Time's up, and we're all ready to go!

An excellent response once again to both leagues. Many thanks to all of you who have decided to take up the challenge this season, with a good number of newbies in there too which is always nice to see. Your support is very much appreciated.

Best wishes to everyone involved for a brilliant season!

Yes, it feels so wrong - but sometimes, in FPL, it can feel so right! Think of it as insurance. In the event of a disaster, like a hat-trick against your own team, at least you're covered.

Early days yet, but with the fourth highest GW point total in the league so far, you're on the right track! More wins will come.

The Holmesdaleship II FPL season has reached its knockout stage, with four quarter-final matches to be played in Gameweek 36.

The quarter-final matches are as follows:

Well done to the eight who qualified for the knockout stage. The Gameweek 36 deadline for completing your transfers and setting your starting XIs is Saturday, 13 May at 11:00 BST.

Commiserations to the 10 of you who didn’t quite make it through this time, especially P V Army and Eagles flying, who so narrowly missed out on qualifying. I hope you all enjoyed taking part and will be back again next season!

Thank you to all involved.

Edited by Dan Theolmesdaleroad (10 May 2023 10.09pm)

Edited by Dan Theolmesdaleroad (27 May 2023 1.23am)

Had no interest at all mate.

Red and Blue Army!

The Holmesdaleship II final is set for the closing weekend of the season in Gameweek 38.

The results of the semi-finals in Gameweek 37 were:

This year’s Holmesdaleship II final will be:

Very well done to the two winning semi-finalists, the seventh seeded KinOurSouls UK/US and the top seeded White Van Man, who will contest this year’s final.

The Gameweek 38 deadline is on Sunday, 28 May at 15:00 BST.

Outstanding campaigns from both Flying Without Ings and Melchester Rovers this season, who just came up short in the semi-finals. Cheers to both of you for your valiant efforts.

All the best to the two finalists for Sunday!

Edited by Dan Theolmesdaleroad (27 May 2023 1.19am)

As the 2022/23 Premier League campaign developed into a two-horse race, the Holmesdaleship title challenge also saw two main contenders, Pacers and Palace Cowboys, battle it out to the end for this season’s crown.

By the end, just nine points separated the rest of the top 10, with Odsonne Favourites and Antingham Stanley topping the 70-point mark in making the top four. But there was no catching the top two.

Gameweeks 34 and 35 proved to be crucial in the title race. Palace Cowboys dropped points in a 134 – 112 defeat to PV Suicide Squad, while Pacers ran riot against Up the Shutters with a resounding 131 – 76 win to leapfrog the Cowboys into a two point lead. The stage was then set for a clash of the titans in GW35 as the two title challengers faced each other.

Palace Cowboys scored consistently well throughout the season, but rather misfired at the critical moment. Captaining the usually reliable Erling Haaland, the Norwegian blanked along with key attacking assets Cody Gakpo and Alexander Isak when it really mattered, with only Harry Kane producing a scoring return to net the Cowboys just 27 points.

Pacers on the other hand boasted the likes of Martin Odegaard, Riyadh Mahrez and Mo Salah in their ranks, all of whom recorded 10 point returns with captain Salah scoring double. The advantage had now fully swung in Pacers’ favour as they ran out 57 – 27 winners over Palace Cowboys.

With both teams winning two of their remaining three fixtures, it was Pacers who brought home the title with 82 points and an excellent 27-1-10 record, five points clear of Palace Cowboys in second whose 25-2-11 record was also very impressive.

A terrific display from the aptly named Pacers, who indeed set the pace for much of the season and whose 82 points topped the 81 recorded by last year’s winners The Monkeys by a single point.

Many others also excelled, with a record 17 participants scoring over 2000 GW points this term. Five teams – Antingham Stanley (2415), Pacers (2451), Bearded Wonders (2454), PV Suicide Squad (2455) and Palace Cowboys (2494) – even exceeded 2400 GW points. When Alexis Mac Allister came off the bench to replace the non-playing Erling Haaland in GW38 though, it meant that Odsonne Favourites reached 2500, becaming the third team in Holmesdaleship history to reach the 2500 GW point plateau. Only Palace Cowboys (2507) and CPFC Reserves (2515) have scored more, reaching their totals last year. I have it on good authority that the Odsonne Favourites manager is well pleased with that!

Credit too to Oval Ballers, who recorded the highest single GW point total of the season with a magnificent 156 – 96 victory over Crystal Paralysis in GW36. Bearded Wonders had the next highest in a 155 – 138 win over TakemetothePalace, whose total happened to be the season’s third highest in GW29. There were many more GW scores of 100+ throughout the season too, which is great to see as it shows just what a high standard of FPL expertise we have among us.

Coming up with an amusing or unique team name can be such a challenge, but is part of the fun of FPL. Some of the standout ones for me this year included Ayew Ready, Bearded Wonders, Oval Ballers and Up the Shutters, with Eze Does It, Flying Without Ings and Delboy’s Eagles being among the best from Holmesdaleship II. I think my personal favourite though was Hakuna Mateta, who made their Holmesdaleship and FPL debut this year. Excellent.

Congratulations then to this year’s champions, Pacers! Regular title contenders over the years, and now justly rewarded for an outstanding season from start to finish.

Thank you everyone for taking part, hope to see you again next season.