Could this be Colben United!

Well another year has come to an end. Naturally I am very pleased that Colin and myself have stayed on top despite all the boasts at the start of the year.
Roger & Andrew did very well and remained in second place for most of the season. As for Martyn, congratulations on moving off the bottom.

I had a great football year: I saw Liverpool beat Newcastle at Anfield and sadly Manchester United lose to Barcelona in Rome.

I enjoyed both matches and hopefully will see some more next year.

I hope you all return next year and maybe dethrone Colin and myself from the top?

Best wishes,

Bentley

Tags: Football

Good Luck Northern Ireland

Well, it has been a very long time; sorry about the delay. However in that time the only changes made were to Colben United.

Well done Roger and Andrew you have moved up to second place, mainly due to the magnificent Gerrard being on form (one of only two players in the Liverpool team!!!!!).

We have a little break this weekend and hopefully our home teams will do well over the next few days, especially Northern Ireland. Take the break and review your teams as we close in on the end and see if you can close the gap at the top. Again the question for another year is: who will come second?

The transfer code is on the “Our League” page. Go on make some changes; you know you want to!

Best wishes,

Bentley

Tags: Football

The star player in three of our teams is Nemanja Vidic and he has been selected by four managers; all of whom will have celebrated his goal on Sunday.

Graeme has overtaken his brother and Aaron to move into second place. Well done Graeme, but still you are 147 behind the leaders.

If any of you want help with changing your teams you can contact me and I will try and help.


A nice picture of an arrogant player being made a fool of.


Will be missed!

Best wishes,

Bentley

With a fantastic score of 132 points in one week, Colben United stretched their lead at the top of the table to move 149 points ahead of their nearest rival; Azza’s Dazzlers. Is the battle again this year for second and third place or can someone catch Colin and Bentley?

Part of the reason for the success of Colben United is that they make changes to their team when necessary.

Why are teams sitting with Torres, Walcott, Fabregas and Hargreaves in them? No points can be gained from having injured players in a team, get rid of them. Then there are players lurking in teams and they are not getting the team points; Gareth Bale (2 points)!

The next two photographs are just a hint.



The transfer code is on the league table page.

Access to the Daily Telegraph site is with the e-mail address:
colbenunited@mac.com and the password is cantona

I just can’t resist the next photo; Colin suggested that I should add prison bars in front of the picture!!!!

The Premiership is back after a short break and our league is proving to be very fluid.

A lot of change has occurred this week with leading teams falling down the table.
I am very pleased that Colben United is back at the top. Colin is helping to run the team from the other side of the world; 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand. He’ll be reading this in warm sunshine!!!

It was great to see Celtic lose on Tuesday and I really like Berbatov post match interviews!

As usual our league is updated on this site and the current transfer code can also be found on the league page.

Best wishes,

Bentley

Roger and Andrew are increasing their lead and are shooting up the Daily Telegraph League. They are well ahead of the rest of us.

I am pleased that Colben United has climbed up our own table to second place and Romsey Disunited has had a much better week.

Roger, thanks for the comment on last week’s blog. I hope everyone else starts to use it!

Best wishes,

Bentley

Calamity Football!

Another week has passed and again it is all change in our league. Roger and Andrew have again moved to the top of the league and all the other teams have been shuffled around.

Two teams have been in the transfer market in an attempt to reverse their poor results this week.

It was a good week for England supporters and not too bad for Northern Ireland ones either. (Colin managed to get himself a ticket for the Northern Ireland match)

Have a look at the changes made to two of the teams; comments welcome!

Best wishes,

Bentley

Here we go again; the new season has begun and at long last the new website is up and running. I hope you like the re-design?

Our first results are in and it is all change at the start of the new season: Roger is at the top and Martyn is in third position. Maybe this year we will have a close competition and a new champion.

Comments are welcome and encouraged!

Thanks,

Bentley

I am sure a number of our managers were very happy on Sunday and a lot fo fingernails have been bitten away.

Aaron had another excellent score this week and has cemented his position in 4th place.

Just one more week left; how many of you are going to change your team and pick up some final points?

Have any of you checked to see which Premiership team you actually are? This information is available and if you do not know we will publish it next week and celebrate the best player!

Manchester United v Liverpool - Warm-up Photo: Colin Morrow

Four of our Fantasy Football Managers have exceeded 1000 points this year so far. Details are on the league table page. Congratulations guys.
Oh it was difficult watching Setanta Sports yesterday, in fact I had to stop watching it was so nail biting!

Aaron has really turned around his team. Not so long ago he was bottom, but now he is a very respectable 4th - well done. As a result Rory has really slipped down the league. ( Rory you were so sure you were going to win!!!!)

Just a few weeks to go.......USE UP THOSE TRANSFERS!

Well that was an enjoyable afternoon a couple of pints and 4 sweet goals!
Even better was the thought of Rory sitting in the 'Bot' drowning his sorrows!!!!!

Not many points this week and no change to the rankings.

Looking forward to this week to see how Colben United do in the Champions League - did no one else join us?

Best wishes,

Bentley

Inghilterra (Italy B Team)

There have been some very respectable scores this week and again we have to congratulate Graeme on an excellent score of 83.

Colben United also did well this week with a fantastic score of 92. Some changes have also been made to Colben Rangers in an attempt to power ahead of the pack!

Have a look at our changes and comment if you like. We also have entered a Colben United team into the Champions League competition, have a look at our team and again your comments and thoughts would be welcome.

Not a good day! Not good at all.

Well it has been a long time since the last update.
Normal service has been resumed; all the pages have been updated and Colben Rangers is in the lead!
I have just been looking through all the teams and a number of the manager's have not made changes. We are over halfway through the season; tut tut.... come on you know it does not make sense. After all we need all our managers to perform well, because as a league we want to do well.
Graeme got a fantastic score this week and he has made changes.
If you want a reminder on how to make transfers etc. contact Colin or myself and we will help.

If you have any comments to make about the site or our league pass them on, also don't forget you can add comments to this blog!

I would like to add the name of your top player to your page; so e-mail me the name. If you make changes to your team, e-mail me and I will update your page.

The Anthems Rasunda Stadium, Stockholm

I am just back from a great trip to Stockholm to watch the National Team, the only British team to have some success this week!
Justin and Kate Turner treated me to a day trip to Stockholm to watch Northern Ireland play Sweden. We joined our fellow Northern Ireland supporters (The Green and White Army) at the Stadium. The atmosphere was amazing and it is not hard to see why Uefa selected them as the Best Fans in Europe, they are totally nuts, they just sing and sing and sing. We arrived nearly two hours before the game, the fans were singing and we stayed on long after the game, they were still singing and as we walked to the coach we could still hear them singing their hearts out in the Stadium. The songs are actually funny, the crowd are out for a good night and are really enjoying themselves. Lots of typical Ulster humour; slightly black and self deprecating! After baiting the Swedish fans all night with their songs, they then started to sing "we love you Sweden" as the Swedish fans left; they in turn left clapping and waving at the Northern Irish fans.
The atmosphere was so infectious and uplifting that they should bottle it and sell it!


The Game.

The game itself was very good, Northern Ireland played really well right from the start. The same cannot be said of Sweden, although they scored the first goal. The Northern Irish Players kept on sweeping forward and eventually in the second half, Kyle Lafferty scored a beautiful goal. At this point I got showered in beer as everyone's arms shot up in the air, but who cares we were deservedly level.
Although we came close to a win, we had to settle for a draw. There was no doubt Northern Ireland were the better team, not only did they beat Sweden in Belfast they now humiliated Sweden by getting a draw in Stockholm!. The Swedish press were boasting that the Northern Ireland team were 'Lambs to the Slaughter' (Kate brought some blow up sheep!) and they were expecting to book their place in the finals as a result of this game. However yet again 'Our wee country' set back the plans of another of the mightier teams, by taking 4 points in total from them!


The Green and White Army

Earlier in the day I did some sightseeing in Stockholm, a really beautiful city. I really must return.



The Flag of Northern Ireland

Torres
We are well into the second week and this is already an unpredictable rollercoaster....Red Cards, Incompetent Referees and Injuries; what will come next? Rory has stormed into the lead with a super score. Will this success continue?

Happy 18th Birthday David; it must be your week, because you are well in the lead after the first week. I think everyone else will be in the doldrums.

Bentley

Fabregas: is he going to score this year?

Our League was set up on time thanks to the hard work Colin put in to achieve it. It took ages to complete; the Daily Telegraph require loads of information to be filled in for each manager. He persevered for a couple of nights and now we are up and running. The first weekend is now over. The scores are probably not going to be very good and we may be in for a few surprises. We should also welcome our new manager Rory Mills and his team Persil Amsterdam. He told me he always wins when he uses this name!!!
Best wishes,
Bentley

Cristiano Ronaldo; The Best Performing Player in Our League

That is the first year over, roll on next year.

I have updated the final League Table after the FA Cup Final. The final positions did not change, with Bentley and Colin a bit too far ahead and David second.
I am very proud of the achievement Colin and I had with our original team Colben United as we came 7124th in the Daily Telegraph League. There were hundreds of thousands of teams behind us.

Rory has asked to join next year and as we have learnt a few lessons this year, hopefully we will be in for a close competition. MAKE THOSE TRANSFERS NEXT YEAR!

See you all again in August and have a good summer.

Bentley

JUST ONE WEEK LEFT.
Everyone in our league has scored more than 1000 points.

Just the FA Cup Final left to get a few more points on the board and then that is it for this year.

David has again edged ahead of Aaron into second place. However there have been no other changes this week.

The leaders are 265 points ahead and 140,389 positions above David who is in second place! Pretty good really.

Best wishes and enjoy saturday.

Bentley

We are getting to the end, but I hope you are all getting your strategy in place for next season.
Rory has asked if he can join our league next season. This combined with the experience gained this year, will hopefully make the competition a lot tighter!

That 200 point lead is back!

Best wishes,
Bentley

Mr Dependable

Well that was close.

That 200 point lead nearly went this week because David stormed through from third place to second place.

Well done David with an excellent score of 54 (Bad Luck Aaron)

That 200 point lead is still there - but only just.

The middle of the table is also pretty dynamic this week as Roger is snapping at Graeme's heels.

As can be seen from these results there is still a lot to play for.

Best wishes,
Bentley

Matthew Taylor Strikes Again

Hi Colleagues,

Again lots of respectable scores this week.

I did hope you would try and keep us from getting a lead of 200 points. Alas no.
We are pretty pleased that as a result of a good score this week we have moved ahead by 200 points.

I hope you all haven't given up, but sometimes I think you have.

There are things to achieve:
-Second Place
-Claw back those points and stop Colben Rangers winning by 200 points
-Change those teams to start reflecting the final weeks and the FA cup
-Get rid of injured and poor performing players

Come on folks go for that final sprint, you don't really want all those unused transfers at the end!!!! Do You?

Best wishes,
Bentley

Old Trafford 10 April 2007 (Photo: Colin Morrow)

Hi Folks,

I got this text message from Colin whilst I was watching the Manchester United v Roma game on tv: "Walking on air at the moment; it's bouncing in here tonight!" - some people have all the luck!!! I can't complain, he brought me a Programme back from Manchester.

Well back to our own League; the Lewis brothers both got pretty respectable scores this week. Well done.

I was a bit disappointed with Colben Rangers. I think we would need to do some adjustments! Unusually for us, we have left an injured player in there. However I didn't get the transfer code this week - does anybody know it?

We are aiming for a clear 200 point lead. Why not try and stop us!!!!!!!

The table has stayed the same for some time; Aaron is still second. (Good work Aaron)

Best wishes,
Bentley

Northern Ireland do it again

What a great week, is there no end to the Northern Ireland dream? As you can imagine people in God's own country are pretty happy with their football team. I hope you enjoyed the comments in the e-mail from a Danish guy about the Northern Ireland - Sweden game.

By the way I just can't resist this: In Liechtenstein the NI supporters were singing to the home team: "Are you England in disguise?"

Back again to our own Fantasy Football League. Graeme had a pretty good week scoring 44 points; again the middle of the table is getting tight.
Roger and Andrew also had an excellent score and have beaten that important 1000 point barrier.

Best wishes,
Bentley

Colin, just a bit frustrated that he can't play football until next season (also a bit sad that he cannot travel to see Northern Ireland at the end of the week)

Hi fellow managers,

Some superb results in week 31-just check out those scores on the league table page.

Graeme has now smashed the 1000 point barrier. Well done Graeme.

Roger and Andrew also had a superb score and will also soon break the 1000 point barrier.

My colleague above has had a few bits of metal added after a stay in hospital, but that did not stop him making changes to our team, enabling us to get a super score this week.

Good luck to "our wee country this weekend"

Best wishes,
Bentley

Pedersen

Hi Folks,

Firstly, well done Colin, despite being hospitalised with a Football Injury, you still managed to make a few changes to our teams in time for the FA cup.
The result was, that in a week when there were few matches, we still managed to pick up some respectable scores for both our teams.

The hint was in last week's blog!

It is transfer time, many of you have lots of transfers you can make, try it, it works.

Let's see if we can make a few changes to the league positions before the end of the season - it is good practice for next season. (We do have someone hammering at the door wanting to join our little league?)

Best wishes,
Bentley

Cesc Fabregas scores and some of us lose points! (Bad luck Fabregas)

Well done Aaron and David, you both sailed over the 1000 points barrier and are now challenging each other for second place.

We are now getting towards the end of the season and quite a number of you have a lot of transfers left. Use a few of them and see if you can change the fortunes of your teams.

Remember the FA Cup counts. (That might be a hint)

I am asking again; who do you think is the best player in our Fantasy Football League?

Your answer can be left for us all to see; just click COMMENTS below.

Best wishes,
Bentley

Hi Colleagues,

The best score this week was a 40 from Roger and Andrew.

I thought I would include a picture of Steven Gerrard this week, because after a lack of goals recently he got some of our teams a few much needed points this week.

Who is it going to be - Aaron or David? which of these two teams will break the 1000 point mark first?

Does anyone know what the code is for transfers this week (I forgot to buy a Telegraph)?

Best wishes,
Bentley

Just thought I would put this picture of my namesake in here.


Well I've been trying to get this answer for some time, but it really would be good to get some views and maybe some discussion on this one.

Let's have a little vote?

Nominate your Player of the Year for our League (with some reasons why) and let's see who comes out on top!

Bentley