The sporting calendar is, I suppose, identical to the ‘normal’ one, in that, it’s a matter of ticking off milestones on the annual schedule. Instead of Christmas think Cheltenham, for Easter see Fairyhouse, Listowel Writers Week = Listowel Harvest Racing Festival. Similarly, for me, the commencement of a new soccer season in Britain is also the first manifestation of the onset of winter.
Of course, conversely, the ground based football is also one of the necessary weapons required in the negotiation of the said most difficult and taxing time of the year. Moreover, there’s the annual six week obsession – you couldn’t call it a fad because it is, in fact, returned to every year – the Fantasy Premier League game on the league’s official website.
If you’re not an aficionado, it means, you’re a fictional manager with a fictional £100m to spend assembling your squad. With the only prerequisite being that a maximum of three players from any one club was the allowed quota. Now, there will always be some who will scoff at such things as being juvenile – akin to the Panini sticker collections. Which, in fairness, generally did lose their appeal after a short enough time.
However, in an effort one suspects, to prevent FPL heading down the same slipshod roadway, in some of the leagues people run among themselves in, say, clubs or syndicates at work or whatever it may be, they will also in some cases instate a nominal fee per entry into whatever internal league they may be running among themselves. Thereafter, the cumulative amount gathered would be then divided between, for example, first to fourth, just to add to the attraction and maintain people’s interest.
No, before the Holier-than-thou conclave start fretting about excommunication and such like, it is not gambling, it’s a once a year optional payment, if patrons so desire, with whatever’s gathered being divided between the top four in the amalgam. Other than that, the only modicum of seriousness which it is thought may be attached to the FPL is that mention was made of an Irishman who finished within the top 10,000 globally being awarded some sort of prize or reward or other.
All of the immediately preceding is only a by-the-way, mind you, for 99.9% of us, it’s just a bit of craic which, for the vast majority, the annual dose of novelty will fizzle out of after about six weeks. Though this corner has absolutely no problem admitting that I do remain properly tuned into it for the entirety of the season out of a fascination with picking teams and trying to guess what the line ups for a team might be for an upcoming engagement in x, y or z sport.
Or, put a different way concerning another sport, pondering what races a trainer might run a, b or c horse in when the National Hunt season gets going in earnest. In other words, from Listowel on!
To employ a more familiar example, even though at the time of time of typing there’s only one round of the Meath club football championships taken place, I’d already be turning the mind’s eye to what the Meath senior football team might look like when next they take to the field.
In the meantime, though here’s my shot at winning the Premier League for 2025/’26. PS if you’re of the FPL persuasion, join the Boylan Talks Sport league for the craic!
Ederson (Man City) ; Gvardiol (Man City), Branthwaite (Everton), Kerkez (Liverpool), Van De Veen (Tottenham); Mbeuno (Man Utd), Salah (Liverpool), Saka (Arsenal), Tonoli (Newcastle); Bowen (West Ham), Delap (Chelsea).
Bench: Sa (Wolves), Martinez (Man Utd), Beto (Everton), Obafemi (Burnley)
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