Week 38: The fans are on the pitch, they think it's all over....

Well, it's all over! Steve Bruce can pull his pants back up and Roy Hodgson can give his a well earned wash! And we still have the Uefa Cup and Champions League Finals to look forward too (Uncle Avram will go back to growing his tomatoes in the summer whatever happens). It went down to the wire in Prem Predictions game too. And the winner is (pause like you get in X Factor)...........Nick Scraggs. Well done to you mate - you become the 9th Prem Predictions Champion, and the 3rd to work at WH Smith! (damn those guys are good!) His last week score of 140 was good enough to see off the challenges of Nick Romero and Matthew Jenns (who lead going into the last week) - hard luck guys. Andy Leck, Laura Holmes (who led from the front brilliantly for the girls all season) and Paul Barnard made up the top 6, whilst high scoring weeks from Yad Luthra and James Lilley lifted them into the top 8, and the prize winning positions. The standard this year was amazing. Nick's winning total was 4163, which beats the previous record of 3879 set by Phil Williams 2 years ago. This means that Nick averaged around 110 pts per week.

With that stat attack over, our last week also saw Alan Conley (the UK's best Floor manager) become our last £50 winner of the season - and deservedly so, as he was the only player to score over 200 - Well done mate!

BONUS TEAM: West Ham, 8 mins v Aston Villa, How ironic (and touching..sniff) that our last ever bonus team should be the Hammers. As I said before, it looks like I'll be scrapping the bonus team next season. Only 6 people went for the Hammers, and scored an extra 28 pts each. The most popular choice were Fulham. 64 of you went for them at Pompey, and it was the first time in ages that Derby's opposition were not the most popular choice to score first!

Over the season, the bonus points can make a huge difference. 65 players didn't score any at all, whilst 20 of you made an extra 200+ from them. Peter Russian will probably miss them the most as he scored an extra 408 pts in bonuses! Here were the top 10 scorers:

PETER RUSSIAN	408
NEIL KEARNEY	328
MATTHEW FLOWER	284
SIMON TAYLOR	276
CLAIR DOWELL	260
RICHARD NORRIS	260
STEPHEN JEFFERY	256
JOEL SILVERMAN	248
STEVE RICHARDS	232
MARK SWAINSON	232

PREDICTIONS CUP: Congratulations to Dan Skipp, who wins £100 after beating Peter Barrett in the Cup Final. It's a sort of double for Dan, who also won his Minileague (Fleet Support). Hard luck to Peter, but he also won his minileague (Fujitsu) so he's also a few quid up this year

SEMI FINALS - Week 37	PTS	FINAL - Week 38	PTS
PETER BARRETT	90	PETER BARRETT	49
PHILIP COX	89
DAN SKIPP	149	DAN SKIPP	78
OLIVER HOLLAND	135

THE ROLL OF HONOUR: Below is a full list of who won what, including all the minileague winners. I will be contacting all of you very shortly to arrange payment of your prize money (check the link called "The available prizes" to see what you have won). Well done to all of you. Special congratulations obviously go to our champion Nick Scraggs, who is £450 better off, as well as all of the 7 runners up who have won a prize. A mention too for Scott Bagnall who was the only player to win 2 weeks and therefore won £100, whilst Marie Stone (Greeno's minileague winner) also has the comfort of knowing that her Week 4 score of 313 was the highest weekly haul of the season (Enzo Quadradeghini was the only other player to score over 300, in week 23)

	WEEKLY WINNERS	SCORE
Week 1	SCOTT BAGNALL	213
Week 2	JOSE McCLAUGHLIN	169
Week 3	MATT HOLMES	158
Week 4	MARIE STONE	313
Week 5	NICK MOORHOUSE	188
Week 6	MATTHEW FLOWER	180
Week 7	EAMONN NEWELL	174
Week 8	SCOTT BAGNALL	247
Week 9	MARK BAXTER	247
Week 10	MATT FOOTE	260
Week 11	ROBIN SELLARS	209
Week 12	MUNCHER ROSE	253
Week 13	NICK SCRAGGS	282
Week 14	EDDY EDWARDS	236
Week 15	ROBIN BULLOCK	271
Week 16	LOUIS GOODEY	143
Week 17	YAU YUNG	193
Week 18	SAM KNOWLES	261
Week 19	PETER SCRIVINER	206
Week 20	MARK PHILLIPS	196
Week 21	JAMES MARLOW	232
Week 22	MARK ADAMS	207
Week 23	ENZO QUARADEGHINI	303
Week 24	ALEX WILLIAMS	186
Week 25	NICK DEAR	194
Week 26	JON MURPHY	212
Week 27	NIGEL JOHNSTON	240
Week 28	STEVE BOULTON	227
Week 29	RICHARD TAGGART	165
Week 30	MARK EDWARDS	228
Week 31	JON GRIFFIN	170
Week 32	JEFF RICHARDSON	170
Week 33	JONNY WILKES	233
Week 34	PHIL WALSH	230
Week 35	MARC FAREY	247
Week 36	MARK BURGESS	176
Week 37	NICK ROMERO	224
Week 38	ALAN CONLEY	203
	THE TOP 8	TOTAL
Champion	NICK SCRAGGS	4163
Runner Up	NICK ROMERO	4102
3rd	MATTHEW JENNS	4089
4th	ANDY LECK	4038
5th	LAURA HOLMES	3993
6th	PAUL BARNARD	3993
7th	YAD LUTHRA	3913
8th	JAMES LILLEY	3911
	PREDICTIONS CUP	SCORE
Winner	DAN SKIPP	78
Runner Up	PETER BARRETT	44
	MINILEAGUES	TOTAL
Ascot	KEVIN PHILPOTT	3525
Bankers	DANIEL KENTON	3674
Blue Arrow	JAMES TRICE	3312
Bodgers Todgers	CHRIS JONES	3614
Broadcasters	PHIL WYE	3546
Brooklands	MATTHEW JENNS	4089
British Telecom	JAMES LILLEY	3911
Curry Cup	MARK BURGESS	3798
Daniel Galvin	RICHARD TAGGART	3910
Devonshires	PAUL BARNARD	3993
Fleet Support	DANIEL SKIPP	3824
Fujitsu	PETER BARRETT	3743
Greeno's League	MARIE STONE	3739
HMV	LAURA HOLMES	3993
Jon Cuff All Stars	MARK ALBOROUGH	3750
Links Plus	MATT FOOTE	3843
Max's Friends	DAVE COLOSIMO	3682
Music	CHRIS HAWKES	3552
Polytechnic	SIMON TAYLOR	3470
PR & Marketing	YAD LUTHRA	3913
Reading Council	NICK ROMERO	4102
Scottish	ANDY LECK	4038
Soccer Six	BEN SHEPHARD	3707
WH Smith	NICK SCRAGGS	4163

AND FINALLY... I hope you all enjoyed playing and will be back for another season. I'll be sending the usual invite some time in the Summer, and you are all welcome to extend it to new players. I'd like to thank a few people for their help and enthusiasm this season (namely sending scores in on behalf of others and helping to organise their minileagues)...Gary Dinsey, Joel Silverman, Bobby Collier, Lino Carbosiero, Ken Pritchard, Nick Rose, Neil Dowling, Jon Cuff, Max Rushden, Ben Burger, Andrew Savage..sorry if I've missed anyone off. I'd also like to thank Jon Murphy at Konami for providing us with some fab Pro Evolution Soccer prizes. Most of all, Id like to thank David Rakison for his brilliant work on the blog. This is a guy I have never actually met, who is a Professor of Psychology at one of the USA's leading Universities, and he does it for free!

Hope you all have a great summer. Forza Azzurri! ATB, Ciro

And I'd like to extend a big thanks to Ciro for making something as simple as predicting football scores so fun. Who else could make me care what happens when Reading play Wigan? The blog will be back with a new look in August. Cheers until then. David

Week 37: What a Nana!

What a great time for Nick Romero to post a big score. Not only does his 224 win him the penultimate £50 of the season, but it moves him to within only 17 points of the title. But he still has 2 opponents to beat, with Matthew Jenns and Nick Scraggs swapping positions at the top. I don't ever recall 3 players being in with a shout in the last week before! As you can see, It's not inconceivable that those from 4th down to 7th could also still win with a big score, but with prize money down to 8th, are they really prepared to risk some unexpected last day predictions?

PREV	POS	NAME	WEEK	BONUS	TOTAL
2	1	MATTHEW JENNS	142	0	4031
1	2	NICK SCRAGGS	70	0	4023
5	3	NICK ROMERO	224	0	4014
3	4	ANDY LECK	96	0	3911
4	5	LAURA HOLMES	99	0	3892
10	6	RICHARD TAGGART	204	20	3872
6	7	PAUL BARNARD	99	0	3865
8	8	ROB PARKER	106	0	3809
7	9	MATT FOOTE	77	0	3794
9	10	YAD LUTHRA	79	0	3776

BONUS TEAM: Man Utd, 3 mins v West Ham. Surely this was as obvious as they come? I think we can safely say the favour has been returned! (sorry Blues fans!) I thought more than 41 of you have got this. Then again, there were only 20 pts available, and this might explain why 52 of you went for the max 60 via Sunderland at Bolton (though the 65 who went for Blackburn v Derby was the highest)

PREDICTIONS CUP: Week 37 saw the 2 semi finals played, and they lived up to the billing! Dan Skipp beat Oli Holland 149 to 135 in the highest scoring semi. Oli can consider himself a bit unlucky as he would have the won the other tie! But that couldn't have been closer with Peter Barrett edging out Philip Cox by 90-89! Hard luck to both losers. Well done to Peter and Dan, who will meet in Week 38, with the winner getting £100.

SEMI FINALS - Week 37	PTS	FINAL - Week 38
PETER BARRETT	90	PETER BARRETT
PHILIP COX	89
DAN SKIPP	149	DAN SKIPP
OLIVER HOLLAND	135

MINILEAGUES: Just a quick round up of those that are too close to call as we go into the final week:

- James Trice has a 77 pt lead to defend over David Taylor in the Blue Arrow League

- Ian Dennis has a 48 pt advantage over Phil Wye in the Broadcasters League

- Simon Taylor leads Danny Collington by 22 in the Polytechnic League (with Mick Delaney a further 16 behind)

- Neil Dowling has reduced the gap to Peter Barrett in the Fujitsu League to just 11 pts

- 11 pts is the same gap that Ian Shaw has over Mark Alborough in the Jon Cuff All Stars League (with Nik Patel also in close contention).

- Meanwhile, the smallest lead sees Daniel Kenton with only 1 pt to protect over Bobby Reeve in the Bankers League.

- But probably the most wide open League is the Soccer Six League, where the top 6 of Lino Carbosiero, Ben Shephard, Ant McPartlin, Gary Mabbutt, Robbie Williams and Jonny Wilkes are separated by only 108 pts.

Godd Luck to you all! Ciro