NEWINGTON Reds put in another commanding performance this week to both pull away at the top of the Kenna League and secure a place in the Krakow Cup final.
Gonzalo Higuain, Andrew Robertson, Conor Coady and Luka Milivojevic combined to thwart a resurgent Pikey Scum in their semi final second leg.
Should Reds now defeat Kenna debutants Clotted Cream First in the final, the manager could become the first in the Kenna to defend the Krakow Cup.
“Having been in the Kenna this long, I almost think it would be more an achievement not to win the league,” said the Reds manager, a nod towards all other founding members having lifted the trophy at some point.
The comment provoked a discussion among journalists. Should the Reds manager claim his maiden League title, who will be the most experienced Kenna manager without a winner’s medal?
Yet the Fadges boss will have only competed for eight seasons by the time his side likely miss out on the league next month.
The treasurer is in his ninth season and looks set to add a fourth, third-place finish to his nearly man cabinet, but it turns out the most experienced manager (10 seasons) without any silverware will be the Judean Peoples’ Front boss.
That trend looks set to continue, given the JPF manager’s recent form for showing up at Kenna events not-so-fresh from all nighters with lonely, middle-aged men who might sell their car.
Krakow Cup – semi final second leg results
Turnpike Pirates 16 (24) – (43) 29 Clotted Cream First
Newington Reds 40 (63) – (46) 38 Pikey Scum
Final, 14 May: Clotted Cream First v Newington Reds
“Do you believe we can survive a six-hour Kenna auction drinking lager far stronger than Carling and give a fantastic performance every time? No-one from Wolverhampton can do that,” the Reds manager said.
NEWINGTON Reds went top of the Kenna League this week, but the manager is clearly under pressure.
Asked how his team knocked Hairy Fadjeetas from their perch after 15 game weeks, the Reds manager’s response perplexed fans.
“Yeah – a lot of the other results are based on 6 questions, and one of those was that free text option – which never got marked so a bit misleading…,” read a Newington Reds press release this afternoon.
Journalists attributed the blunder to a manager facing pressure to get ‘results’, answer ‘questions’ and see his name ‘marked’ on a Kenna League title trophy for the first time in 14 years of trying.
Whether the Reds boss suffers a nervous breakdown or not in the next seven weeks, the prowess of Andrew Robertson (183 points), Glenn Murray and Luka Milivojevic (120 points each) could carry the team through.
In hard-hitting administrative news, Kenna HQ has a dilemma in deciding a date for next season’s auction.
Traditionally held on the first weekend of matches (this year 10 August), two veteran managers have already called for this to be brought forward seven days.
In a brewery tap room in Oxford on the weekend the chairman was quoted saying: “Saturday 3 August is tricky for me. I really need to be in West Worcestershire. It’s Tenbury Show and I’m integral.”
Show organisers were quick to contradict that statement.
“We’ve got enough drunken louts stumbling around the cider concessions, tripping over tent pegs and taking photos of Herefordshire bulls’ enormous testicles without him showing up again,” said a Tenbury Wells Agricultural Society spokeswoman.
HAIRY Fadjeetas’ hopes of a Kenna league and cup double were scuppered this week in a tense affair at the Mogadishu Arena.
Turnpike Pirates narrowly won their quarter final tie by one point over two legs to knock out the Fadges.
“I’ve still got Moses in my side. He was supposed to have been released at the last transfer window. If Kenna HQ weren’t such a bunch of bungling buffoons I’d be through,” erroneously asserted the Fadges boss, who has Alfie Mawson in his side.
A drubbing for the chairman’s XI at The Dairy sees Pirates up against debutants Clotted Cream First for a place in the Krakow Cup final.
The other semi-final between Kenna HQ charts and graphs department veterans – the managers of Pikey Scum and Newington Reds – is being called ‘The Application.Speak.Speech(“Rub The Rub all over me”) Derby’.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the league, the Dagger’n’Redbridge manager has rushed to the defence of one of his….er….defence.
The Daggers boss claims a historic tweet by his player Declan Rice has been misunderstood.
“If you look at the context of his tweet at the time ,you’ll see he was probably enjoying a cultured evening in London at the Royal Academy with his partner,” began the Daggers manager, uncertainly reading out a briefing from the club’s snickering media officer.
“It says here the actual wording of the tweet was ‘Taking my girlfriend #UpTheRA’.”
KEPA Arrizabalaga’s insubordination at FC Testiculadew last Sunday has been added to the case for the manager’s declining status as a force in the Kenna.
With his calculated exploitation of loopholes in league rules and his relentless success on the pitch, the FCT boss once struck fear into the hearts of Kenna administrators and managers alike.
Kepa’s recalcitrance and a drop in league position to 17th has reduced the Tactical Brambler’s image from Ming the Merciless to Louis CK.
His fall from notoriety is being likened to that of the Judean Peoples’ Front manager.
The Welshman once regularly challenged for a top four place, dominated auctions with his gavelled repartee and had a face that looked like it could launch a single-handed amphibious assault on a remote island to neutralise dozens of Norwegian teenagers.
Instead of a Ruger Mini-14 rifle, the JPF manager now stares down the barrel of yet another relegation battle and turns up to transfer windows looking like Tin Tin after a nervous breakdown.
One man windowing much better these days is the Newington Reds manager.
The Reds have spent every week since 22 January climbing the table one place at a time to find themselves in second, just nine points from Hairy Fadjeetas.
There were contributions right through the Reds’ XI this week, but in particular the manager will be pleased to see February transfer window signings Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Ryan Babel and Gonzalo Higuain all make an impact.
“The trick is to keep our cool and not let the pressure get to us,” said the Reds manager, lighting his next cigarette from the last and pouring another absinthe.
The caliphate fulfils my discernment in many ways.
Unity in hatred of the capitalist West.
Positive action against the infidels and their false idols.
Better fruit and veg than Roman Road market.
But as an individual of true discernment there was always something missing.
To take part in a truly world-class fantasy football league.
One day I looked down at a severed human head in a bucket and thought: ‘The imperialists are paying dearly for their opulence, but how am I going to be able to bid remotely long enough to sign Paul Pogba at auction with wifi this patchy?’
That’s why I want to return to Britain.
And being discerning there’s only one fantasy football league I would join: the Kenna.
The world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league.
Krakow Cup last sixteen results
First leg 12 February, second leg 26 February
Turnpike Pirates 27 (65) – (62) 33 Test Team please ignore
After 15 years of visiting London pubs as a local, I now stand on the brink of visiting them as a tourist.
Nevertheless, living in Oxford will be no barrier to coming to the Kenna.
I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on my first experience of football and pubs as a Londoner
I got a bar job in the Prince of Wales in Brixton during Euro 2004.
Euro 2004 of course is well known for two things:
It was the last time Wayne Rooney played well for England.
And it was the last major tournament not to have a leading London pub-based fantasy football auction attached to it.
Anyway, back in the Prince of Wales, closing up after England’s exit to Portugal I found a man smoking crack in the gents.
I was quite shocked. I’d come from the country. I’d never seen anyone doing crack before. Sleeping with their cousins maybe…
As I kicked him out I thought: ‘I’m sure London has very few pubs where people do drugs in the toilets.’
The Kenna was founded a year later.
It was August 2005. A summer of unprecedented tumult.
The London Bombings. England winning the Ashes after 17 years. Michael Owen going to Newcastle for £17m.
And out of that defiance, triumph and disappointment the Kenna was born.
The rest is history.
Now there have been many mistakes over the years. But mistakes are there form which to learn.
I’d like to share a three lessons I’ve learned:
If your single tactic is to buy Sergio Aguero no matter the price, don’t overspend by paying £19m for Fabio Borini
If you want to pass a doping test, don’t put the vice chairman in charge of the auction.
On a cold winter’s evening such as this never cross the channel in a Piper-Malibu aircraft. And if you do plan to make a late-night channel crossing in a private aircraft, talk to Sol Campbell.
But overall, when I look back at London and the Kenna, I can’t but feel the world is a lot more complicated than it was for those eight co-founders in the Old Bank of England all those years ago.
We have to legislate for tactical Brambling. We have to legislate for absenteeism. We run auctions over Periscope where Silver gets racially abused for being from Pakistan.
Sometimes I can’t help but look back with nostalgia on those days of innocence.
Euro 2004. Rooney playing with youthful abandon. Someone smoking crack a pub toilet.
THE Dulwich Red Sox manager is not eligible for any Kenna prize money because he has failed to pay a single penny of subs since 2011, according to league authorities.
Moving to an unprecedented second place in the table this week, the DRS manager is enjoying his best ever season in the Kenna with strong contributions from Mo Salah (150 points), Raul Jiminez (111) and Richarlison (97), but it could all be for nothing.
‘We’re sending a strong message to managers they must pay their subs,’ read
a statement from Kenna HQ.
‘The Dulwich Red Sox manager has continually flouted requests to pay any monies whatsoever to the league and currently owes £100. He just turns up at auctions and talks b0ll0cks.’
The parsimonious DRS manager claims he has a longstanding appeal with the Kenna over a Daniel-Sturridge-first-to-score-sweepstake misunderstanding in August 2013.
Interviewed backstage at a badly-organised live music event, the DRS manager
says he still refuses to cover his subs until the bet is honoured.
‘I get a sniff of league success and now I hear the Kenna isn’t going to pay
out. At first it left me with a numb feeling and now I just have so much emotion
rushing around inside me I’ll be up all night.’
A habitual absentee from transfer windows, the DRS manager faces a big
decision this Friday if he wants to stay in with a chance of at least
maintaining his league position.
Key player Aaron Ramsey is heading to Germany, Gary Cahill’s scored three
points all season and Claudio Bravo is yet to appear. Nearly £30m is in the Dulwich
Red Sox coffers.
Like the rest of the league, the DRS manager has until 9am on Friday to submit
his released players to Kenna HQ before the window opens that night at 7pm in
the Hoop & Grapes.
Krakow Cup – knock out stage fixtures
Last 16 – first leg: 12 February, second leg: 26 February
KENNA League managers have expressed their growing concern over the disappearance of Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala.
The Piper Malibu light aircraft carrying the striker vanished over the English Channel on Monday night.
The Lokomotiv Leeds manager was first to comment from his rolled-down car window outside the club’s Bellend Road stadium.
‘I’m worried sick for the lad. He was scoring loads of goals in France and had promise coming to England.
‘Alvaro Morata’s been a flop for Lokomotiv this season and I was hoping to be in with a chance of signing Sala at next Friday’s transfer window.’
The Pikey Scum manager echoed those concerns: ‘Devastated. What more can you say? Harry Kane’s injured until March and if I’m to have any chance of challenging for the league I’ll need a decent replacement at a decent price. This shocking news can only drive up bidding values.’
The Sporting Lesbian manager took a more Cumbrian approach to expressing his concerns over the missing Sala.
‘I paid £23m for Arnautovic and now he’s buggering off to China. I’ve only got £7m in the bank and the best strikers out there are Fernando Llorente, Jurgen Locadia and Isaac Success.
‘I’m going to need a bloody miracle.’
Managers have until 9am on Friday 1 February to submit their players to be released to Kenna HQ.
The season’s second transfer window will open at 7pm that night in the Hoop & Grapes, Farringdon Road.
Krakow Cup results – final group game and standings
Krakow Cup – third place group standings (top four qualify)
