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Bala 29 – 14 Dark Lord
Dynamo 39 – 36 Reds
Scum 27 – 44 Pies
Casuals 34 – 18 Kuntz
Chairman 36 – 32 Cream
TT 13 – 18 Fadges
PP 26 – 21 TNS
Barry 35 – 47 Lokomotiv
Full scores available in The Rub.
FOUR football managers from Wolverhampton have filed a class action lawsuit against the Kenna League for alleged discrimination at last week’s transfer window.
Running the window auction on video conferencing for the first time in the history of the Kenna, the chairman kept mistaking which Black Country manager was bidding for players because ‘they all sound the same to me’.
‘Usually we’re in the pub and I can tell who’s who because of where they’re sitting and where the low sort-of-growly noise is coming from. Last Friday it was a wall of tiles on the screen,’ said the chairman this week.
The Wulfrunian managers were outraged, and have not accepted the chairman’s explanation, instead choosing to pursue legal action.
The Wolverhampton-born manager of Walthamstow Reds detailed exactly why they were taking this issue so seriously: ‘Yam yam yam. Yam yam yam. Yam yam just laayzy stereotoiping.
‘Yam yam yam. Yam yam yam. Yam yam hyowman roights infringement.’
The Thieving Magpies manager, another plaintiff, was clearly furious: ‘Yam yam yam. Yam yam yam. Yam yam don’t all sound the soime. It’s a disgroice.’
The Cowley Casuals boss told the Express and Star: ‘Yam yam yam. Yam yam yam. Yam yam soigned Benrahma not Royan Bertrand.’
The fourth Black Country manager to file the class action suit, the Bunch of Kuntz gaffer, is in his debut season in the Kenna. He added a touch of metaphor to his comment on the situation: ‘Yam yam yam. Yam yam yam. Yam yam Ebangks-Blaayke in Roileys on Broad Street.’
Group A – Bala Rinas, The Dark Lord, Dynamo Charlton, Reds, Vice chairman
Group B – Pikey Scum, Pies, Casuals, Bunch of Kuntz, Daggers
Group C – Chairman’s XI, Clotted Cream, Test Team, Fadges, The Pirate
Group D – Piss Poor, TNS, Barry Town, Lokomotiv, Breivik
This weekend
Bala v Dark Lord
Dynamo v Reds
Scum v Pies
Casuals v Kuntz
Chairman v Cream
TT v Fadges
PP v TNS
Barry v Lokomotiv
Full scores available from The Rub.
THE Kenna League’s first fully remote transfer window starts tomorrow at 6pm.
This is the only window of the season – the Kenna usually has two – and presents the sole chance for managers to set up their teams for the campaign finale.
Here are five things Kenna managers will have a keen eye on tomorrow.
The Bala Rinas manager has come a long way since signing Carlos Edwards in the upstairs bar of the Black Horse on Rathbone Place 14 years ago.
Not only did he become league treasurer, this season he’s flying at the top of the table, but his previous best is three third place finishes between 2014 and 2016, and he is unaccustomed to entering a transfer window at this altitude.
Will his fledging membership of the mile high club come to a premature end even before the stewardess opens the flaps on her drinks trolley?
Bala Rinas released ballast Saed Kolasinac and Oliver Norwood earlier this week, and Trent Alexander-Arnold ends his loan spell.
The manager needs to sign a midfielder and two defenders, a big ask with just £2.5m in the bank.
Tomas Soucek (87 points), Kurt Zouma (80), Jan Bednarek (78), and Thiago Silva (71) will be top of the Bala Rinas’ shopping list, but the manager could be in for a long evening.
Chiselled from marble and deadlier from close range than a Covid-contaminated queue outside Greggs, Cavani is a world-class striker.
Despite only making seven starts in 20 game weeks, the neo-classical goal threat has already racked up 56 points and is now a regular starter.
Rodrigo, McGoldrick, Welbeck and Benteke are the highest-scoring alternatives from the available forwards. The Uruguayan will come at a premium.
The Test Team (please ignore) manager – the window’s richest club with £34.5m at his disposal – may decide to wildcard Chris Wood to make way.
The other most affluent managers are all Bramble tied too. Could we see the likes of Victor Lindelof, Ivan Cavaleiro, David De Gea, or Obi Wan-Bissaka released on wildcards?
August 2018. That’s the last time Jesse Lingard was signed by a Kenna manager.
Since then his stock as a midfielder has fallen almost as low as Adam Johnson’s.
But then he moved south this week and scored two goals in one game.
Could he be a replacement for Mason Greenwood at Test Team (please ignore)? Or Dele Alli at Barry Town? Or Bill Cosby at Walthamstow Reds?
No stranger to controversy or a title challenge, the FC Testiculadew manager is set for another window of smoke and mirrors to cut the gap on league leaders Bala Rinas.
Releasing only his loan player Matheus Pereira, foremost in his thoughts will be Ross Barkley or Pascal Gross to fill the gap in midfield.
It’s hard to predict where FCT can improve a team of steady points accumulators, but every Kenna manager knows (and every Kenna administrator dreads) ‘the Tactical Brambler‘ will spend the next 24 hours deep in scheme.
Second from bottom in the league, the Craft Beer Wankers boss is the lowest-ranked manager not to have his team recruited completely by autofill.
Having released Glenn Murray, Felipe Anderson and Muswell Hill murderer Dennis Nilsen, the Pirate has just £1.5m to sign three players.
The question in every manager’s mind is: even knowing he can only spend point five on each player, will the Pirate drink enough of his home brew to Bramble on the likes of Cavani or Zouma? Or even buy a crocked Raul Jiminez?
Like a 100-year-old Second World War veteran admitted to hospital with Coronavirus, you know the writing’s on the wall.
| Manager | Loan player | Releases | Bramble ties | War chest (£m) |
| Paul | Greenwood | Egan, Dubravka | 34.5 | |
| Mackay | – | Alli, VVD, Batshit | 27 | |
| Jack | – | Jack O’Connell, Gary Cahill | 25 | |
| Dudley | D Sanchez, Basham, Neves, Bill Cosby, Martinelli | 18.5 | ||
| Will | McBurnie | Otamendi | 17 | |
| Chairman | – | Ryan, J Rod | 17 | |
| Alex | Haller | Diangana | 15 | |
| Aiden | Rodrigo Leeds | Donny VDB | 15 | |
| Stu | Barkley | Bryan, Ake, Barnes, Jiminez | Barkley, Grealish | 14 |
| Breivik | Bale | Ozil | 14 | |
| Vice chairman | Robson-Kanu | 14 | ||
| Silver | Thiago | Dean Henderson, Mustafi, Austin, Dwight Gayle | 14 | |
| Rob | 14 | |||
| Sadler | Joelinton | Gomez, Long, Havertz, Vinagre, Mitrovic, Rice | 13 | |
| Oli | Gross | Caballero, Cyrus Christie | 9.5 | |
| Dark Lord | Pereira West Brom | 7 | ||
| John Norris | Fred | 7 | ||
| Phil | – | Vertonghen, Trezeguet | 3 | |
| Lewis | Trent | Norwood, Kolasinac | 2.5 | |
| Abdi | – | Glenn Murray, Denis Nilsen, Felipe Anderson | 1.5 |
Full scores available from The Rub.
Kenna transfer deadline 12pm Tuesday 2 February.
THERE was a knock on the door. The chairman bade enter from his desk.
A slim Colombian sidled in and said: ‘Gavnor, you want see me?’
‘James, good to see you,’ said the chairman expansively, putting an ‘h’ sound on the ‘J’ like he’d heard the intellectuals do making wry observations on the Football Snidely podcast.
The chairman continued: ‘Fantastic performance this week, James. It’s great to have you back from injury, but I didn’t ask to see you.’
The midfielder held up a note torn from a noticeboard. In marker pen it read ‘J Rod, my office now!’
The chairman smiled: ‘That wasn’t meant for you, James. You’re doing just fine. Would you go and tell Jay Rodriguez to come to my office?’
The Colombian nodded and left, clearly relieved. The chairman stood, went to the cocktail cabinet, and mixed his second pink gin of the morning.
He took a sip and mildly rebuked himself for signing two J Rods at the Kenna auction. The £13m for the South American was almost immediately repaid after a couple of matches. The £0.5m for the English striker was another story.
A smart rap at the door snapped him out of his reverie. ‘Enter.’
A man bun walked into the room, and the chairman motioned it to take a seat. The two men were silent for a few moments before the chairman moved over to his desk and stood looking at his striker.
‘Can you give me a good reason to let you go ahead of Tuesday’s transfer deadline?’
Jay Rodriguez stared back unmoved.
‘It’s just, I was all ready to let you go,’ continued the chairman. ‘I only paid point five for you at the end of the auction because someone had already bought Ashley Barnes, and until this week you’ve given me just that in performances: point five.’
The words hung in the air, but the player couldn’t have looked more relaxed. The chairman thought to himself ‘he’s been on the end of this before. At Burqini Pool Party in 2017/18. At Judean Peoples’ Front in 2015/16. At Headless Chickens the season before that. And twice again at JPF the season previous and the one before that. None of those teams won the title. The man’s a curse and he bloody knows it!’
He tried a different tack: ‘Jay, I’d like to share with you how happy I am you scored twice and got an assist on the weekend. I would really like to see more of that from you, but you’ve put me…you’ve put your teammates in a very difficult situation.
‘You see, next Friday I want to sign…,’ the chairman spent the next 10 minutes laying out his plans for the Kenna transfer window. The players he coveted. The players he thought had potential. The players he dismissed as ‘John Jensens and Stefan Schwarzes’.
All the while Jay Rodriguez barley moved a muscle, which the chairman guessed was just in case he tweaked something.
‘Now, Jay,’ the monologue was drawing to a close. ‘I’m going to keep you on. I want you to finish the season with us. We’re eighth in the league and if things go well next Friday we’ll be in a position to make a decent fist of it.
‘But I need you to stay fit and keep getting games. If I keep you on I’m going to look stupid in front of the rest of the league, in front of the rest of my league, if your form and fitness drift. Do you hear me?’
The striker stood and left the room without saying a word.
‘Damn that man!’ growled the chairman to the empty room as he made a fresh assault on the Angostura Bitters. ‘Damn him! He knows I haven’t got the money to let him go and sign….’
There was a crash like the sound of a balloon bursting followed by the muffled tinkling of glass.
‘Damn you, J Rod!’
He knelt down to begin picking up shards of glass, and then stopped.
‘Why on earth did the JPF manager sign you three times?’
Full scores available from The Rub.
THE political world was rocked this week as dissenting fantasy football managers stormed Kenna HQ in protest at the chairman.
The managers of Judean Peoples’ Front, Dagger’n’Redbridge, Lokomotiv Leeds, and Young Boys overwhelmed security forces to occupy Kenna HQ, before desecrating the chairman’s cocktail cabinet, smashing up the Titus Bramble Lounge (pictured), and taking recreational drugs in the executive toilet.
The attack is thought to have been sparked by the perceived unfair treatment of the quartet of managers who failed to turn up to the September auction, and had their teams completed by autofill once all the best players had been sold.
Mobile phone footage of the insurrectionists shows them shouting slogans ‘free the absentees’ and ‘hell no autofill’.
Once the alcohol had run dry, the rebels got bored and left, telling TV news crews outside they would continue to take revenge at the transfer window two weeks on Friday.
The chairman, who was away from Kenna HQ in self isolation, played down security fears, putting the sedition down to jealousy.
‘Let’s not forget, these managers all failed to attend the auction, so if they end up with the likes of Mesut Ozil and Odion Ighalo they’ve only got themselves to blame.
‘They may have occupied Kenna HQ for a couple of hours, but they’ll be occupying four of the last five places in the table for the rest of the season.
‘Of course, the other place will be occupied by the Craft Beer Wankers manager who did attend the auction, but performed so badly he’s got Glenn Murray and north London serial killer Dennis Nilsen up front.’
Full scores available from The Rub.
THE Kenna League chairman has vowed to crack down on managers who refuse to pay their subs after receiving ‘the lowest form of insult’ in the post.
Holding up a piece of chocolate money and a losing scratch card, the chairman said time is now up for managers failing to pay monies owed to the world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league.
The Judean Peoples’ Front manager, who is more than two years behind in payments, is reported to have sent the items to Kenna HQ after being humiliated before Christmas when he was snapped in the pub with fellow debtor the Dulwich Red Sox manager.
‘This really is the lowest form of insult. I’d rather receive death threats than this guff. It’s the final straw,’ said the chairman.
Rumours at Kenna HQ are subs dodgers will receive any prize money payouts relative to how much they’ve paid in, which sounds a pecuniary alarm bell to debtors.
Fat Ladies‘ third place finish in 2019 and Pikey Scum‘s August 2019 Manager of the Month prize, and their fantastic form this season, will see the managers of both clubs most out of pocket unless they contact the treasurer immediately.
The Pirate and JPF manager are even further behind in their payments, but so unlikely to win anything in the Kenna their local health authorities sent them letters to say they’re ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’.
The season’s only transfer window will take place remotely on Friday 5 February, it was announced today.
Managers must release unwanted players by the 12pm deadline on Tuesday 2 February.
The Cowley Casuals manager will have to decide (but probably not for long) on ditching either Ross Barkley or Jack Grealish, who are both Bramble tied.
Eight loan players will also be made available for the window:
Trent A-A (42 points) – Bala Rinas, 1st in the league
Sebastian Haller (41) – Dynamo Charlton, 5th
Joelinton (35) – Bunch of Kuntz, 13th
Oliver McBurnie (28) – Thame Network Solutions, 6th
Luke Shaw (23) – Cowley Casuals, 8th
Fred (19) – Piss Poor, 3rd
Gareth Bale (10) – Judean Peoples’ Front, 20th
Thiago (5) – Lokomotiv Leeds, 17th
Auction non-attendees the vice chairman and the Dagger’n’Redbridge manager are yet to discover the identity of their loan players.
A live head-to-head challenge between the two managers just before the transfer window begins has been tabled. The winner will decide the loser’s loan player.
Dennis Praet (33 points, vice chairman) and Bobby De Cordova-Reid (44 points, Daggers) are front runners.
This season’s cup competition will see four groups of five in a seeded draw at the window, with the top two teams from each advancing straight into a quarter-final knockout stage.
| Week | Scores published | Notes | Transfer window | Cup |
| 16 | 12 January | |||
| 17 | 19 January | |||
| 18 | 26 January | Double GW | ||
| 19 | 2 February | Friday 5 February | Draw | |
| 20 | 9 February | |||
| 21 | 16 February | Group fixture 1 | ||
| 22 | 23 February | Group fixture 2 | ||
| 23 | 2 March | Group fixture 3 | ||
| 24 | 9 March | Group fixture 4 | ||
| 25 | 16 March | Group fixture 5 | ||
| 26 | 23 March | |||
| Internationals | ||||
| 27 | 6 April | |||
| 28 | 13 April | QF first leg | ||
| 29 | 20 April | QF second leg | ||
| 30 | 27 April | |||
| 31 | 4 May | SF first leg | ||
| 32 | 11 May | SF second leg | ||
| 33 | 18 May | 15 May – FA Cup Final | ||
| 34 | 25 May | Final |
NEARLY £500 of unpaid Kenna subs have been photographed at large walking a tightrope of pandemic restrictions in a London pub.
The grainy image emerged on Tuesday evening and featured the Judean Peoples’ Front manager and former Dulwich Red Sox manager taunting the league chairman from a table of Czech lager.
The Red Sox manager is reported to still be defending his debt with a seven-year-old story of a botched ‘first goal of the season’ sweepstake excuse involving Daniel Sturridge.
The JPF manager is said to be unrepentant and even failed to acknowledge a demand for payment disguised as a ‘Congratulations’ card sent by Kenna HQ on the birth of his second child earlier this year.
The Kenna ethics committee are particularly keen to speak to the vice chairman, who appears in the image with the two debtors, and crucially was delegated to organise a first goal of the season sweepstake seven years ago.
Upstanding Kenna managers will be pleased to note both Judean Peoples’ Front and the vice chairman’s side Young Boys are languishing at and near the foot of the table respectively.
French authorities are still keen to speak to the vice chairman over a string of suspected sex offences in the Midi Pyrenees region last month dubbed ‘Le Young Boys’ by local media.
THE Kenna League treasurer spent his fifth week running at the top of the table with a host of players performing strongly.
Jamie Vardy (57 points), Che Adams (46), Jarrod Bowen (43), Sir Marcus (39), and Hugo Lloris (37) have raced out the traps for a manager who’s highest Kenna finish is third in nine seasons of trying.
The Bala manager’s most expensive auction signing Trent Alexander-Arnold (£30m) has returned the fewest points (14) with the exception Saed Kolasinac, whose principle role in the team is as a car jacking deterrent.
‘It’s 10 weeks into the season and all the players and club staff are safe and well, so we can’t fault Saed’s commitment,’ said the treasurer.
Kenna debutants Bunch of Kuntz jumped into the top half of the table after a hat-trick from Riyad Mahrez and another penalty from Bruno Fernandes, his seventh goal of the campaign.
The Bunch of Kuntz manager will be looking forward to the February transfer window to patch up an incredibly shaky defence which includes Kevin Long (8 points), Ruben Vinagre (6) and Joe Gomez (2).
The highest performing unsigned defender Kurt Zouma will be a target, but the Kuntz manager will face stiff competition from the Pirate (Rudiger, 7 points) and Dynamo Charlton (Tryin’ to catch me ridin’ dirty, 2).
Full scores available from The Rub.
FRENCH police say they are tightening the net on a suspected sex offender at large in the south of the country.
Numerous reports have been made during the pandemic lockdown of a man hiding in wooded areas throughout the Midi-Pyrenees region waiting to pounce on teenagers who show any football talent.
French media have dubbed him ‘Le Young Boys’.
‘We’re very keen to speak to anyone who may know the whereabouts of this man. He’s around 40 years of age, and of medium height and build. He may identify himself as a Welshman or a Belgian, but strangely has no working knowledge of the Welsh, Flemish or French languages,’ said a Gendarmerie National spokesman.
‘Le Young Boys’ is said to approach targets with promises of a lucrative contract to play football in England.
One victim, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘He jumped out of a tree and said I’d be part of the richest league in the world. He insisted we toast the contract with a drink, which he provided.
‘I woke several days later in south London, locked in a cellar with Kostas Tsimikas and made to spend 15 hours a day making replica Marc Wilmots Belgium shirts from the 2002 World Cup.
‘I managed to escape but it was touch and go. I couldn’t find any way to leave the area apart from the number 88 bus which took forever. Later I was told ‘Le Young Boys’ had a place in Wandsworth.’
Authorities believe ‘Le Young Boys‘ may be part of a obscure fantasy football league formed in London, and struggling this season near the relegation zone.
[insert withering takedown of modern life using Ollie Watkins as a metaphor here]
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