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
