The world's leading London pub-based fantasy football league
| Ramsdale, A | BOU | £ 0.50 |
| Wan-Bissaka, A | MUN | £ 15.00 |
| Matip, J | LIV | £ 1.00 |
| Soyuncu, C | LEI | £ 5.00 |
| Lowton, M | BUR | £ 2.00 |
| Milivojevic, L | CRY | £ 15.00 |
| Jorginho | CHE | £ 2.00 |
| Noble, M | WHM | £ 6.00 |
| Lundstram, J | SHF | £ 3.00 |
| Lacazette, A | ARS | £ 0.50 |
| Ings, D | SOT | £ 16.00 |
| £ 69.50 |
The cell was dark. Dawn was at least an hour away.
She pondered on the course of events that led her here.
The girls. The private islands. Jeffery Epstein. Was he still a Bramble player for So Good They Named Him Twice?
There was a moment in Florida when she was forcing a teenage girl to give Jeffery a foot massage that she wondered if her life was taking the right course. Of course, it was, she thought, I’m Ghislaine Maxwell. Everyone is wrong and I’m right. This prison cell is evidence of that. I should be on a luxury ranch in New Hampshire. It was the system that was wrong. God, back in the 90s if you had wealth and privilege you could slap around who you liked. What was wrong with the world now? Thank God daddy didn’t get a statue built of himself.
She was lying on a thin mattress supported by a tiled rectangle structure jutted out along one wall of the room. What passed for a window were some glass blocks built into the wall. It reminded her of the changing rooms at the Manor Ground in Headington back in the 80s.
The world was simpler place then. She was director of daddy’s football team and they got promoted twice in two seasons to reach the First Division. She went to parties in London in the week, the creme de la creme, and the football on Saturday. She could treat the Great Unwashed exactly how she liked. There were no finger pointing little slags back then.
These memories flooded back to her as she heard a pipe dripping somewhere and the other prisoners snores and groans.
She froze. Her eyes were closed but she could feel someone close by. There was an intense smell of leather and she guessed a gloved hand was covering her mouth. She opened her eyes.
Inches from her face was the head of a figure. At least that’s what she could see with one eye. Her other eye stared into the barrel of a suppressed 9mm pistol.
The intruder’s face looked Anglo-Saxon. He had dark, thick hair, a pale face and penetrating eyes.
He gestured he would remove his hand from her mouth and to be quiet. She moved her head slightly to show she would comply. As he took his hand away she whispered: ‘The palace?’
He shook his head. She took it as a sign to guess again.
‘It can’t be. It can’t,’ she whispered in exasperation. ‘Why?’
‘They have a bet,’ replied the stranger. His English was accented and she could tell he was German but had spent time in the south east of England.
‘A what?’ she replied incredulous someone would toy with her, her!, like this.
‘A bet. I’m here to make sure you stay alive for the next…’ the gun barrel flicked up slightly as he checked his watch ‘…13 minutes.’
‘What happens then?’ she couldn’t help asking.
‘Then you do it yourself.’
Looking at her one eye all the time and without lowering the gun he pressed something into her hand. It was cold. It could be a small piece of metal.
They were both still. Time passed. The light in the glass blocks got greyer.
Eventually the stranger gave her nod and stood back. She knew it was pointless to resist. The blade was sharp in her fingers. She took one last look at the man and then drew the blade across her wrist.
As her consciousness faded she thought back to those simpler times. The 80s. London parties. Jim Smith lifting the Third Division championship trophy.
The intruder took a phone from his pocket and tapped the screen before slipping from the cell.
Thousands of miles away in the Kenna HQ manager experiences department a man read out: ‘It’s done. Time of death 6.03am.’
The chairman sipped his Grasshopper and said: ‘Michael Ballack. Always the bridesmaid.’
Then he looked at the Kenna table and all thoughts of the Maxwell woman melted away.
Winning a bet with the vice chairman was one thing. Becoming the first manager to win the Kenna League three times was quite something else.
He didn’t want to end up like Ballack or Maxwell.
Full scores available from The Rub.
Cowley Casuals 33 – 34 Bala Rinas
Dynamo Charlton 73 – 19 Young Boys
Clotted Cream First 50 – 40 Magpies
Daggers 30 – 39 Lowry Travel Tavern
Bala Rinas v Lowry Travel Tavern
Dynamo Charlton v Clotted Cream First
| McCarthy, A | SOT | £ 0.50 |
| Coady, C | WLV | £ 4.00 |
| Sakho, M | CRY | £ 3.00 |
| Zouma, K | CHE | £ 1.00 |
| Bellerin, H | ARS | £ 3.00 |
| Sigurdsson, G | EVE | £ 0.50 |
| Pogba, P | MUN | £ 28.00 |
| Wilson, H | BOU | £ 0.50 |
| Ndombele, T | TOT | £ 11.00 |
| Wood, C | BUR | £ 5.00 |
| Locadia, J | BTN | £ 0.50 |
| £ 56.00 |
| Fabianski, L | WHM | £ 3.00 |
| Robertson, A | LIV | 0.5 |
| Ake, N | BOU | £ 5.00 |
| Egan, J | SHF | £ 1.00 |
| Valery, Y | SOT | £ 3.00 |
| Matic, N | MUN | £ 4.00 |
| Trezeguet | AVL | £ 3.00 |
| Sterling, R | MCY | £ 35.00 |
| Bernard | EVE | £ 0.50 |
| Gray, A | WAT | £ 3.00 |
| Rodriguez, J | BUR | £ 5.00 |
| £ 62.50 |
| Arrizabalaga, K | CHE | £ 10.00 |
| Shaw, L | MUN | £ 16.00 |
| Stones, J | MCY | £ 0.50 |
| Stevens, E | SHF | £ 0.50 |
| Doherty, M | WLV | £ 6.00 |
| Anderson, F | WHM | £ 14.00 |
| Vrancic, M | NOR | £ 0.50 |
| Townsend, A | CRY | £ 2.00 |
| McNeil, D | BUR | £ 0.50 |
| Origi, D | LIV | 0.5 |
| Heung-min, S | TOT | £ 25.00 |
| £ 75.00 |
| Pickford, J | EVE | £ 7.00 |
| Alderweireld, T | TOT | £ 13.00 |
| Ogbonna, A | WHM | £ 3.00 |
| Zinchenko, O | MCY | £ 1.00 |
| Ward, J | CRY | £ 0.50 |
| Grealish, J | AVL | £ 6.00 |
| Pereyra, R | WAT | £ 3.00 |
| Salah, M | LIV | £ 10.00 |
| Ward-Prowse, J | SOT | £ 1.00 |
| Jimenez, R | WLV | £ 0.50 |
| Rashford, M | MUN | £ 25.00 |
| £ 70.00 |
| Pope, N | BUR | £ 2.00 |
| Sanchez, D | TOT | £ 5.00 |
| Coleman, S | EVE | £ 5.00 |
| Pereira, R | LEI | £ 7.00 |
| Gomez, J | LIV | £ 4.00 |
| Deulofeu, G | WAT | £ 10.00 |
| Almiron, M | NEW | £ 3.00 |
| de Bruyne, K | MCY | £ 15.00 |
| Bowen, J | WHM | £ 0.50 |
| Aubameyang, P | ARS | £ 20.00 |
| Samatta, M | AVL | £ 0.50 |
| £ 73.00 |
| Patricio, R | WLV | £ 10.00 |
| Schar, F | NEW | £ 3.00 |
| Cathcart, C | WAT | £ 0.50 |
| Diop, I | WHM | £ 2.00 |
| Mee, B | BUR | £ 2.00 |
| Willian | CHE | £ 8.00 |
| Fernandes, B | MUN | £ 0.50 |
| Buendia, E | NOR | £ 2.00 |
| Tielemans, Y | LEI | £ 15.00 |
| Calvert-Lewin, D | EVE | £ 4.00 |
| King, J | BOU | £ 0.50 |
| £ 50.00 |
The Kenna League chairman has called Professor Thomas Chamberlain from the Lyle Centre to help find 12 months of missing posts from the Kenna blog. Chamberlain sends Dr Nikki Alexander and Jack Hodgson to Kenna HQ. They are with the chairman in his executive office.
NIKKI: I can see this body’s been here for quite some time. Let me get my big camera with the circle light on the end.
CHAIRMAN: That’s not why I asked you here. The last 12 months of Kenna blog content has gone missing.
NIKKI: But there’s a dead body in the corner of your office. It looks to have been decomposing for nearly a decade. There are blow flies here so long they’ve chalked out some football pitches and are on the second four-year cycle of their own World Cup. Who is it?
CHAIRMAN: That’s just the spirit of the Kenna. It died at the 2012 Euros auction when the Dark Lord unmasked himself as the tactical Brambler.
JACK: Let’s take a closer look at your desk.
CHAIRMAN: What’s that you’re holding?
JACK: It shines UV light to find evidence. It’s a called a jizzlamp.
CHAIRMAN: I’d rather you didn’t….
Jack switches on the device
NIKKI: Good God!
JACK: The jizzlamp doesn’t lie.
CHAIRMAN: Ignore those stains. They’re nothing to do with the missing Kenna posts. They’re to do with a website that’s unrelated.
JACK: Unrelated how? Like a stepmom?
NIKKI: Or a MILF?
CHAIRMAN: That website material is nothing to do with this.
JACK: I need to get Clarissa on the blower.
CHAIRMAN: Well, it certainly wasn’t that sort of content.
JACK: Hi, I’m going to send you some data from the Kenna HQ porn laptop.
CLARISSA (on speakerphone): Interesting.
CHAIRMAN: Why are you calling it the porn laptop?
JACK: Because the jizzlamp doesn’t lie.
CLARISSA: I’ve run the data you sent. There are about 50 posts. Most of them appear to have been about someone called the Dark Lord.
NIKKI: The tactical Brambler.
JACK: Nikki, this really isn’t the episode to develop a love interest.
NIKKI: Don’t worry about me. I’m still seeing that Yank.
CHAIRMAN: Alexi Lalas?
ALEXA: Playing The La’s, There She Goes
JACK: Heroine. Here, in your desk drawer.
CHAIRMAN: It’s morphine. It belonged to my father. Mixed with beer, wine, gin and tonic, cognac, tobacco, diazepam and a changing family dynamic it’s actually quite useful for the early stages of bereavement.
CLARISSA: I found something here about football chants.
CHAIRMAN: Oh yes, I published some chants based on Newcastle United and the potential takeover by….of course!
JACK: What?
CHAIRMAN: The Saudis. Don’t you see?
NIKKI: See what? A dead body in the corner of your office and a desk that looks like a painter’s radio?
CHAIRMAN: It was the bloody Saudis! Those thin-skinned tyrants. They must have deleted all that content because they were offended by the football chants.
CLARISSA: Before you get carried away, may I ask if you ever backed up the Kenna website?
CHAIRMAN: What’s that?
CLARISSA: From what I can see here you didn’t back up your site before changing your hosting arrangements.
CHAIRMAN: No, it must have been the Saudis. I bet they’re working with vice chairman. That rat.
NIKKI: Didn’t the vice chairman come up in a toxicology report a couple of summers ago?
JACK: The whole league did, after the Dmitri Kharine Russia World Cup auction.
CLARISSA: Mr chairman, you didn’t back up your site. That’s why the posts have gone. It’s nothing to do with the Saudis.
CHAIRMAN: Then why did I receive this invitation to the Saudi consulate in the post today?
JACK: That’s a receipt from your local butcher.
CHAIRMAN: The swine.
Full scores available from The Rub
Test Team 57 – 45 Cowley Casuals
Dynamo Charlton 66 – 46 Hairy Fadjeetas
Clotted Cream First 46 – 40 TNS
Barry Town 43 – 75 Daggers
JPF 30 – 43 Lowry Travel Tavern
Fat Ladies 43 – 43 Magpies (Magpies progress as they less players who scored no points)
So Good 46 – 68 Young Boys
Bala Rinas 51 – 44 Pikey Scum
Cowley Casuals v Bala Rinas
Dynamo Charlton v Young Boys
Clotted Cream First v Magpies
Daggers v Lowry Travel Tavern
Project Restart was not going well at Kenna HQ.
Having proclaimed himself champion in March because his side were top of the table, the chairman of the world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league was hoping the season would be called off.
In addition a technical error meant all the content from the Kenna site from May 2019 had been deleted.
Kenna news, tables, teams, cup competition details and even the football chants about the Saudi takeover of Newcastle. All gone.
‘Damn it!’ said the chairman, slapping his desk in frustration, ‘There’d normally be hyperlinks to at least three other pages by this point of the post.
‘The last thing I have about a Devonian winning last year’s cup on 17 May 2019 containing Westcountry slang so ludicrous some pasty muncher will be toppling my statue.’
To add to his problems, and there were many, the restart had seen the Chairman’s XI toppled two places to third place despite the continued imperiousness of Bruno Fernandes.
Trophy-less challengers Test Team (please ignore) not only resumed their place in first, but saw their striker knighted for services to free lunches, Sir Marcus Rashford.
While the Kenna purist hopes such sanctity in a team’s ranks cannot win the title, the Kenna realist sees the parsimonious Dynamo Charlton manager just two points off the lead chasing his first championship and the Dark Lord lurking in fourth chasing his third.
And what of the cup competition? There’s no record of how the last 16 matches went and there’s as much trust among managers in the Kenna as there is among officials in the Lubyanka.
The chairman said: ‘With another five weeks remaining, the last 16, quarters, semis and final could be played in the last four.
‘We’ll call it the Lockdown Cup.’
And that appeared to be that.
Tuesday 30 June
Tuesday 7 July
Tuesday 14 July
Monday 20 July
Monday 27 July
