Tag: fantasy football

Managers,

It’s an emotional moment for the chairman.

After 15 years of visiting London pubs as a local, I now stand on the brink of visiting them as a tourist.

Nevertheless, living in Oxford will be no barrier to coming to the Kenna.

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on my first experience of football and pubs as a Londoner

I got a bar job in the Prince of Wales in Brixton during Euro 2004.

Euro 2004 of course is well known for two things:

1. It was the last time Wayne Rooney played well for England.
2. And it was the last major tournament not to have a leading London pub-based fantasy football auction attached to it.

Anyway, back in the Prince of Wales, closing up after England’s exit to Portugal I found a man smoking crack in the gents.

I was quite shocked. I’d come from the country. I’d never seen anyone doing crack before. Sleeping with their cousins maybe…

As I kicked him out I thought: ‘I’m sure London has very few pubs where people do drugs in the toilets.’

The Kenna was founded a year later.

It was August 2005. A summer of unprecedented tumult.

The London Bombings. England winning the Ashes after 17 years. Michael Owen going to Newcastle for £17m.

And out of that defiance, triumph and disappointment the Kenna was born.

The rest is history.

Now there have been many mistakes over the years. But mistakes are there form which to learn.

I’d like to share a three lessons I’ve learned:

• If your single tactic is to buy Sergio Aguero no matter the price, don’t overspend by paying £19m for Fabio Borini
• If you want to pass a doping test, don’t put the vice chairman in charge of the auction.
• On a cold winter’s evening such as this never cross the channel in a Piper-Malibu aircraft. And if you do plan to make a late-night channel crossing in a private aircraft, talk to Sol Campbell.

But overall, when I look back at London and the Kenna, I can’t but feel the world is a lot more complicated than it was for those eight co-founders in the Old Bank of England all those years ago.

We have to legislate for tactical Brambling. We have to legislate for absenteeism. We run auctions over Periscope where Silver gets racially abused for being from Pakistan.

Sometimes I can’t help but look back with nostalgia on those days of innocence.

Euro 2004. Rooney playing with youthful abandon. Someone smoking crack a pub toilet.

There’s a new game tonight. It’s called…

Kenna table week 23

THE Dulwich Red Sox manager is not eligible for any Kenna prize money because he has failed to pay a single penny of subs since 2011, according to league authorities.

Moving to an unprecedented second place in the table this week, the DRS manager is enjoying his best ever season in the Kenna with strong contributions from Mo Salah (150 points), Raul Jiminez (111) and Richarlison (97), but it could all be for nothing.

‘We’re sending a strong message to managers they must pay their subs,’ read a statement from Kenna HQ.

‘The Dulwich Red Sox manager has continually flouted requests to pay any monies whatsoever to the league and currently owes £100. He just turns up at auctions and talks b0ll0cks.’

The parsimonious DRS manager claims he has a longstanding appeal with the Kenna over a Daniel-Sturridge-first-to-score-sweepstake misunderstanding in August 2013.

Interviewed backstage at a badly-organised live music event, the DRS manager says he still refuses to cover his subs until the bet is honoured.

‘I get a sniff of league success and now I hear the Kenna isn’t going to pay out. At first it left me with a numb feeling and now I just have so much emotion rushing around inside me I’ll be up all night.’

A habitual absentee from transfer windows, the DRS manager faces a big decision this Friday if he wants to stay in with a chance of at least maintaining his league position.

Key player Aaron Ramsey is heading to Germany, Gary Cahill’s scored three points all season and Claudio Bravo is yet to appear. Nearly £30m is in the Dulwich Red Sox coffers.

Like the rest of the league, the DRS manager has until 9am on Friday to submit his released players to Kenna HQ before the window opens that night at 7pm in the Hoop & Grapes.

Krakow Cup – knock out stage fixtures

Last 16 – first leg: 12 February, second leg: 26 February

1. Turnpike Pirates v Test Team please ignore
2. Clotted Cream First v Fat Ladies
3. Hairy Fadjeetas v Dagger’n’Redbridge
4. Piss Poor v Pikey Scum
5. Tottenham Network Solutions v Newington Reds
6. Lokomotiv Leeds v Chairman’s XI
7. Dulwich Red Sox v Dynamo Charlton
8. Thieving Magpies v Sporting Lesbian

Quarter final – first leg: 5 March, second leg: 19 March

A. 1 v 3

B. 2 v 6

C. 5 v 7

D. 4 v 8

Semi final – first leg: 9 April, second leg: 23 April

A v B

C v D

Final – 14 May

Kenna table week 22

A KENNA manager is being held by the league’s manager experiences department on suspicion of spying on other clubs, it was revealed today.

The unnamed manager is under investigation for spying on Young Boys, Hairy Fadjeetas, Sporting Lesbians and Craving Cottaging.

According to a source at Kenna HQ, when questioned about why he had chosen to spy on those four clubs and not others like the Chairman’s XI or Pikey Scum he replied: ‘I wouldn’t be interested in that sort of thing.

‘I once spied on Piss Poor, but it didn’t turn out to be what I thought it might.’

Injury to Pikey Scum’s Harry Kane will be welcome news at Bikini Lane, home ground of Hairy Fadjeetas. They now top the table by more than 100 points.

Krakow Cup fixtures this weekend – final group game

Kenna table week 20

Full scores available from The Rub.

EXCITEMENT around Kenna HQ was palpable.

It was more than just the buzz from a festive excess of cheese, sloe gin or the realisation you can buy a round for the whole of a country pub for the price of two pints on Theobalds Road.

The treasurer apparently had some investment news.

The promise of a windfall was affecting different football administrators in different ways.

The vice chairman booked out the board room and was phoning his ‘contact’ for a bumper order ahead of the second transfer window. It was rumoured he would be organising the event in the chairman’s likely absence.

Giggles of glee could be heard from the charts and graphs department in anticipation of entering big numbers in their little boxes.

The chalkstripes from speculations had headed to the Kenna HQ local, the Goalshy Badger, especially early and were bounding around the public bar pool table in high spirits in between unusually long stints in the gents.

The most hubbub, however, came from the chairman‘s office.

“We can finally open the Kenna club, buy premises, get those club ties!” he was heard shouting over the din of his cocktail cabinet.

“Finally, we can attract a higher class of manager. I won’t have to slum it with these taffs, pirates and tactical dimwits,” he later claimed was misheard.

After lunch, the Kenna committee gathered in the lounge bar of the Goalshy Badger for the treasurer’s full report. The chairman opened the meeting.

“Mr treasurer, we understand you have good news for me….ahem…for the league. Pray share this update with the committee.”

As the treasurer stood preparing to speak, the chairman leafed through a brochure of commercial premises in Mayfair. The vice chairman continued to pour the contents of a small plastic bag into urine sample pots of cider.

“Our investment vehicle has made a return for the first time in 10 years,” announced the treasurer to an expectant committee.

“Tell us,” demanded the chairman, “Tell us how much? Is it £50k? £100k? No, no, you don’t mean you got a visit from Agent Million?”

Shaking, the head of charts and graphs knocked back one of the urine sample pots.

The treasurer looked embarrassed.

“Umm, it’s £25,” he said.

The room went quiet. After a few moments the chairman arose, stuffed seven urine sample pots into his pockets and disappeared over the road into the Kenna HQ executive toilet.

It would be some time before he emerged.

Krakow Cup fixtures – second group match

Kenna week 18

Kenna week 17

Kenna week 16