Monday, 31 May 2021

Last Post of the Season

At last the final whistle has now been blown on our historic 38th  Season of Golden Goals and another covid season has passed without too much trouble. I am very glad that this season has passed the winning post. But it was not the season that we managed to beat our highest ever recorded number of entries of 149 players. The success of this season was all down to you. The good news is that we do not have to wait long for the next season to start. Although we once again lost a few friends this season, we have also gained some new ones. Lets hope that we can continue with this nice run as we have had a lot of success over our full 38 year history of Golden Goals. 

This season even with the virus, we did have a couple of records that have been broken this season, but more on this later. I hope that you have had a lot of fun watching your name go up and down the table and as shown above is where your combination of teams have left you standing in the final position of the season. But before we go all into that, lets take a look at what happened to the last few games of the season. 

Championship Play-Offs

We had had three of the four teams playing for a place in the Premier League. BRENTFORD lost their first leg game against BOURNEMOUTH 1-0 away to pick up their eleventh blank score sheet. They then won the second leg game 3-1 at home to win 3-2 on aggregate. Bournemouth finished on a total of 84 goals which is their highest score with us. They have beaten their previous 2002/03 Season score of 79 goals. In the other play-off game, SWANSEA won 1-0 away to Barnsley in their first leg game and then drew their second leg 1-1. Swansea won 2-1 on aggregate. In the Final, it was BRENTFORD who are promoted to the Premier League for the very first time after they won 2-0 against SWANSEA. Brentford have finished the season with 96 goals which is their best score beating their highest score of 95 goals from the 1998/99 Season. They had a total of 18 votes. Swansea picked up their thirteenth blank score sheets and finished on a total of 64 goals and had just one vote. 

League One Play-Offs

We also had three of the four teams here with OXFORD UNITED losing 3-0 at home to Blackpool in the first leg and that was their sixteenth blank of the season. With their second leg game they drew 3-3 at home and lost 6-3 on aggregate. Oxford United finished their season on a total of 83 goals. LINCOLN CITY won their first leg game 2-0 at home to SUNDERLAND. That was Sunderlands eighth blank of the season. In their second leg game they lost 2-1 away. Lincoln won 3-2 on aggregate. Sunderland finished their season with a total of 72 goals. In the Final, Lincoln City took on Blackpool and lost 2-1. Lincoln City finished on a total of 88 goals which is their best end of season score with Golden Goals. They had just one vote this season. 

League Two Play-Offs 

Only one of our teams made it through to the play-offs here and they were TRANMERE ROVERS. They lost their first leg game 2-1 at home against Morecambe and drew their second leg game 1-1. Tranmere lost 3-2 on aggregate. Tranmere finished the season on a total of 61 goals and had one vote. 

So it’s Congratulations to (Me) STEVE REEVE as I now becomes our 38th Champion with Golden Goals staying at the top for the last sixteen weeks of the season. This is the second time that I have won and the last time was back in the 2008/09 Season with 290 goals. So I am back in our history book and in the Champions League where I finished in 22nd place on 307 goals. I had the winning combination of  BRENTFORD (96) MANCHESTER CITY (106) and Rangers (105).  All three of my teams finished as our top three teams. I picked up three blank score sheets throughout the season In the end I finished just 9 goals clear of  Michael Fisher who finally finished in second place with a total of 298 goals. 

ROAD TO CHAMPION

So our new Champion’s name, STEVE REEVE is now back in our history book, but what about the other people who managed to get to that magic number one spot. We had a total of six players that made it there is season. We already know that I was at the top for sixteen weeks and the longest. JED WEARDEN came next with a total of 13 weeks staying there in weeks 9 to 14 and then again from weeks 16 to 22. We then had LINDA ADKINS with 5 weeks and KEITH THOMSON with just two single weeks. We then had two players that had just one week and that was FIONA CARTHY with the very first week and BOB SAWYER in week 3. 

Below is the list of our top five champions of  Golden Goals. 

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 

                                   NAME                   M/W           W/E          TOTAL 

                              1. L. KING                   116            239              355      2001/02

                              2. P. DAVEY                 132            216              348      2013/14

                              3. J. WOOD                   92             252              344       2016/17     

                              4. M. PEPPERRELL      91             247             338      2002/03

                             5. C. BOLBERY             95             239              334      2009/10 

So what happened to our past Champions. Well we had our largest field ever with a total of sixteen that played in this season. Only two finished in the top twenty-five and they were STEVE REEVE our 2008/09 Champions in 1st place and TOBY BICKNELL our 2014/15 Champion finished in 6th place. We then six more that finished in the top 50 and they were me CHRIS BOLBERY who won in our 2017/18 Champion in 28th place followed by last seasons 2019/20 Champion BRADLEY CLARK in 32nd place. We then had our 2002/03 Champion MICHAEL PEPPERRELL in 35th place. In 37th place came KELLIE STRATTON 2018/19 Champion and KEAUS SETNA 2005/06 Champion in 41st place. RICHARD WILLIMS 2015/16 Champion was next in 43rd place. Our lowest Champion finished in 90th place who was our 2016/17 Champion JOHN WOOD. 

At the other end of the table, we had seven players that landed on number 116. The player who finished rock bottom this season was JOHN NICHOLLS. John was there for the last twenty-two consecutive weeks of the season. Over the season John picked up eight blank score sheets. He had the combination of  BRISTOL CITY (57) FULHAM (32) and WEST BROM (42) total of 131 goals. John’s combination finished in 38th place in our losers league and we can now add his name in the history book as the lowest scorer ever. John has beaten our previous record of 146 goals by a pub team called RU SHAW in the 1995/96 Season. John has also finished bottom for three seasons now equaling Freda Hillier record.  John’s other seasons were 2008/09 and 2014/15. Jacqui Rattle was the second longest with a total of nine weeks. She had a run from Weeks 8 to 16. Ryan FC came next next with three weeks from Week 4 to 6. We then had four players with one week each. They were Peter Wellard with our very first week, Robert Fuller in the second week and Scott Clark in our third week. Rebecca Harrington was in our 7th week. GRAEME BRITTON holds the record for the highest score of our losers league with 214 goals from our 2004/05 season. 

100 MIDWEEK GOALS JACKPOT

The Prize Money for the 100 Midweek Goals Jackpot was worth £40 this season and it was shared between two players. They were RAYMOND HARROD and CHRIS SETFORD in week 28 by reaching 100 midweek goals first. We had a total of 63 players to hit 100 this season and that is a Golden Goals record beating last season total of 51. But we did not end up with the highest midweek score. The honor went to Michael Jacobson with 126 goals for this season. Daryl Nicholls holds the highest midweek record with 136 goals from our 2016/17 Season. 

BEAT THE SCORE

The fantastic sum of  £65 cash prize money for BEAT THE SCORE has not been picked up once again this season. The prize money will go to the first person who scores 19 goals or more at the weekend. So I hope that we can add more cash to the pot next season. The holder of this record is Mark Rymer with 18 goals scored way back in our 1998/99 season, so it’s about time that some-one beat that score now.  

THE TOP THREE TEAMS FINISHED AS 

MANCHESTER CITY (106) RANGERS (105) BRENTFORD (96) Total of  307 goals. 

We had just two teams that picked up 100 or more goals this season. They were MANCHESTER CITY who ended the season with a total of 106 goals. City have played in 48 games this season which gave them an average score of 2.2 goals per game. They were our top English team with 71 votes and they picked up just four blank score sheets throughout the season. Last season they finished on 127 goals and although this is their worst season for four seasons, they have now scored over 100 goals in their last four consecutive seasons.  This is their 7th Season out of 27 that they have scored 100 or more goals scored by the end of the season. Over the 27 seasons, they have scored a total of 2323 goals which now gives them an average score of 86 goals per season. In second place was RANGERS with 105 goals and they had a total of 16 votes. They picked up just one blank score sheet once again in the 43 games. This is their best score in five seasons as last season they finished on just 77 goals. This is their 16th Season out of 37 that they have scored 100 or more goals. The third team finished with BRENTFORD who finished on a total of 96 goals which is their best end of season score. They have been with us for 19 seasons now and over that time they have netted a total of 1397 goals. That now gives them an average score of 73.5 goals per season. They had 18 vote this season and they picked up a total of eleven blank score sheets.

So lets see what has happen to our other teams although it seems a bit harsh with what has happen to the fixture they had to play this season. So here are a few of them. LIVERPOOL with 30 votes finished with 81 goals which is their lowest score in five seasons. Last season they finished on a total of 96. PETERBOROUGH with 13 votes finished with a total of 86 goals which is their best in their last five seasons with us. MANCHESTER UNITED with 12 votes finished on a total of 87 which is the same as last season. ARSENAL with 11 votes finished on just 60 goals which is their lowest score ever. WEST HAM with 2 votes finished on a total of 76 goals which is their best in their last five seasons. SALFORD CITY were in their second season with us and they have beaten last seasons total of 51 goals with 56 this season. CHELTENHAM beat their previous score of 55 goals in 1999/00 season with 71 this season. CELTIC’S run of ten consecutive season with 100 or more goals, which is a Golden Goals record, has finally came to the end as they picked up just 81 goals. This is the worst season since 2006/07 Season on where they finished on the same number of goals. New Boys HARROGATE TOWN with one vote finished on a total of 55 goals. 

THE WORST THREE TEAMS FINISHED AS 

FULHAM (32) SOUTHEND (32) STENHOUSEMUIR (36) Total of 98 goals 

Once again our worst teams were probably not our worst teams for this covid season but as their season was unusual we had FULHAM in their 16th appearance with Golden Goals and it will go down as their worst season as they finished on their lowest score of 32 goals. They had just three votes. Next came SOUTHEND with 18 appearance’s. They finished on a total of 32 goals which is their lowest recorded score. They had just one vote. Our third worst team was STENHOUSEMUIR finishing on 34 goals which is their lowest score in their 14 appearance’s with us. They also had just one vote this season. Other teams that picked up their lowest score on record are ABERDEEN with 40 goals. BIRMINGHAM with 37 goals. NOTTINGHAM FOREST with 39 goals and WOLVES with just 38 goals. Other teams with their lowest scores include BRIGHTON, FALKIRK, FLEETWOOD TOWN, LUTON, MOTHERWELL, ROTHERHAM and SCUNTHORPE. 

Our biggest result in our 38th Season came from MANCHESTER UNITED as they won 9-0 at home against  Southampton in the league in Week Twenty-Three.    

SOUTHEND have picked up the most number of blank score sheets this season with twenty-six after forty-eight games played.

Well that’s it, another season of GOLDEN GOALS has finally finished. I still can not believe that I have been doing this competition for 38 year’s and after a hell of a lot of work this season not only with 116 players taking part, but also with the virus that hit our football again in the early part of the season, I will still be looking forward to the next one and hoping that we can beat our record of 149 players from the 2017/18 Season.

Here are our top winners for this season H=highest L=Lowest positions.        

   FINAL     LAST                                                                            M/WEEK    W/END    TOTAL       

   WEEK    SHEET          H         L             NAME                           GOALS      GOALS   GOALS             

       1              -                 1        43             S. REEVE (2008/09)        110             197          307

      2             3                 2        74             M. FISHER                        105            193          298 

      3             2                 2        70             C. WEBB                           101            196          297

      4              -                 3        56            S. MARSHALL                 97              195          292            

      5              -                2         38             M. JOHNSTON               101             191          292           

      6             7                 4       111            T. BICKNELL (2014/15)  113             175          288 

      7             6                 4        66             G. PHILLIPS                     97               190          287

      8           10                 7      106             D. ZENIOUS                     123             162          285

      9           13                 8        87             A. EYLES                          113             170          283 

    10             9                 4        46             R. HARROD                   121             162          283

    11             8                 1        16             J. WEARDEN                  90               192          282           

   12              -                 8      108             P. COLLINS                    114             166          280           

   13           20              10      113             TIM WOOD                     109             169          278            

   14           21              13      104             G. HARRIS                      114             163          277            

  15           16                 9      114             C. DICKER                     122             155          277            

  16           11                 8        79             D. HUGHES                    108             168          276            

  17           25              20      110             S. KEMP (1)                     110             166          276            

 18           19                 5        39             M. LIDDLE                     116             159          275            

  19           26              14        81             B. BARNES (1)               108             166          274            

  20           29              12      107             M. CORBETT                  108             166          274            

 21           18                 7        66             M. GREGORY                116             158          274            

  22           24              22      113             G. BROWN                      104             169          273            

  23           14              14        68             D. BARRETT                   112             161          273            

  24           15              10        65             J. SOMERVILLE             118             154          272            

  25           28              11        65             T. WARWICK                   90               181          271 

  26           23              12        68             M. JACOBSON               126              145          271            

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