Euro 2000 Competition

The Results!

All good things (and, admittedly, some bad ones) must come to an end, and so it falls to me to draw a discrete veil over proceedings in the Euro 2000 competition. We must all now vacate the stage for proper football teams and proper pundits.

And what a disastrous campaign it was. A euphoric first 20 minutes collapsing to an ignominious defeat, the candle of hope being re-lit briefly after thrashing the Germans 1-0. Things were then looking good at 2-2, only for disaster to strike and national gloom descend.

Yes, Zenden’s winner for Holland against France in the final match was an appalling blow to the competition’s amusement factor.

That single goal enabled Mr Spock Sargent to leapfrog out of the last place he had rightfully made his own from match nine onwards.  Now some might argue that cream always rises, and that the pedigree bred-in by having 86 league grounds under your belt and two thousand issues of Shoot! under your bed would make 29^th spot a natural position, but we all know he fluked it.  How depressing.

Worse still, 10 seconds earlier the Czech Republic’s 2-0 win over Denmark had given one Mr A Woodland 10 points and enabled him to draw level with Mrs K Woodland in truly undeserved fashion, just one of the many sub-plots to the competition.

At the top of the table things were of equal concern. A patronising gentleperson’s agreement was obviously made to try to give me a victory and publicly embarrass me after an appalling start. I felt rather like a pathetic newcomer on Radio 4’s “Just a Minute”, that the old lags of the game, on some silent signal, just let go squirming on without any challenge despite copious deviation, hesitation and repetition.

Were the Walshe brothers just selflessly taking it upon themselves to cause me less suffering?  Or are they really money-grabbing double-crossers, who even as we speak are riding with their 40 silver dollars into some Wild West town full of whisky, phlegm and high-kicking good-time girls, with Sheriff Staples and posse in hot pursuit of the cattle herd going in the opposite direction?

If you’re still with me the final table is shown below:

Position	Name	Pts
1	Mike Walshe	92
1	Andrew Burgess	92
1	John Walshe	92
4	Rhoda & Phil	88
4	Chris Staples	88
6	M Clayton	86
7	Wally West	82
8	Matt Thacker	80
8	Gillian Hicks	80
10	B&R Gearing	78
10	M&H Norman	78
10	K Woodland	78
10	A Woodland	78
10	Stu McDonald	78
15	S&J Bell	76
15	Ian Maylin	76
17	D Herbert	74
17	John Irwin	74
19	Kevin West	70
20	D&L Dixon	68
21	G Clayton	66
21	S&A Norman	66
21	J&M Burgess	66
24	Harvey West	60
24	Ben Edwards	60
24	Dom Shepherd	60
24	T Bennett	60
28	Dave Beadle	58
29	Spocky	56
30	I&C Woodland	52
30	Mark Burgess	52