heinze is fiddling the game better than me!
“I’ll be the laughing stock of the entire international footballing community.”
A secretary who overheard the rant relayed it word for word in the Kenna HQ break room, as colleagues took coffee from mugs printed with ‘The world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league’.
“I’m only running this tin-pot operation as a stepping stone to Zurich,” the secretary had the chairman continuing. “We have little-to-no probity and you’ve actually been responsibly managing league funds every season. What sort of football bean counter are you?”
The treasurer’s timid response was heard to be something about being told to invest in Premium Bonds.
“Told! Told!” spluttered an incandescent chairman. “Everyone knows you tell the public you’re investing in grass roots schemes. You tell the public you’re building a fucking orphanage. But meanwhile you actually hide the money with some linen suit in a tropical paradise to pay for the boats and the girls. That’s how football administration works. Boats! Girls! Linen suits!
“More than 10 years running this godforsaken enterprise, pandering to the whims of that shower we call managers and all I have to show for it is respectable bookkeeping. How am I supposed to look the Fifa ethics committee in the eye at the next Zurich lunch?”
The eavesdropping secretary added the Kenna chairman made her phone The Guardian and the BBC several times a day to check if he was included in the Panama Papers. Both media have now blocked the number.
All at Kenna HQ were so preoccupied with the chairman’s outburst, not one person remarked the Young Boys‘ lead had been cut further to 53 points this week by Walthamstow Reds.
Neither did comment pass that the latter still had a slim chance of achieving a league and cup double following a strong semi final first leg in the Narcozep.
People inside and outside the Kenna League may find that hard to believe.
I run a fantasy football league to all appearances with the sole purpose of organising as many all-day drinking sessions in as many different London pubs as possible.
Outside the Kenna I regularly kneel at the altar of licenced premises. Some would say too regularly.
But for some reason I’ve never happened upon the promised land of a big room full of lots of different beers and likeminded souls. Like an itinerant Fifteenth Century monk visiting churches, monasteries and other holy places throughout Christendom without once thinking to go to the Vatican.
So it was with a little trepidation I went to Craft Beer Rising in the old Truman Brewery last Friday night. Having lived in Brick Lane for almost half the noughties, the venue and area were well known. But what goes on at a beer festival was based on barely-remembered, badly-told, second-hand accounts from friends.
Before I go on I should admit bitter disagrees with me. That’s a pretty big obstacle to going to beer festivals, I suppose. Lager, cider and IPA? Can’t get enough of them, but traditional English ale is a nonstarter.
So as a committed lager drinker, I must assert – ahead of a description of Craft Beer Rising – that for too long the British tippler has been enslaved by the evil of big breweries limiting options to Kronenbourg, Stella Artois, Carlesberg, Fosters and other poor excuses for enduring session pints. To the part-time palette and Paul Calf they may be acceptable, but to me they’re all on a par with Skol.
A few years ago Peroni came along and brightened bars for a while, or at least until a visit to Craven Cottage. After the match I tasted a watered-down version at The Temperance on Fulham Palace Road.
Peroni ruined, Veltins stepped up. This is a pilsner one can drink and drink and drink, but sadly it’s only available in a finite number of boozers I know, none of them convenient to home or work.
Then three years ago I started working in Holborn, and there, beneath the faux Romanesque pillars of Sicilian Avenue, I found The Whippet. And Lagunitas.
In truth, Lagunitas IPA is a little too strong to knock back in large amounts, but Lagunitas Daytime is, and by thunder it’s good. They both are.
For £15 then, a room with Lagunitas IPA, Daytime and 598 other beers made with the same care and consideration for the consumer could only be a good thing.
After work on Friday, and the customary weekly après in The Skinny Dog, two colleagues, the ISIL manager and I went to E1.
Entering the sell-out event we were issued with a glass and ascended some stairs. We entered a huge room full of cheerful people and an overwhelming amount of beer.
Like the barefoot, medieval pilgrim entering St Peter’s Basilica for the first time, I was filled with wondrous awe and reverence, but also the sneaking suspicion such excess should inevitably lead the to the utter corruption of the weaker man’s soul.
Struggling to maintain composure in front of my drinking companions, we approached the first stand. It was only after I had tried and bought a third of a pint of Williams Double Joker IPA I realised it was 8.3 per cent. Well-laid plans had already come unstuck, but it tasted good enough to make the Pope blaspheme.
Next we tried Bru. An Irishman with the most marvellous whiskers explained their mission to replace Guinness as the stout of choice. This was the cleanest tasting beer I’ve tried since visiting the hometown of the Żywiec brewery in the Polish mountains a couple of years ago. I hope Bru can repeat their Nottingham feat in London and break the St James’s Gate monopoly.
The evening passed in a jovial blur, and in between all the beer and the chat there was an observation among the demographic of the event that requires deeper inquiry.
Predominance among the people was not the tubby, ageing, male pedants associated with real ale campaigns, Morris dancing and celebratory pub scenes at the end of Time Team episodes. There were certainly plenty of blokes, but there was also a sizeable minority of women. And they were really enjoying themselves.
In fact, they were enjoying themselves so much that as the night wore on – more drinks, going for cigarettes, throwing a few woefully-executed shapes in the cider hall – it dawned on me this event was an absolute meat market.
As a taken man I was keen to repel any slurred advances, but unfortunately the ISIL manager had his own predictable agenda and I was forced into the role of reluctant wingman. I’m proud to say my marriage vows remain intact.
What also remains secure is my conversion to the way of the beer festival. Even without the Ballet of Chestnuts unfolding before me, this was a superb event and a must for anyone revelling in the Renaissance of lager.
And anyway I have to go back. In five hours we didn’t even get halfway round.
ISLINGTON Sports Islam & Leisure may have saved their season from certain relegation after it was revealed they had been playing most of the season with the wrong goalkeeper.
Negative publicity ISIL attracted last week after the manager appeared to be having yet another car crash campaign shone a light on an error in side’s starting eleven.
The club’s Somali manager spotted Michel Vorm was still in goal despite being released at the October transfer window in favour of Heurelho Gomes.
Reunited with ‘The Octopus’, ISIL’s points tally was backfilled by the boffins in charts and graphs, which raised the team from bottom of the Kenna League to lower mid table.
“Yarrrrrr! From the second I see ye Vorm in me crew I thinks to meself it be a landlubbin’ name, and being a seafarin’ vessel we sure to have ye Octopus! Yarrrrrrrr!” said the Somali, having somehow overlooked – at every single practice session at the club’s Spyglass Hill training facility for the last 18 weeks – there was a Dutchman in goal rather than a Brazilian.
ISIL were not the only side score badly this week. It was a low-scoring affair in the title race too, but Young Boys managed to extend their lead at the top of the table with a brace from new signing Emmanuel Emenike.
In response, chasers Walthamstow Reds scraped together just two points with an Aaron Cresswell start.
Heading into this weekend’s Narcozep Cup quarter final tie, the Young Boys manager will need to be just as convincing to overturn a considerable first leg deficit.
Narcozep Cup – quarter final first leg results (from last week)
Pikey Scum 29 – 10 Uncertain
Young Boys 26 – 54 Walthamstow Reds
Dynamo Charlton 43 – 33 Northern Monkeys
Lokomotiv Leeds 26 – 33 Thieving Magpies
“They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but it’s much better served with 13 points from Robert Huth and a Bramble player in your midfield,” scoffed the Uncertain manager, in a reference to Thai video star Tom Hopper.
The result was Uncertain’s third ‘squeaky bum time’ win of the group stage, with two other victories by just a point – Headless Chickens 18-17 and FC Testiculadew 20-19.
A whooping by Walthamstow Reds in the other game sees Uncertain progress with a -15 goal difference, the lowest of the quarter finalists.
The side will play Pikey Scum in the first round of the Narcozep knockout stage. Legs will be held on 16 February and 1 March.
First leg – 16 February 2016
Pikey Scum v Uncertain
Young Boys v Walthamstow Reds
Dynamo Charlton v Northern Monkeys
Lokomotiv Leeds v Thieving Magpies
Second leg – 1 March 2016
Uncertain v Pikey Scum
Walthamstow Reds v Young Boys
Northern Monkeys v Dynamo Charlton
Thieving Magpies v Lokomotiv Leeds
LEAGUE leaders Young Boys of Vauxhall could be shunted out of the Narcozep Cup at the group stage…by rejects team Real Threat.
Matches on Tuesday and Wednesday this week saw Young Boys fall a whopping 21 points behind in their final round tie with Pikey Scum in group A. Real Threat now sit in the second qualifying spot after a hat-trick from Jermaine Defoe.
The Young Boys manager must conjure stellar performances from the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Riyad Mahrez this weekend, or his chances of a league and cup double will be put to sleep.
Should Real Threat qualify, the team will be disbanded before the window and then made up of a fresh set of rejects afterwards.
In group B, Wayne Rooney goals gave Uncertain a more err… certain chance of qualifying at the expense of two-times cup winners FC Testiculadew. Title hopefuls Walthamstow Reds are also looking strong.
Team Panda’s 23-point lead over Lokomotiv Leeds and better goal difference in group C could prove decisive if Dynamo can’t negotiate what’s turned into a tricky fixture to ISIL.
How the Dynamo manager must be thinking of easy his life would have been if he hadn’t released Defoe in favour of Martial in October. Since the transfer window, the Englishman (53) is now outscoring the Frenchman (44).
Group D revolves around the nail-biting tie between cup holders Cowley Casuals and trophyless Thieving Magpies. Whoever wins will make it into the quarter finals.
Contrary to the information below, Northern Monkeys currently qualify on goal difference over Wandsworth Network Solutions.
