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 29th 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 |
Prize |
|
1 |
Mike Walshe |
92 |
£40 |
|
1 |
Andrew Burgess |
92 |
£40 |
|
1 |
John Walshe |
92 |
£40 |
|
4 |
Rhoda & Phil |
88 |
£12.50 |
|
4 |
Chris Staples |
88 |
£12.50 |
|
6 |
M Clayton |
86 |
£5 |
|
7 |
Wally West |
82 |
Commiserations |
|
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 |
Wooden spoon/ |
|
30 |
I&C Woodland |
52 |
|
|
30 |
Mark Burgess |
52 |