Worldcup 98 - The Final Countdown

Pos	Name	Pts	Judge’s Comment
1	Gerry Hooker	296	The Boy Hooker more or less cleaned up. First in with his guess sheet, a respectable anagram all to do with escorts and knobs, winner by 2 points after round one, stretching to 16 points by the end. He conclusively proved the point that footballing ignorance is a real advantage.
2	Chris Staples	280	Always there or there abouts save for a brief murmur around game 13. Predicted the right result in all Group C matches, mustering 48 points. Chris curiously expected Spain to score four without reply against Nigeria. Embarrassing yes, but not as embarrassing as the Spanish goalkeeper Mr Zubi.
3	Twinnie (M)	274	The real surprise packet of the competition. Initially dismissed as a novelty entrant, he rose steadily through the ranks leaving more experienced player’s floundering in his wake. A urine sample has been requested.
4	Gillian Hicks	272	Gillian was riding a veritable roller-coaster in the early stages before concentrating on the job in hand and rising to a high spot of 2^nd. Wins the coveted LSF prize, an old Gillwell volleyball cup.
5	Dave Herbert	268	Erratic performance but on an improving trend from one of the pre-match favorites following his 4^th in Euro 96. Another who found it difficult to recover from putting so much faith in Spain, Group D mustering just 6 measly points. Has just rebooked a holiday in Ibiza for one in Lagos.
5	Mike Walshe	268	Rose steadily to a high point of 2^nd, also predicting the right result in all Group C matches. Let himself down by contracting competition amnesia in the later stages - otherwise that £100 could well have been heading North.
7	Steve Bell	262	Flirted with the top spot early on before being distracted by planning a wedding (his own) and falling away slightly. Must learn to keep a sense of perspective in life.
8	Darren Darvill	260	Steady progress from our man in America, 40 points from Group H being the highlight. On his entry form Darren foolishly admitted to knowing nothing about football (rather like his hosts in fact). He only just survived the stewards enquiry.
8	Andrew Burgess	260	Had so many points robbed by last minute goals it’s just not fair. Currently working out an alternative scoring system for Euro 2000 based on 89 minutes of play.
10	I & C Woodland	256	This man-and-wife combination made it to a high-spot of 2^nd around the 10 game mark before male logic asserted itself over female intuition. Once the rolling pin had been re-deployed an excellent 2^nd phase 72 points ensued, but it was all too late.
11	John Irwin	254	Late entrant who got off to a slow start before peaking at 3^rd. Was tucked in nicely before being sent to site by work and forgetting all about the real world.
12	Terry Bennett	252	A jittery old graph this one, but Terry completed the main objective of beating his wife. The social services are currently investigating.
13	Twinnie (G)	250	A notable Group A with three 10s and three 0s. Made the mistake of believing Kevin Keegan’s informed comment that “there’s only one winner from here - and that’s England” and consequently paid the penalty.
14	Fiona Bennett	248	Top Banana of phase two with 74 points, even tipping France to beat Brazil. Another graph looking like the results of some Fourier analysis of fractal geometry, but certainly finished on the up.
14	Wally West	248	The opening match marked the zenith of Wally’s achievements, a bit like Scotland really. Seemed to believe that our Celtic cousins would be able to score five times, and suffered for it.
16	Jenny Burgess	246	Things were getting a bit dodgy in the Burgess household when Germany came back to rob the poor Mexicans of their deserved victory, a depressing double-whammy giving Mrs B the temporary ascendancy. Fortunately the bits of seaweed subsequently began to lose their magical powers, preventing four years of ritual humiliation at dinner parties (possibly).
16	Dave Dixon	246	Yet another to predict the right result in all Group C matches, with a record 52 points from one group. Well done David! Unfortunately being another paella-picker, David is also the co-holder of the record humanoid group low with a grand total of 6 points from Group D. Well done David!
18	Karen Woodland	244	Likely to be in great demand on the dinner party circuit in the next four years, Karen produced a tremendous performance, sneaking past Mr W at the semi-final stage.
18	Andy West	244	Steady if unspectacular performance from this Pompey wizard. He knew that France and Croatia were going to win those final games, but was so depressed by the prospect he just couldn’t bring himself to phone in with the prediction.
18	Roger Willmott	244	Held joint top spot early on following his inspired prediction of a nil-nil draw between Paraguay and Bulgaria. Seemed to be more concerned with producing a classical ‘damped oscillation’ graph than winning the competition, but each to his own.
21	Spocky	242	The yardstick everybody wanted to beat, just what is it about this Hemel-based entrant that makes his result the second checked by everyone else after each match (immediately prior to Karen Black’s)? A truly un-notable performance in every respect, consequently a vast improvement on Euro 96.
22	Andy Woodland	240	Still ruing the day Karen found the competition entry form hidden down the back of the hot water tank, his inability to muster a single point from the last five games allowed Mr Spock to stumble ahead of him. If David Beckham thinks things went badly for him, he could do worse than phone Andrew for a consoling chat.
23	Stuart McDonald	238	The surprise packet of Euro 96 failed to deliver this time round having misplaced his lucky drawing pin (possibly in his brother’s arm) at some point in the last two years.
24	Ian Macfarlane	236	Another Curate’s egg from this Northampton-based competitor. Correctly guessed the result of all Group B games, returning 44 points while Group D mustered just 8. Appeared to lose interest in the competition once Paraguay had been knocked out.
25	Dominic Shepherd	234	Predicted the Spanish 6-1 drubbing of Bulgaria would be a boring nil-niller, 25^th place would appear a flattery
25	Matt Thacker	234	From a highspot of 4^th after 9 matches Matthew tailed away badly in the later stages in a manner comparable with Ronaldo. Like ‘El Chipmonko’, he even appeared to swallow his tongue.
25	Harvey West	234	Tucked into a respectable 14^th position after the first phase, Harvey’s measly second phase 36 points had shades of his disastrous Euro 96 campaign. However, the wooden spoon has already been gleefully removed from the trophy cabinet.
28	J & E Sleath	226	This team entered their predictions from Manchester via the internet, which appears to have completely scrabbled the numbers in transit. A curt letter has been sent to Bill Gates, complete with law suit.
29	Kevin West	222	Got off to a slow start, and was notably heard to observe that “its a marathon, not a sprint”. Computer analysis shows that had this marathon gone on for another 427 matches Kevin would have eventually reached the top half.
30	Tony Guild	220	Sorry to be morbid, but Tony’s graph looks like something off of ER just prior to Dr Green applying those big pom pom electrodes and shouting “Clear!”. Still it could have been worse, read on.
31	Rhoda White	218	How the mighty have fallen. Our joint winner of Euro 96 floundering in 31^st, anyone would think its purely a game of chance.
32	Ian Maylin	216	Ian only mustered two scores of 10 in the entire contest, a unique achievement and a feat which clearly took some doing.
33	Matthew Burgess	212	Curiously for an acknowledged expert in the field, Matthew was unable to predict Michael Owen’s amazing dribble and so lost out on 8 points. Still, a promising start for the boy.
34	Charlie King	206	A reasonable first round performance put in before becoming distracted by the advent of the cricket season.
34	J & O West	206	A real shock this one, and a result that tells us a lot about the modern game. Using similar tactics, James achieved 9^th position in Euro 96. It would appear that in this age of wing-backs and hopeless French centre-forwards, 1-1 draws just don’t happen anymore.
36	Lucy Dip	192	A generally disappointing performance from our cyber pals which at least gives humanity a brief respite before the inevitable. I know how the inventors of Deep Thought or Big Blue or whatever it was felt after Gary Kasparov took it to the cleaners on the first meeting. But do you remember the second?
36	Mandy West	192	From a highspot of 5^th after the first match Mandy dropped away with alarming haste, rather like that bloke that David Batty bicycle-kicked in the head.
38	Mark Burgess	190	The only player to admit to using a dice to predict every first round score, although Mark is apparently not taking up the patent after the early success faded like a dubious greyhound betting system.
39	A & L Grenville	174	Living proof not of the phrase “two heads are better than one”, this Hydra was too busy arguing with itself to get any later predictions in.
40	Dell Boy	170	Dell was programmed to be slightly more pessimistic about scores than Lucy, a sort of Marvin character if you will. Plans for Son of Dell are that he be linked interactively to a database of every footballing fact since Roy Mac and Colin Todd first ran out onto the hallowed ploughed field, which he will study for hours prior to entering Euro 2000 complete with an abusive comment. Expect a marginal improvement, if any.
41	Karen Black	154	Well, what can you say? But for petty FIFA regulations about goals having to be scored in the opponents net, Karen’s brave prediction that Scotland would beat Brazil 2-1 would have meant her being hailed as the new Nostradamus. Similar bad luck continued when Karen’s phone broke and she lost her address book around the 27^th June.