Leaderboard

Here is the final table for 2022-23 Second place in the Eredivisie round sees @nudge complete a clean sweep of top three finishes and round off a dominant season at the top of the standings - congratulations! @Dan's 2 points in the final round are just enough to keep 2nd place ahead of @Stan, who rockets up the standings to finish on the podium having given us just the second double-figured score of the season in the final round. At the other end, @Rucksackfranzose scored 90% of his season tally in the final round to drag himself off the bottom of the table and leave @CaaC (John) as the lowest scorer of those who entered every round. It was also a quiet season for two-time champion @Viva la FCB. Thanks to everyone who took part this season - see you in August!

Sheep - Season 11 - Round 1 - Scores Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Totals Bluewolf 1 3 5 8 1 4 9 4 1 6 42 Caac John 1 3 1 8 4 4 9 1 4 6 41 Deadlinesman 1 3 5 8 4 1 9 1 4 5 41 Dr Gonzo 1 1 5 8 1 3 9 4 4 5 41 Pyfish 2 1 5 8 3 3 9 4 1 5 41 Lucas 2 3 3 8 3 4 9 1 1 6 40 Beelzebub 1 3 5 8 1 1 9 1 1 6 36 Spike 1 3 1 1 4 3 9 4 4 5 35 Stan 1 3 1 8 3 1 9 1 1 5 33 Nudge 1 3 3 1 4 4 1 1 1 6 25 Tommy 1 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 6 19 Apologies abou the table format but I am on a mac today and I'll fix it once I get home. As far as first rounds go that was very interesting, @Bluewolf who was one of the last few to submit his answers in leads the pack and what a slim lead it is. @CaaC (John), @DeadLinesman, @Dr. Gonzo and @Pyfish are all in close second with @Lucas not far behind either. Important Notes: Some sheep feel very strongly about VAR who would have guessed Imran Khan was the most popular political celebrity who used to be a sports-person The sheep chose Archery as their comeptitive sport at the olmypics. What's odd is that they also have a plethora of choice in alcoholic beverages from the other question about a sponsor who also makes alcohol. Archery and Alcohol mixed is quite the fun time for anyone watching event. We move onto the next round now and will we see an upset at the top? Who knows. Note: Can someone from the admin team please pin this post to the top of the sub-forum group? Thank you.

Christmas card list for this year... Deadlinsman Beelzebub 2 down and it's not even November yet..

FINALLY. I've been away on holiday and the hotel WiFi was rubbish but here we are, now all up to date. Same case as usual where I've been delayed doing results, if you drew (and didn't say otherwise in the thread), you've remained at the current team. To get it out quicker, I'm not going to summarise each person's results. I've sorted the results by username for this week only to make it easier to see the routes to where you are now. @Viva la FCB is the only person not to have lost a game so far this season. @Stan remains top of the table, whilst @RandoEFC, myself and @Bluewolf sit in the bottom three. Back to usual from now on - and hopefully more frequent updates! @CaaC (John) / @Lucas / @londonerlilie / @Tommy / @Storts / @Coma / @Rucksackfranzose

Day three in Milan now complete. First day was kind of lazy, got in after a fairly early morning flight hung out until we got into the b&b to shower and do some laundry and nap before heading out to the San Siro for the evening and the match. Day two we spent most of it near the Duomo and what a site it was. Really amazing stuff. We did a short guided tour to get some history and went up top to the rooftops as well. Other then that finished off the evening in the canal district which was a really neat area and a great dinner. Day three we spent at Lake Como. Thank you for kicking me to go here @Rucksackfranzose and @Stan it was beautiful. Really reminded me of the Amalfi coast area with all the little quaint towns. The water was amazing to cool off in as well. Ended up spending most of our time in Bellagio but we trained into Varena first and trained out of Como. Didn't end up with allot of time in Como itself but we did make it up to the funicular for another great viewpoint. I also don't know what we would have done with another day in Milan either, this was a great day trip. Tbh so far the only place I felt like we didn't have enough time so far was Siracusa. It was just too big to cover everything worth seeing in one day. Off to Venice tomorrow for 1 day before heading to Florence after. One pic from the viewpoint in Como.

WEEKEND & MIDWEEK Here are the results from last weekends games and any of the midweek matches. If there was a drawn, you've remained where you are (tempted to make this a new rule at some point until you get hit 5 games with a team or something and then you'll get your choice - but for now it remains the same). @Rucksackfranzose was the early game last Friday and lost out to 3. Liga's Saarbrucken so now he moves there ahead of tomorrow's game. @RandoEFC moved to Barrow last weekend after they defeated Sutton. Barrow then went onto draw with Accrington so he now has a choice who to go with for this weekends match. @CaaC (John)'s Leeds journey ended with a 1-0 defeat to Birmingham last weekend. @Bluewolf still is yet to win a game, or see a goal for any of their sides, as Reading lost to Port Vale last weekend, and then Vale drew 0-0 with Blackpool. A draw and then a win for @londonerlilie means they remain with Wimbledon and pick up 4 points from the last 2 games. @Viva la FCB avoided an upset in DfB Pokal as St Pauli bagged a 5-0 win over lower league opposition, but it was @Tommy with a big 9-1 win that steals the spotlight this week. @Coma also won in the DfB Pokal so 3 points there as well. @Lucas didn't seem too thrilled at joining Gillingham but 2 wins in 2 games has grabbed him 6 points. A first win of the season for myself gets me off the mark with 3 points and I remain with Grenoble. @Stan and @Storts both continued a good start to the season with Leicester by adding a 1-0 win last weekend, and Ipswich winning 2-0 against Stoke to keep both of their 100% records in tact. Everybody now has at least a point on the board!

Cheers lads. I can kind of remember making this post but not the contents of it. Feel a bit embarrassed tbh as I must have built it up into something bigger than it was in my head. Was in a shit place at the time but much better now. Tried to stay off all forms of social media etc which is why I'm only just back on here. The two break ups in the space of about 8 months didn't help at all and I did really struggle to come to terms with the second one which seems stupid given we were only together a few months. Still out with my mates a few nights a week but definitely not getting into the states I did back then. Onwards and upwards eh

4 participants scoring over 10 points, nobody scoring less than 6 and a good average score. This season began with a better round for us. Matchday 1 1) @nawoo 12 points 1) @Tommy 12 points 3) @Bluewolf 11 points 3) @Viva la FCB 11 points 5) @Stan 9 points 6) @CaaC (John) 8 points 6) @Coma 8 points 8- @Michael 7 points 9) @6666 6 points 9) Rucksackfranzose 6 points

Oh that's a relief, next time I'll make sure to take the jacuzzi!

Results - Round Three It was a short round this time so it's already time for the results! These fixtures spanned last weekend, with almost half of those left in the game eliminated on Friday in the first game of the weekend, as Fiorentina blew a 2-1 lead in the 89th minute to lose 3-2 at Lecce in a dramatic turnaround, but for all the wrong reasons if you're @nudge, @CaaC (John), @Rick or @Rucksackfranzose. More blood was spilt on Sunday as Torino fired a blank against basement boys Salernitana, marking the end of the road for @Viva la FCB, @Dan, @Redcanuck and @Lucas. The only person to pick a third consecutive winner was @Pyfish, who takes a clean victory without a tie break required. His success wasn't without drama itself, as Bologna needed three goals in the last 20 minutes to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 victory. Final scores for this round: 6 points (3 correct picks + 3 bonus points) - @Pyfish 4 points (2 correct picks + 2 bonus points) - @nudge, @Viva la FCB, @CaaC (John), @Dan, @Redcanuck, @Rick, @Rucksackfranzose and @Lucas 2 points (1 correct pick + 1 bonus point) - @6666, @RandoEFC, @Michael, @Bluewolf, @Tommy, @Stan and @Storts 1 point (to appease those that were upset about his half-time pick) - @...Dan

Hahahaha when I clicked last unread post and saw I was on page 3 of 6 I almost just skipped to the end but I'm glad I didn't.

Matchday winner Stan predicted remarkable 4 perfect scores. Matchday 16 1) Stan 14 points 2) Coma 9 points 3) Viva la FCB 8 points 4) Bluewolf 7 points 5) Rucksackfranzose 6 points 6) CaaC(John) 5 points 6) nawoo 5 points 8- Michael 4 points 8- Tommy 4 points 10) 6666 3 points Tommy lost a good chunk of his lead. Table after 16 matches 1) @Tommy 128 points 2) @Stan 124 points 3) @Viva la FCB 120 points 4) @Coma 110 points 5) @Michael 107 points 6) @6666 98 points 7) @Bluewolf 97 points 8- @CaaC (John) 93 points 9) Rucksackfranzose 92 points 10) @nawoo 89 points Since the winter break has begun now, that's the last table update before 2024. Wish you all an agreeable christmas whether you're celebrating it or not and a new year hopefully more enjoyable and successful than the last.

Here's a photo from my daughter's 4 year old kindergarten/pre-school Christmas play. It was telling the Christmas Story, of the birth of Jesus, with the stable, angels, shepherds, wise men, etc What I found the most amusing was that my daughter was chosen to play the (inanimate) Star of Bethlehem (a.k.a Christmas Star), the one that the shepherds and wise men followed to Jesus. She was the only person playing an inanimate object and had no lines and just needed to stand at the back and twinkle. Despite that many people said she stole the show with her enthusiasm and beaming smile of delight at being the star.

This is how my house looks at the moment with all the Christmas lights up!

If a commentator or pundit is accomplished enough to do the job on their merits I don't care their age, race, gender or favorite ice cream.

Kitchen Sales era is being woefully neglected amongst us in here

I'm not called Honey trap Monster for nothing

Following on with my personal tradition of switching to full-sugar coke on the 1st of December after drinking coke zero all year. Will be the first christmas that my daughter has any sense of what's going on although next year will be the one where she'll understand the concept of santa etc.

Results - Round One It was a marathon first round to this season's Last Man Standing League but @Viva la FCB eventually came out on top, with Crystal Palace's 2-0 win at Burnley the decisive result after Viva, @nudge and @6666 had worked their way through nearly half of the teams in the Premier League. The full scores for this round are as follows: 12 points (9 correct picks + 3 bonus points) - @Viva la FCB 10 points (8 correct picks + 2 bonus points) - @nudge and @6666 6 points (5 correct picks + 1 bonus point) - @RandoEFC 4 points - @...Dan 3 points - @CaaC (John), @Whiskey and @Pyfish 2 points - @Tommy 1 point - @DeadLinesman, @Stan, @Dan and @Redcanuck 0 points - @Rucksackfranzose, @Lucas, @Storts, @Bluewolf, @N U F C, @Michael and @Rick We will proceed with Round 2 (Bundesliga) after the international break.

This has been our best matchday this season for now. Matchday 11 1) Tommy 13 points 2) Michael 11 points 3) CaaC(John) 10 points 3) Viva la FCB 10 points 5) 6666 9 points 5) Stan 9 points 7) Bluewolf 8 points 8- Coma 6 points 9) nawoo 5 points 10) Rucksackfranzose 3 points 2nd and 7th spot are closer together point wise than top and 2nd spot. Table after 11 matchdays 1) @Tommy 96 points 2) @Michael 83 points 3) @Stan 82 points 4) @Coma 80 points 5) @Viva la FCB 79 points 6) @6666 72 points 7) @Bluewolf 71 points 8- @CaaC (John) 67 points 9) Rucksackfranzose 63 points 10) @nawoo 60 points

RESULTS There were only a few matches midweek last week and only one resulted in a draw so makes sense to combine them with the weekend matches (that's the excuse I'm making for having a shit week and couldn't be arsed to update). @Lucas and @Bluewolf were on the move again in midweek, this time to Barnsley who then went on to draw with Fleetwood at the weekend so now they have the choice of remaining with Barnsley who are in FA Cup action against Horsham next, or move to Fleetwood who play Blackpool tonight. @Storts chose the Hollywood life and won with Wrexham in midweek before beating their former National League rivals Notts County at the weekend too. @nudge remained with Bayern after 2 wins including an 8-0 thrashing of Darmstadt. @CaaC (John) continues an excellent run with Ipswich with 2 more wins to add to his tally. @londonerlilie was beaten by Dortmund in the Champions League so flies over to Germany where they drew 3-3 with Frankfurt so a choice to be made. @Stan's Southampton only managed a draw against Preston and he automatically remained with the Saints for the weekend where they beat Birmingham. After 11 games with Grenoble, I move to Pau FC. @Coma moves to Nurnberg after losing with Holstein Kiel. @Tommy grabs 2 wins, one in the league and a 6-3 win in extra time in DfB Pokal (fun fact: Tommy has now seen 15 goals scored for his teams in the DfB Pokal in TWO games this season). @Viva la FCB also grabbed 2 more wins to carry on the unbeaten one team streak to 13 games (I may have to look into the past seasons stats and see what our longest streak is with one team!). @RandoEFC, still stuck with an U21 team, won 6-3 with Arsenal's U21s to remain with them. Their next 'proper' game is against Reading so there's a still a chance to get back to senior football if they can beat Manchester City's U21 next time out. A few movements in positions since the last table! I'll try and update sooner this time....

I moved again. Yay. Lease ended with no renewing and now I live with a different dude called Matt who I also have not shagged. Honestly, disappointing effort from me all things considered. I still can't believe @DeadLinesman called the shot he did hahahaha.

Round 3 complete, halfway through the group stage! GROUP A @Bluebird Hewitt 8-10 @CaaC (John) @Pyfish 9-13 @Rucksackfranzose @Pyfish remains top despite the loss, while @Rucksackfranzose and @CaaC (John) both leapfrog @Bluebird Hewitt with their first wins of the group stage. GROUP B @nawoo 9-12 @Viva la FCB Stan 10-11 @Tommy @Tommy and @Viva la FCB grab their 2nd wins of the group stage, and both are now on 6 points.

I'm not comfortable answering this question unless Tommy asks it, and only if it's accompanied by a poll.

RESULTS @nudge's masterplan paid off as they are now in Bundesliga with Bayern after their win in the cup. @CaaC (John) picked up 2 wins in 2 since the the last results, putting him in a strong position to chase down @Stan at the top of the table who won with Leeds at the weekend too. @londonerlilie steps into the top flight as they move to Manchester City. @Coma and @Tommy decided to part ways rather than stick together with the former losing their next game and joining Greuther Furth, and the latter going on to win their game and remaining with Kaiserslautern. @RandoEFC remains stuck in the U21 system but moves to Arsenal's U21 team - with opportunities to play league teams coming up again soon. @Rucksackfranzose moves to another lower league team, this time joining Vilzing. @Viva la FCB remains the only player to have not lost a game so far this season as he continues a great run with St Pauli. @Bluewolf grabbed a win with Derby for a vital 3 points to move out of the bottom three. @Storts moves to Gillingham. @Lucas is the only player with a choice to make - Morecambe or Swindon. The league table is starting to balance out a bit now so we can see who is truly having a good or bad season. And here are the next set of fixtures for all.

Results A bumper edition of results because I've been swamped at work again - if you drew before the latest game, you're at the same team. I'm going to be on holiday from Monday but I'll try and keep the results as up to date as I can - but if not, you'll have to keep tabs on your teams and post in here of any movements you'd like to do in the events of draws. @Stan remains top of the table with 2 more wins with Leicester and with other results, he's building a gap now. Grenoble got another 0-0 draw but I'm staying put in the hope of a win with them soon. Another 0-0 for St Pauli and @Viva la FCB too! We now have our first breakthrough to the top flight as @londonerlilie 's Wimbledon lost out in the EFL Cup to Chelsea. @Tommy grabbed another win too with Nurnberg. @RandoEFC caused me a little bit of a headache as Stockport lost out to Manchester United's U21 team - I've made the decision that he will indeed move to them as they are active in Premier League 2 so he will still get games. He started his first game with the U21s with a 10-1 win over Stoke U21. @Storts loses 2 games on the bounce, first with Ipswich losing 4-3 to Leeds, and then Leeds being knocked out of the EFL Cup by Salford. A win and a loss for Birmingham means @CaaC (John) moves to Cardiff. It was also a win and a loss for @Bluewolf but the other way round, losing with Blackpool to Lincoln before they then went on to beat Sheffield United on penalties - Bluewolf's first win of the season! @Rucksackfranzose has moved to Unterhaching, @Coma is now with Kaiserslautern and @Lucas moves from Gillingham to Colchester. And here are this weekend's fixtures

Both of the latest round of games had five goals each! Game 19's first goal was in the 17th minute, and had loads of winners! 3 points! 2 points 2 points 2 points 1 point 2 points 2 points Game 20 was earlier, in the 8th minute: 2 points 3 points! 1 point Table after Game 20: Whole host of changes with so many scoring. @6666 just about hangs on to the lead, while @Bluewolf & @Rucksackfranzose are now in 2nd and 3rd place. @Tommy is off the mark with an exact score, while @Toinho and I swap places.

Just finishing up day two in Sicily/Catania. Today we spent the day in Taormina,beautiful place yet again. Tomorrow we are off to Syracusa and then off to Milan for three days. Tickets seemed to work out I'll know when were there but they look good now that they are delivered. We bought tickets to the opening match Inter vs Monza. I tried dealing with Inter's official site but I couldn't get a verification code without an Italian phone number and we wanted to get the tickets ahead of time. I tried emailing them but the time difference meant the tickets I wanted got taken two or three different times then they stopped responding. Bought through viagogo seemed a little sketchy so I half expected it not to work out but knock on wood so far so good for Saturday. Here's a shot from the city up top. Took a funicular down to the beach later which is roughly in the bottom right corner of the pic.

Italy is absolutely beautiful so far. I wish I had made it here sooner tbh. So far we've done Assisi, Salerno/Amalfi coast, Capri and today in Pompeii. Tomorrow off to Naples for one night before heading to Catania. Just saw that Mount Etna erupted and closed the Catania airport and holy shit on that timing. The pictures are nuts, thankfully theyre set to open the airport tomorrow at 6 am so we should be fine for the day after. Apparently there hasn't been a major eruption since 92 that is some crazy stuff. Didn't take alot of pics on my phone and apparently I can't upload more then one they too big but here's one from Capri. Took a funicular up part way up the mountain and then a chairlift. Insane views of the entire island.

@Stortshas glued himself to the runway.

"So, Harry, we finally reached an agreement with your club. So come and join us." Harry:

I don't think a German should be saying this again.

You haven’t heard of the Islamic Caliphate of Ikea?

I once had the terrible trauma of seeing my other half's sister in her bikini on the beach once and she clearly didn't do any kind of maintenance at all.. she just turned around and they were there like Elvis Presley sideburns down each leg.. horrible horrible vision

Results - Canadian Grand Prix Starting with Saturday, the mixed conditions didn't throw up a surprise for pole position, with everyone who predicted with the exception of @JoshBRFC bagging 5 points straight away for another Verstappen pole. The bonus question was also resolved in qualifying. Despite Carlos Sainz' grid penalty meaning that he started behind Leclerc, @Tommy, @nudge and @DeadLinesman don't get the points here as qualifying predictions are based on times set in the session and not on the final grid order. @RandoEFC, @Stan, @JoshBRFC, @The Palace Fan, @Coma and @OrangeKhrush all pick up 5 points for backing Hamilton to out-qualify his team-mate Russell, with @MUFC making the opposite prediction and coming out empty-handed. @Whiskey was the only one to venture outside of Mercedes and Ferrari for this prediction and correctly backed Bottas to qualify higher out of the Alfa Romeo cars. Onto the race, and probably the most varied set of podium predictions we've seen this season (after 1st place). Again, everyone apart from @JoshBRFC picks up 5 points for the Verstappen victory. @RandoEFC and @Coma bag 20 points overall for predicting a perfect VER-ALO-HAM podium in the correct order. @Whiskey and @OrangeKhrush are unlucky to end up on 9 points having inverted 2nd and 3rd place but picked the correct combination. @JoshBRFC was the only other person to predict Alonso and Hamilton on the podium and picks up 7 points in total. @DeadLinesman also gets 7 with @Stan, @Tommy, @nudge and @The Palace Fan taking 10 for VER-XXX-HAM. @MUFC brings up the rear in the podium predictions as the only person to pick two drivers (Russell and Perez) who didn't make the rostrum. Finally, this week's random driver Carlos Sainz was backed to finish within 2 places of his actual finishing position by everyone, but the points go to @Stan, @MUFC, @Tommy, @DeadLinesman and @OrangeKhrush for putting him down for 5th place. Here's what it does to the standings: @Coma and @RandoEFC are the first to breach the 30 point barrier at a race this season, and now sit first and second in the Drivers' Championship. The gaps are beginning to stretch to the biggest we've seen all season but @Stan and @OrangeKhrush remain in hot pursuit. With similar scores covering @Whiskey in 5th to @The Palace Fan in 10th there aren't many changes in the standings overall. None of the Constructors' have shifted position this week but Mercedes consolidate their lead at the top with the highest score of the weekend. Alpine's impressive points haul sees them gain some ground on Ferrari and Aston Martin in the battle for 2nd place with McLaren and Red Bull are quite far adrift.

Tuçepi, near Makarska. Anyway, greetings from Croatia.

Currently on my first holiday abroad since pre-covid, just shy of 4 years. Fucking needed it. Spent two and a half days in Biarritz which was very calm and relaxing, lovely coastal town that I’d happily spend 10-14 nights in. Currently on day 3 of 4 in Donostia San Sebastián and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever been to a better city. Their Pintxos (Basque for tapas) is arguably the best food you will eat in Europe and I’ve not even touched the Michelin star restaurants. There is also a beer called 18/70 that every bar seems to serve (some places only serve it) and honestly it accompanies the food beautifully. It seems like a very wealthy city and tbh if like me you come from a working class background where you ate unseasoned food throughout your childhood this place will seem like a hidden gem, but to maybe the more wealthy and Euro savvy it’s a must go destination. It is a tiny city, feels similar to somewhere like Liverpool in terms of size but honestly it’s worlds apart. Being here feels like a small city on steroids, it’s not directly comparable to these cities because of its smaller size but it’s 100% in the same league as major cities I’ve been to like London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Sydney and Melbourne. It’s definitely above those for food, sun and sea, which really is all you need. I have spent the majority of my days on La Concha beach, the first night we were able to watch the sunset on it which was great. The first full day, away from the beach, me and the missus secured one of the only tables at Bat Nestor, viewed as the most iconic bar in San Sebastian. Their tortilla de patatas was genuinely incredible, we then shared a plate of heavily salted tomatoes soaked in olive oil, before a plate of charred and salted peppers, which led to one of the most famous bites in the city, the steak. Cooked to perfection, rare, again heavily salted and full of flavour. Today was a boat ride around Santa Clara island, onto it for an hour with a swim in its tiny beach before heading back to La Concha for a swim. Tomorrow we will be climbing the two mountains (sort of) either side of the harbour. Every evening has and will be filled with time spent in the old town eating Pintxos and drinking beer. There’s so much of the city to see still, we’ve barely touched the centre or any of the other areas. There are vineyards too not far away which will have to be done in future. If I could post pictures on here I would, but I can’t for some reason. But if you need a place to holiday, San Sebastian is a great choice.

Football is fundamentally broken. No amount of witch-hunts and court cases is going to set it back on the path to right without way more stringent rules on spending being enforced across the board. So you go and get City and charge them and win. Great. Now what? You've got so much financial doping going on everywhere because its a popular entertainment avenue that you can't just put the genie back in the bottle. It may seem stupid that there's a huge disparity between clubs with rich owners and ones that don't have them but the time to fix that issue has long passed. When the first signs of it started showing up the FAs of the world looked at it with their eyes in wonder "omg we're going to get so much money". Then the TV networks came along and realized what kind of cash cow they were about to inherit "omg so much more money". Then FIFA went and did its little song and dance and once again "omg we're about to get way more richer than we can ever dream". These systems don't care about your cities and the clubs that are an offset of them, all they see are gooses that lay eggs which are golden and expanding avenues for merchandise and services to be sold. What's probably even more amusing than the system of football is how clubs think they are going to get justice of any sort by going to the very people who want this to stay the way it is. We can all sit here and blame the clubs that went and did all this for spoiling the sport but the truth is that it stopped being a sport a long time ago and is now effectively a business that just happens to facilitate a form of sport.

What a lovely place Lyon is. .

Week 34 Results Melbourne Victory 2-1 Melbourne City Norwich 1-0 Ipswich Roma 1-0 Lazio Sporting Lisbon 2-1 Benfica Athletic Bilbao p1-1 Mallorca LAFC 2-1 LA Galaxy Rangers 3-3 Celtic Feyenoord 6-0 Ajax Club Brugge 3-1 Anderlecht Galatasaray 1-0 Fenerbahce Round-up Potentially one of the best rounds of fixtures we've ever had in terms of the teams involved - all but one of the matches are derbies or rivalries of some sort, and the one that isn't was a cup final, so equally as contested! In terms of the table it was very closely contested too - with the range of scores being 11-14. At the top end were @Viva la FCB and @CaaC (John) who cancelled each other out with 14 points. @Rucksackfranzose surpassed 400 points with 13 to add to his tally, while @Tommy is just one point away from reaching the same mark.

Egg Masala!

They are. They live in Egypt, but definitely not in Africa.

Lol I like how they describe her as just a "Pakistani feminist activist" in that tweet, it's so fucking reductive. She won multiple Oscars and Emmys for directing documentaries, her work in animation has also won awards and was critically acclaimed, and she also directed live action TV show in the Marvel universe. My opinion is that I will give everyone a fair chance and reserve my judgement until after the movie is released, everything else makes no sense whatsoever.

WEEK 13 - LUCKY FOR SOME Halloween has arrived on the supposedly unlucky numbered week, but you wouldn't know it looking at the league table here as we post our best week of the season, a third straight profit on the board overall, the first week where four players bag a win and remarkably, even both people called Dan winning. It didn't quite start off so luckily though. @Pyfish came close to making it a hattrick of brilliant wins after landing a very impressive pick of Dortmund to win at Newcastle, but he couldn't overcome the Brendan Rodgers juju in the supposedly easier leg of the bet as Atletico Madrid falter on the road in the Champions League yet again. @Machado back to winning ways with his latest in what looks a carefully selected pair of stats based picks, although the Benfica pick can only possibly be due to some cynicism at his end on his own team. He was correct to have it though. I paid the price on an accumulator for trusting Benfica to win myself as I had them with under 4.5 goals - but they couldn't even hold on late on. @Stan also paid the price as this let down his bet, after correctly landing Bayern to win and over 3.5 goals in a hilarious game that saw 3 first half red cards and Bayern hitting 8 goals in the second half. @CaaC (John) should be donating his winnings to a certain somebody who reminded him to get a bet in for this week as his Italian double paid out to continue his relative hot streak. Atalanta smacking a woeful Empoli 0-3 but Lazio needing a 95th minute penalty to beat Fiorentina, to put him back into profit for the season. @Lucas is let down by Accrington who lost 0-1 to Colchester after correctly backing Chesterfield to win for an 11th time in 12 games (they're very generous odds considering in my opinion). @RandoEFC's usual asian handicap falls down this week. Juventus left it until the 97th minute to beat Verona to push all responsibility onto Brighton who didn't even beat Fulham, so it's a loss this time around. You have to feel here for @...Dan who gets his first win of the season at the tenth time of asking yet is still sent to the bottom of the table for the first time all season. He played safe this week and Manchester City made no mistake. Stop the world though. I've finally, finally won a bet. About pissing time too. I was wondering after how utterly perfectly my Hoffenheim pick landed that Manchester City would find a way to fuck it up, or somehow rack up the goals in injury time, but no, persistence pays off and I'm off the mark with what is the second biggest win of the entire season. I bet a lot and I think that's pretty obvious by now, and I'm back in hot form in the real thing too, so I did believe it would arrive here eventually. I'm hoping we won't have to wait the same amount of time for another - as that would take me all the way to the end of January, for some context. It's a very strong week on the whole though, and while a big win in each of the last three weeks has helped prop things up, the numbers are starting to really shift in favour of the forum now. The last three weeks have been the best three of the season, so October has been a hot streak collectively. WEEK 13 STATS Winning bets: 4/8 Winning selections: 10/14 Weekly forum position: +£67.48 (Ranked 1/13) OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 25/94 Winning selections: 84/176 Total forum position: -£131.25

Week 10 Results Sunderland 0-4 Middlesbrough Hearts 2-2 Hibernian Antalyaspor 0-2 Galatasaray Juventus 2-0 Torino DC Utd 2-0 New York City Corinthians 1-1 Flamengo Man City Women 1-1 Chelsea Women Villarreal 1-2 Las Palmas Young Boys 3-0 Basel Gent 1-1 Genk Round-up @CaaC (John) still remains far out in the lead and has a hefty buffer to 2nd place. Top scores came from @Pyfish and @Viva la FCB with 13 points each, and the latter is now in 6th place having surpassed 100 points. And the former is now only 5 points off leaving bottom spot! Only 3 points separate 2-4th - with @Bluebird Hewitt on 111 points and myself on 108, with @Rucksackfranzose sandwiched in between on 109 points.

Halloumi Wraps. Basically fried Halloumi cut into pieces, with lettuce, red bell peppers, tomatoes, Avocado hummus and low fat Creme Fraiche with herbs, in a wrap.

What to say about Rome. Beautiful city, everywhere we walked and everywhere we went had something to marvel at. We did a hop on hop off bus for this one and we got our money's worth. Went everywhere, did a night tour as well which was really cool to see all the fountains and the everything lit up. The highlight was still easily the Colosseum. We did a 3 hour guided walking tour of the streets and some background and the Forum and then the Colosseum itself and it was well worth it. Being down on the stage in the middle was just amazing, it gave real perspective on just how massive a scale the entire thing was. In 4 full days we did and saw basically all the normal tourist sites to hit; the Pantheon was really cool, Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps etc. The Vatican museum was insane. It was definitely overwhelming much like the Uffizi gallery in Florence; theres just too much there and it took several hours to go through that its just hard to comprehend and see everything. The Sistine Chapel was the definite standout there naturally and something Ill always remember though. Other then that as I mentioned above we made it to a football match as well at the Stadio Olimpico for Lazio vs Genoa on the first night and that was awesome. We kind of took it a little easier and took our time in Rome as we started to burn out a bit and get tired. Too many things and too much to do everyday, the heat didnt help as well but we where running on fumes by the time we hit Rome. The nice part was it did cool down after the first day, had a couple days of rain on and off and mid 20's temps. So a recap here basically of all the hubs we stayed at and our day trips here over 22 nights total. We flew into Rome to start and Out from Rome at the end as well. We trained between every city except Sicily where we flew, all the day trips outside of the couple tour trips we booked in Florence where also train. 2 nights in Assisi - basically 1 full day, we landed in Rome at like 3pm and had a train out at 6pm to go to Assisi. 3 nights in Salerno (Amalfi Coast area) - day trips down the coast, stopped in Amalfi, Positano, Minori, Maori. 1 Day trip to Capri. 1 Day trip to the mountain top town Ravello. 1 night in Pompei 1 night in Naples 3 nights in Catania - day trips to Mount Etna (small tour bus and day up at the Volcano area, Taormina and Syracusa 3 nights in Milan - day trip to Lake Como 1 night in Venice - partial day trip by ferry for 4 or 5 hours to Burano 4 nights in Florence - bus tour day trips, 1 to San Gimignano, Sienna, Pisa and some of the Chianti wine country. Other day trip to Cinque Terre. 4 nights in Rome - no more day trips We absolutely loved our time in Italy and will definitely go back one day as theres alot more to see and a few things to revist even probably. Our time in each place for the most part actually I think felt pretty good. It was alot of moving around but that was what we wanted to do, we backpacked and planned accordingly. The first time we felt like we didnt see everything was Syracusa, two days would have been perfect probably. The next was Venice. Venice was beautiful, we definitely felt like we needed another day or two in Venice though but it was also really busy and quite expensive so it was kind of a compromise up front but in hindsight we should have just bit the bullet and trimmed a bit more to have more time there. Sicily was the other, 3 days was never going to be enough and we did know that up front but it was definitely worth it. The standouts for me where definitely the Amalfi Coast area, Capri was amazing as well. The biggest surprise area for me was Sicily though. Taormina was one of my top couple places. I wish we had the time to get to Palermo and the Valley of the Temples on the other side of the Island and thats at the top of the list when we get back. Overall not alot of complaints and not a whole lot I would change If I could. That being said the one is I wouldn't go back in Summer, I know the heatwave was not normal and even alot of the Italians where complaining about how bad it was and its not normal for their summers but man was it tough at times. It is what it is though its the window we had to go on a trip like this so Ill take it.

Joined Hertha for a club record fee of 25 Mio Euros, and now joins Union for 3 Mio Euros. Great piece of business by Union. Not that great for Hertha though.