Joined :-)

With five hours to spare, the new league has reached its full quota of 16 FPL teams. Not bad at all seeing as it was only created yesterday!

A massive thank you to all who responded so quickly, and commiserations once again to anyone who may have missed out for a second time. Your support is much appreciated.

Best wishes to all for the season ahead!

COYP!

Cheers Dan , I think I'm in . My team has a northern influence name ( surname etc ) & anyone old enough to remember that milk advert ,who are they...? Exacleeeeee but I'm palace 100 o/o

Last chance to join! League to be locked at 18:00 BST.

Code: b6x2ms

[Link]

Head-to-head league with three knockout rounds.

Any Palace fans welcome.

With the Holmesdaleship II quarter-finals being played out last week in Gameweek 36, the semi-finalists have now been confirmed for Gameweek 37.

The semi-final matches are:

The deadline for Gameweek 37 is Sunday, 15 May at 10:30 BST.

Commiserations to Glazier, Holmesdale Upper, King of the Palace and Take U2 a Guéhi Bar, whose quests for cup glory have now come to an end. You all did extremely well to finish in the top eight and qualify for the knockout stage, performing consistently well throughout the season. Well done, and thank you for playing!

Edited by Dan Theolmesdaleroad (16 May 2024 7.31pm)

We were treated to a double helping of FPL excitement this year, as both the Holmesdaleship and new-format alternative Holmesdaleship II played out to their dramatic conclusion on the final day of the 2021/22 season.

Holmesdaleship

While the Premier League turned out to be a two-horse race for much of the season, the Holmesdaleship was keenly contested throughout by more than several teams, with three in contention for the top spot as the campaign drew to a close.

The early running was made by CPFC:2021, My Team, Palace Cowboys and The Monkeys, whose 100% records remained intact by the season’s first international break several weeks in. The Monkeys then asserted themselves by maintaining a lead over the rest until GW10, when Palace Cowboys took over the top spot and remained there for a staggering 13 weeks. Quite an achievement as the lead can change hands more frequently in the earlier part of the season.

Guehi mon then put together a fine run of results to overtake Palace Cowboys with The Monkeys close behind. Four more teams - cpfc reserves, Odsonne Favourites, Team of the 80’s and Witness the Pitness - remained in close contention with 14 wins, just a couple of wins away from first place.

The latter part of the season continued to be dominated by Guehi mon, with The Monkeys, Team of the 80’s and Palace Cowboys in close attendance. Odsonne Favourites, cpfc reserves and Witness the Pitness were joined by Pride Of SouthLondon in maintaining a strong challenge.

GW35 saw a clash of the titans as The Monkeys took on the leaders, Guehi mon. With Guehi mon emerging victorious with a 44-41 win, and Palace Cowboys dropping crucial points in a shock 64-62 defeat to 1861 Football Club, it was looking like a defining moment in the season. After table-topping Guehi mon suffered a spectacular 124-105 defeat at the hands of My Team the following week though, and an 88-74 loss to WhereYouPlayWilf’ollow a week later, the title race was by no means over.

Heading into the final round of matches in GW38, there were three teams in title contention. With Team of the 80’s needing an unlikely 192 Gameweek point swing though, it was left to table-topping Guehi mon to fight it out with The Monkeys, who were just a point behind in second place.

In the end, it was left to Spurs’ Heung-min Son to have the final say. Being selected as captain for both The Monkeys in their match against Glad All Over and cpfc reserves against Guehi mon, the South Korean delivered a stunning 24 points for both teams as they won 75-60 and 68-53 respectively. The results meant that The Monkeys had pipped Guehi mon, who had held on to first place since nearly the turn of the year, to the title on the very last day.

A superb display from The Monkeys, who peaked at just the right moment and timed their comeback to perfection, finishing with a record of 27 wins and 11 defeats to score 81 points with 2366 Gameweek points. Very well done indeed!

There were excellent performances from many in the league this term too, with the top 10 all reaching the 60 point mark with 20 wins or more. Also, 16 out of 20 teams exceeded the 2000 Gameweek point plateau, three more than last year, including all those mentioned above plus Nine at the Back, Pacers and Glazier. Four teams scored 2100-2199 Gameweek points, two 2200-2299, four 2300-2399, three 2400-2499 and two, Palace Cowboys (2507) and cpfc reserves (2515), over 2500. Five teams beat the impressive record of 2410 set by FFS Roy! last season, with cpfc reserves setting a new high for the Holmesdaleship with an outstanding 2515 (115 of which were scored in GW1 alone without even using any chips!). Brilliant!

Speaking of records, the 131 Gameweek points scored by Fodder last term was beaten no fewer than 10 times this season, with Pride Of SouthLondon recording the highest score of all with an incredible 163 in GW26 – and that was with a 12 point hit! Well done not just for triple-captaining Mo Salah, or picking Sadio Mané, or putting Nick Pope in goal, but most of all for selecting Wout Weghorst for the week when he actually played well. Excellent work!

Another fantastic total was scored by 1861 Football Club in GW36, with 143 Gameweek points. Unfortunately for 1861 Football Club though, it was in the match against Glad All Over, who scored 144 that week! Head-to-head FPL can be so cruel, but credit to both teams for their outstanding scores, combining for an amazing 287 points.

There was another fine selection of team names this year as ever. Among my personal favourites were Guehi mon, My Team, Odsonne Favourites, Take It Eze, Witness the Pitness and a perennial favourite of mine, WhereYouPlayWilf’ollow. I think the one I liked best this time though was Palace Cowboys. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself!

Holmesdaleship II

For the first time, an alternative head-to-head FPL game was set up with no limit on numbers and three cup rounds involving the top eight teams in the final few weeks of the season. With a limit of only 20 in the Holmesdaleship, it provided an opportunity for those who had missed out on taking part to participate, along with anyone else who wanted to give it a go. It was great to see 22 teams take up the challenge.

By GW38 though, 20 of those teams had been knocked out, leaving only two to contest the final.

Holmesdaleship II 2021/22 final:

The result could not have been closer. With only Tyrick Mitchell, Joao Cancelo and Phil Foden selected in both teams, the lineups were much more different than the result might have suggested. Both teams put up respectable scores, with Glad All Over just edging out Peter Ds Ultras by a single Gameweek point. An impressive achievement by Glad All Over to win the final despite being the eighth placed team heading into the knockout phase.

Of the 22 who took part, seven topped the 2000 Gameweek point mark within the 35 Gameweeks prior to the knockout phase. Well done then to Bearded Wonders, Glad All Over, Glad When Its Over, Holmesdale Upper, King of the Palace, Odsonne Favourites and Take U2 a Guehi Bar for your consistently solid scoring throughout, and to Glazier and Peter Ds Ultras who surpassed 2000 points in the cup rounds.

Earlier in the knockout stage, the quarter-finals in GW36 saw some remarkable scoring achievements. Glad When Its Over recorded the highest score of the season with a 156-58 win over Glazier, while Glad All Over overcame King of the Palace this time with a 144-142 win to qualify for the next round. Desperately unfortunate for King of the Palace to lose after putting up one of the highest scores of the entire season, but there was no stopping Glad All Over this year. Well done to both teams on combining for a total of 286 Gameweek points, a single point short of the record of 287 set in the Holmesdaleship the same week.

Once again, there were some amusing and original team names in the new league to make us all smile, with Bearded Wonders, EZElikesundaymorning, Glad When Its Over, King of the Palace, MaddensDonkeyJacket, Take U2 a Guehi Bar and vierrasverrucas being among the standouts. I particularly liked Antingham Stanley though, a clever pun on the manager’s own name.

Special thanks also go to Antingham Stanley too for being the inspiration for the league. Well done!

Thank you to all of you who took part in either league this season. It’s always nice to get a good response and great to welcome some new players along each year as well. However well you did, I hope you enjoyed playing and will consider joining again next time.

Congratulations to our two champions, The Monkeys and Glad All Over! Two worthy winners. Very well done indeed to both of you!