YOU could almost pity the fantasy football managers absent from the Kenna auction who left their teams to be picked by autofill.
There are many reasons those regular attendees were unable to take part in the live event, which was delayed a month by sentient 5G masts.
Among the excuses there was the Lokomotiv Leeds manager’s house move, whatever the vice chairman was doing travelling slowly east through Turkey, and a child’s birthday for which the JPF manager has been summoned to Kenna HQ for a ‘priorities’ meeting.
So you could almost feel sorry for the four managers who couldn’t even dial in for a few minutes to stop all their whole starting XI get hatecrimed by the autofill. Almost. But there are two reasons why there is no pity.
First, given the infamous bureaucracy of the world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league the autofill didn’t happen for a week or so after the auction proper.
Which meant post-auction imports Thiago and Gareth Bale were part of the pick, so two of the four absent managers have world-class talent in their ranks alongside the usual mix of squad players, tweaked groins and Ahmed El Mohamady.
After some jostling on the Kenna Whatsapp group, the powers that be declared Thiago and Bale ‘on loan’, which means they’ll be released at the February transfer with only £0.5m going to their respective managers. Like unfortunate inhabitants of Epstein Island, those in charge want the talent to be part of the action, but also want them to make themselves available to Prince Andrew when the time comes.
Overall, though, those two managers who couldn’t be bothered to attend have done well. When the loan solution was first proposed, the chairman had to put down a minor insurrection from a poor man’s Tony Greig threatening to form a breakaway league. Oddly enough, now poor man’s Tony Greig is 38 points clear at the top of the table not another peep has been heard from him at Kenna HQ.
The remaining two sides have no stand out players to make loanees. Alex Iwobi? Bobby De Cordova-Reid? Dwight Gayle? Kepa? Punishment enough, one might assume.
But the league has devised an even more tortuous, slow-burn forfeit to choose their loan players. Just ahead of the much-feted February transfer window the remaining two managers will be subjected to the Wheel of Misfortune.
All eleven players from each team will be entered into an online wheel spin to determine the loan player. By that point a Dennis Praet or a Jorginho could be a valuable asset, and auction attendees can bathe in the schadenfreude of seeing them made available at the window.
You could almost feel sorry for those two managers. But then you remember the second reason why not. The fuss they tried make.
If you don’t turn up to the auction and then try to influence decisions about your autofilled team… well, it’s like standing up a third date and then wondering why the following Sunday with a severe case of Kežman’s Nostril they won’t respond to your 4am booty call.
EVEN the world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league is not beyond the reach of a global pandemic.
Usually, 20 managers gathering in a boozer to run an auction is enough to socially distance them from anyone who isn’t a ranting nutcase, a drunk dwarf or landlord with a ringing till.
Two weeks ago the league was forced to into the remote world of video conferencing.
But Kenna managers are a worldly bunch, and far from wholly unfamiliar with shutting themselves away in a dark room to stare at people performing strange acts online for hours on end.
The weirdest act of the auction came early in the day. Six managers who had gathered outside one household – which came to be known as ‘the garden’ – witnessed first hand one of the most unprovoked and suicidal acts of Brambling the league has seen for many a year (excluding the Pirate).
Having picked up midfielder Willian at a snip in opening game of chance The Wheel of Misfortune, the Walthamstow Reds manager then bid for and bought fellow Gooner Gabriel Martinelli, triggering the Titus Bramble forfeit for buying two players from the same club.
Once the schadenfreude has subsided and Willian replaced by Bill Cosby, the Reds manager appeared unable to account for his actions.
He said he thought he’d bought goalkeeper Emilio Martinelli, another Gooner who would have also lost him Willian.
“It was remarkable,” said the chairman. “There I was auctioning Martinez to a man who had just bought Willian. All through the bidding the Reds manager appeared confused, like he couldn’t stop himself from making this Kepa.”
Rumours immediately began circulating the Reds manager’s bulk order of six per cent Buxton beers may have been behind his peculiar error.
In other news, the Pirate now has Muswell Hill murderer Dennis Neilsen in attack after spinning The Wheel of Misfortune in a game of ‘North London’s finest’.
The two players the Somali missed out on – Aubameyang and Kane – ended up going to defending cup holders Clotted Cream First for £41m and £37m respectively.
After picking up Kyle Walker for £9m, the Cream boss rung off ‘the phones’ and left his side to autofill.
“People have tried to win the Kenna with two expensive strikers and dross. For all the good it’s done them they may as well have shoved it up their nose,” said a chalkstripe from the Kenna speculations department before entering a pub toilet.
As the sun beat down, the trio faced each other. Sweat trickling down faces. Fingers twitching over holsters. Ennio Morricone’s score ratcheting up the tension. The stage set for an epic showdown.
But in the end Clint Eastwood’s gun goes off too soon and takes out his big toe, Eli Wallach suffers a coronary and Lee Van Cleef has only to stare intently over his moustache as Kevin De Bruyne and Pierre-Emeric Aubameyang ram it home against lacklustre opposition.
For the Dynamo Charlton manager has become the 11th gun to win the Kenna title.
The loan player system introduced this season played right into the Dynamo manager’s parsimonious hands.
Infamously frugal at auction, the Dynamo boss walked out of The Albion onto Ludgate Circus in August with £46.5m left in the bank.
In previous seasons, his tightfisted approach was enough to sign sparse talent available at each transfer window, but not enough to win with them.
With loan players flooding transfer windows this season it was easy pickings.
Disappointed not to be claiming a record third title, the chairman had hoped Willian starting at Wembley would be enough to earn him second place. The Brazilian started and finished the game in the stands. And then changed London postcode.
Test Team (please ignore) prevailed in the runners up spot, but the polite request in the name to overlook the side’s efforts means the manager’s £70 prize pot is donated to the Kenna Foundation.
Clotted Cream First became the first side to retain the cup, albeit in a bastardised pandemic version.
Barry Town scooped the Wenger Trophy, Jamie Vardy, Granit Xhaka and George Baldock springing to life for project restart.
One manager you’d expect to turn the suffering and death of millions of people to his advantage, noticeably failed to do so. The Dark Lord‘s form was flying between Christmas and March, thanks to Teemu Pukki, Richarlison and Patrick Van Aanholt, but the team were miserable this summer.
Only one club were worse – Turnpike Pirates – and they finished bottom of the league, relegated for the third time in their history. It still won’t be the last time someone signs Michy Batshuayi.
Kenna managers now have just 26 days to prepare for next season’s auction, which is will be run remotely for the first time.
Prize money
Dynamo Charlton – £190 (Champions: £150, MOTM x4: £40)
Clotted Cream First – £75 (Cup winner)
Test Team (please ignore) – £70 (Runner up: £50, MOTM x2: £20)
