World Cup 2018 Competition
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31st May: Competition launched with fevered excitement.

1st June: Tumbleweed....

3rd June: Clanging of distant bell....

4th June: Finally a response! The coveted "first entrant" prize is won by 2010-debutant Martin Foster, closely followed by 1998 veteran Ian Woodland. These guys know there's no point in waiting to analyse the final round of friendlies. I hope I'm not betraying any confidential information (well you are) by saying that they both have Joachim Löw down to go one better than Hitler and actually finish the job in Moscow this time.

6th June: We're up to 10 entries now with 2006-vintage Matt Micale proving the reach of the internet by supplying another plausible offering all the way from the southern hemisphere, Germany again tipped to take the honours. Don't these people know anything about history? Have they learned nothing? It's obvious that if things start looking at all negative for the Russian Bear then the old "scorched earth" policy will be deployed with its traditional results. There's only going to be one winner here folks.

12th June: 38 hopefuls have now submitted their conjecture. Many regulars seem to have forgotten the thing entirely including some who demanded the new competition features. That's 21st Century Britain right there in microcosm for you. Tch. Or are they just keeping their powder ultra-dry? Time will tell.

To business! The predictions for those that I think have entered can be downloaded right here. Please check that you are a) entered and b) entered correctly, so that any bleating can be addressed early doors.

Here's to the actual football starting. Huzzah!

14th June - Day 1: We're finally up and running! The unexpected Russian goal-fest at the Luzhniki scuppered any chances of an opening-day competition "Red Score", with 4-0 mongers John Overend and Kyran Penny being robbed of the honours (and a juicy 14 points under the controversial new scoring system) by the injury-time 5th cherry on President Putin's cake. Earlier, the bemused crowd had looked on in unrestrained silence as Robbie Williams strutted his usual stuff amongst all the curious costumes and keepie-uppies, breaking stride only to signal to the sound man that he should raise the volume up just that little bit more please. At least that's what his desperate agent is saying in a co-ordinated damage-limitation exercise.

On a more parochial front, there was the now-traditional cavalcade of even-later late competition entrants taking us up to a final compliment of 80 well-toned prediction athletes. The biennial sharp re-learning curve on how the creaky calculation spreadsheet works has (I think) been scaled, and so Day 1's phoney war results have been posted on the Tables page for your delectation. But alas not mine.

15th June - Day 2: The World Cup comes alive with a late honours-stealer from Ronaldo causing much competition collateral amongst the Spain-fancying herd but delight to Wal Beale who takes a cool 16 points from the game, thereby spoiling the "who's going to score the most points in a single game" side-interest that was going to form the basis of my commentary in weeks three and four. Cheers Wal. And can I suggest that next time you claim to have "only spent about 4 minutes of my lunchtime filling out the results" you have the good grace not to go and pull a stunt like that, especially with brother Kevin having evidently put in such long hours of research.

Earlier in the day Iran's late, late own-goal winner was enough to break the disapproving frown of even the sternest Ayatollah (to be honest I'm guessing here) but it also proved a coupon-buster for many slavish follows of the odds market, whilst Uruguay scraped home to general approval. Wal Beale's 22-point day, stellar as it was, was however matched stride-for-stride by veteran competitor Karen Herbert and even eclipsed by Malcolm Clayton's 23 point haul ("2 minutes of my coffee break") and Andy Turvil's stunning 28 points ("I left it to my cat"). Meanwhile, Alex Surplice proves himself a complete misnomer as he fails to trouble the abacus all day. Impressive stuff.

In the team game Green Army! and The Pretty Pollys prove that life isn't a team game after all, and that you really are better off relying on yourself.

16th June - Day 3: A four-game day giving the opportunity for big points, spurned by many. On the pitch France scrape a VAR-assisted win over the plucky Aussies whilst even pluckier Iceland earn a draw against Argentina, Lionel Messi's penalty miss providing deep joy to Cristiano Ronaldos everywhere. Denmark's drab 1-niller against Peru at least allowed 6 people to gain their first Red 10 (I'm going to revert to calling it that) and in the late show Nigeria failed to deploy their much-vaunted jazzy new strip and consequently came up short against the chequer-board chancers from Croatia. Well what do you expect?

Meanwhile on the real pitch, Andy Turvil's 31 points is just enough to hold off Dave Herbert's day-best 35 as he leap-frogs lady-wife Karen whose creditable 26 just doesn't cut the mustard at the sharp end any more. In third Jenny Burgess annoying proves an adage or two whilst at the wrong end Michael Frain is the big loser, his meagre 6 points ensuring a 35 place fall from mid-table obscurity to wooden spoon territory. Doing the exact opposite - Kevin West, his solid four correct results marred slightly perhaps by the lack of associated red ink.

Now this nonsense is all well and good, but day three sees the launch of the real main event, namely the anagram (a word, phrase, or name formed by rearranging the letters of another, such as "spar" formed from "rasp") competition. This year's phrase that pays (not strictly true) is the soon-to-be Radio 5 Live catchphrase:

I now expect Southgate to jump quickly or be sacked by the FA

So get your thinking caps on and let me have your witty and erudite rearrangements (or dull and drab, you'll still get air time). There's obviously a massive competitor-base for this aspect of the World Cup Experience (witness last time) so why not see what you can do, and gain internet immortality to boot.

I told that dotard Trump that if the South Korean team won the World Cup they won't have a country to come back to.
I think the idiot thought I was joking.

I got exactly this many points from the Argentina match as I had predicted them to win. After all, I may need to go there in a hurry one day.
Kim Jong Un - Funny Guy, Funny Guy.

17th June - Day 4: Well, well, well. On any normal day plucky Switzerland's dodgy draw against the Canarinha would have been the main news-feed but not on a day such as this with its rare Teutonic humbling, met with sympathy and understanding across the globe. All round it was a bad day for the Boys from Brazil. On the under-card, City-reject Aleksander Kolorov put it in the postage stamp to break Costa Rican hearts and, much more importantly, provide a Red 10 for Jack Clayton, a man who was a stranger to the correct score throughout the entire Euro 2016 tournament, but never bragged about it. What a day indeed.

Star performer of the day was Rhoda Miles who correctly called the 1-1 Swiss party-spoiler and reaped 20 points on the day, 5 more than next-best Barry Braine, Andrew Woodland and Tom Clayton who also rise up the table. At the top, public humiliation comes calling as Jenny Burgess goes into the joint lead with Andy Turvil whilst Al Breen is the biggest mover on the day up 27 places albeit from a low base. England tomorrow!

18th June - Day 5: Well, well, well again. There's a turn-up. England got off to a flyer in the opening exchanges with the Tunisian all-in wrestlers - fully deploying the old it's good to miss open goals because at least you're making chances logic - and, blow me down, they did actually manage to get one in the onion sack early doors. The resultant love-in briefly threatened asphyxiation to layers two and three of the team sandwich, fortunately averted in the nick of time, with the extra inches given to Harry Kane by the process coming in handy later on. In between times, a Kyle Walker reverse forearm smash straight off the training ground seemed to have restored normality to proceedings, the headline writers starting to swarm like all those genetically-modified mossies sent in as phase one of the KGB spoiler tactics, before Captain Kane's injury time blush-saver warded off the pen-sharpeners albeit temporarily.

Before all this, expected victories for Sweden and Belgium meant that many people were able to bring home the bacon, like winner-on-the-day Helena Bennett with 32 points whilst 30-point Dave Herbert and Karen Woodland now assume first and third in the table. In between them, debutant Matt Bowld is now tucked in and quietly threatening to be like one of those pools winners (remember that?) who gets the jackpot on their first attempt to the seething annoyance of everyone who's been paying in for (in this case) 22 years solid without ever having troubled the publicity photographer. At the bottom of the table, a much needed Red 10 from the Belgium match (actually a Red 13 but you take the point) allows Vid Brownlee to escape the vortex spot to be replaced by Scitech Fantasy Football league winner Dan Newell who is clearly struggling to adjust his tactics for the slightly varied game format, but he's already 80 quid ahead on the season so there's no sympathy from over here.

More importantly than all this though, we've had our first anagram returned and it comes from none other than Michael Frain, straight back on the money with a salutary tale of poor kitchen hygiene on a mixed diet:

My ex cook, 'e threw up guts. A jet of kebab, quality cod, ten chips.

A superb opener I'm sure you'll agree, but the door is still ajar so why not spend 4 minutes of your lunchtime on it and send your musings to football@whitewey.co.uk

19th June - Day 6: After last night's histrionics it all seems a bit after the Lord Mayor's show today as three unexpected results provide little cheer for most right-thinking footballing experts. Honourable exceptions were provided in the form of top scorer Fiona Bennett (21pts) and close attendant Rob Blears (20pts) who evidently had much more faith than most in the ability of the KGB spooks to swing things Russia's way, Salisbury lessons being apparently well learned with little evidence to show how's it's being done in the public domain. Yet. Columbia's 10-man implosion against Japan and Senegal's sneaky tactics against Poland completed the joy for the bookies.

To matters more domestic, and communication has been received from none other than Richard Daniells apparently somewhat agitated by the hitherto little-discussed "Team Performance" aspect of the game. To revise matters, players have been allocated into teams in line with well-established guidelines as described here but apparently that's not good enough for Richard who writes:

Dear Andrew

Quite clearly the team competition is being overseen by a certain Sepp Blater. Positions appear to be more on the line of who you know rather than the actual no (or average no) of points scored. The singular member of the Pretty Pollys, and a group rather unaptly named Family Values are obviously members of Herr Blaters in-crowd, or have knowledge of the account details of one of his secret Swiss Bank accounts ..... all allegedly of course! Although us Broken Lifters are already so far down we could most likely support a skyscraper, in the interests of fairness we feel all teams should be given details of the best way of elevating our table position for future kudos and glory.

Yours etc
Richard

After a thorough independent investigation into the specific allegations of fraudulent activity as made, and much consulting of the rule-book generally, the judge's formal response is given below:

Dear Richard

Try scoring some more points.

Yours etc
Andrew

20th June - Day 7: A return perhaps to more expected results, three-off 1-Nillers seeing the respective favourites home with the enduring image of the day being Iran's finest Milad Mohammadi's "epic fail" flip-throw against Spain ensuring a future spot on the Graham Norton show should he ever need it. Winners on the day with 28 points are Levred hopefuls Rhoda Miles and Andrew Woodland, although with wife Karen studiously ignoring her marriage vows there's still some way to go until bragging rights are settled in the Woodland household. It should be noted that despite these fine efforts and indeed 4 of the top 6 places currently being occupied by Levred players, an outright lead in the Team competition is yet to be established due to the simultaneous large preponderance of team-duffers weighing things down. But - and Richard Daniells please take note - not a word of complaint received. That tells you something.

To Countdown Corner now, and Lee Henderson takes the anagram lead with a stunning debutant goal exploring the age old Microsoft-Apple rivalry in modern jibe:

Aw pathetic Excel donkey quote “Bitch job for Pages, may suk tu”

Fantastic stuff Lee...! But what's this? Michael Frain is immediately stirred from his laurels to file this post-match report from last night:

Able Kane: 'Pox to midge's juicy buttock fest.' Worth paycheque.

Worth paycheque indeed. I think it's wordy game-on.

21st June - Day 8: A day of mixed competition fortunes with a joint record high of 28 takers for Denmark 1-1 Australia but no-one at all calling Argentina's Willie Caballero-inspired 3-0 capitulation to Croatia. Eight brave souls did call the right result however and consequently were able to make some hay, including one Karen Herbert whose excellent 27 point haul on the day leads her both to the top of the table and also to a frosty reception at the tea table from hubby Dave, now a point back in second. At the bottom Dan Newell breaks his Red 10 duck to vacate the automatic relegation place, Louis Maylin taking over the mantel. Whilst we're on the subject of Red 10 ducks, we're down to only ten people still in the running for the coveted honour of last person to get a Red 10 (a prize technically not won last time, see Day 4) so as things warm up we'll keep an eye on that one.

To things lexiconological, and Michael Frain is straight back on the money paying due homage to yesterday's star pitch-side performer Milad Mohammadi with this belated advice:

Mad ego quest! O by 'eck, cut out the sexy back-flip throw-in jape.

How does he do it...? But what's this? Lee Henderson is, in turn, immediately stirred from his laurels to respond with this whistle-blower's report:

Eject buckkteethy Ronaldo, Messi, Pogba, Pique, watch out fyx!

What tremendous stuff! It's a two-horse race at the moment; any other takers willing to disturb this cosy duopoly please do get in touch.

22nd June - Day 9: A day of relatively drab fare on the pitch and indeed off it too save for the Levred Scouts taking the top three spots courtesey of Karen Woodland's 20-point elevation into third. The day's big-heads are Vid's Vassal Dave Nugent and the hitherto Levred-duffer Graham Clayton, both netting 31 points and temporary elevation up the table. In the group competition, there's a counter-intuitive fall from grace for the Scouts as nimble Pretty Polly Andy Mallett makes a move.

Meanwhile in the real competition, Lee Henderson has been shuffling the alphabetti spagetti around his plate to good effect again to produce this winner:

Beefy keg, Maradona, quips “Sexy, white celt, touch up bott”

Another fantastic, if revealing, effort from Lee, this time without reply from the Frain lad or indeed anyone else. As it's getting to the weekend now this is understandable.

23rd June - Day 10: World Cup depression sinks in as Toni Kroos' last-minute punt is greeting with collective groans from around the globe, save for 17 selfish prediction-enthusiasts silently fist-pumping their 13 illicit points. Everyone else was happy to sacrifice a few competition digits on the alter of an early German bath, but not these guys. I mean, I admire their single-minded desire to do well in our game, but really? A horrible feeling now persists, and, should the worst come to pass, names will be named.

Meanwhile, and listen-up Wal Beale, Al Breen has only gone and broken your match-score record by skimming an impressive 17 points from Belgium's 5-2 stroll against Tunisia, that evidently-faulty keyboard finally working in his favour. His 27 point total is however not enough to take the day-gong as Dan Newell finally comes to the party with a 30-point total and a 19 place rise up the nether regions of the table. At the top, Karen Herbert's lead is cut a little whilst Barry Braine uses his old woggle to good effect, moving up to fourth and ready to strike at the Levred domination which now extends to the team-game too. In the "last Red 10" stakes, unsurprisingly the bottom four in the table all feature, but they are curiously joined by top-half hopeful Kate Irwin who has a joint-best 20 correct results but just can't convert it seems. The ready-embodiment of the "close, but no-cigar" observation I've always wanted to use.

As suspected, no anagram offerings today. Looking forward to Monday when company time kicks in again.

Xhaka and Shaqiri hit the hot water after their joy at getting a hard-earned Red 10 is wilfully mis-interpreted

24th June - Day 11: The half-way house in our competition is marked by a shock England six-goal expectation-raiser (unsurprisingly not foreseen by anyone) and England are now resplendent atop Group G on the old "less yellow cards" criteria, Kyle Walker having managed to reign in his natural instincts for a while at least. With the Polish 3-0 capitulation against Columbia also not called, Ian Macfarlane's 26 points was enough to take the day's honours and 41st place in the table, whilst at the sharp end Dave Nugent's 22 point tally allows him to make headway into the top three, leapfrogging Barry Braine who evidently expected his bang-average 10 points to cut the mustard in some way. Not in this rarefied atmosphere Barry. That said, in the even rarer atmosphere ahead, 10 points is enough for Dave Herbert to replace lady-wife Karen at the top of the tree courtesy of her paltry 4 point pickings, a score more normally associated with the bottom-feeders than a champion elect. Nerves?

With a dearth of anagrams being sent in I thought I would have a go at space-filling myself because, after all, how difficult can it be? Answer - very. Here goes though:

Wo! Hot heel trick beats Pan yobs today. Expect quick jug. Fume!

Service of a normal standard will hopefully be resumed soon.

25th June - Day 12: With four games on the day, what should have been a veritable points-fest turned into a VAR-induced damp scoring squib, a meagre 20 points sealing the day's honours for Alfie Bennett. The main on-pitch entertainment was both Spain and Portugal's late flirtation with Group B disaster, the Portugal match incorporating a Ronaldo penalty miss and yellow card, but these were ultimately but small victories as original Iberian expectations came to pass. In Group A, Luis Suarez, never the brightest star in the firmament, made the possibly fatal mistake of opening the scoring against the competition "hosts" as Uruguay ran out 3-0 winners over the Russian Bear. I suspect our Luis won't be having too many takers to share a teapot with him from amongst his NCB-suited team mates at breakfast tomorrow.

At the top of our little table Karen Herbert's nerves continue, her blank points day allowing four Bad Samaritans to sweep past while she's busy throwing up at the side of the road. Husband Dave, wearing blinkers, keeps his eyes on the prize as the wolves assemble behind him.

Meanwhile at Calligraphy Central, Michael Frain stirs from his slumbers to show the young (it's all relative) pretender just what he's up against at this level, with yet another well-crafted corker reflecting upon England's epic win against the Panamanian World Cup favourites:

We get bucketful, torpedo quixotic Panama. Hey Jocks, be shy!

What a pro! Every letter put to good use, dare I say it elegantly, eloquently, elaborately, indeed elephantly, summarising yesterday's proceedings whilst still keeping back sufficient resources to include a sleight at the Auld Enemy for good measure. A true dictionary-dude if ever there was one. Reinforcements please.

26th June - Day 13: There's joy unlimited in the Woodland household (well all apart from the spare bedroom that is) as Karen W hits the table top spot, courtesy of Dave Herbert doing an "Alistair Brownlee" to his Karen's Jonny, except they're not joint-winning anymore. Confused? Basically Karen Woodland's 21-point day is enough for her to take over at the top of the tree much to Andrew's consternation. This occurrence has prompted a general review of the table and frankly it's not looking good for the male of the Levred species with evidence everywhere that Scouting really is for Girls now, there being lover-er-ly female performances all over the pitch. For whilst Dave Herbert is barely clinging on by his finger-tips and Steve Bell just about hitting the open goal Judith is dutifully providing, elsewhere Fiona Bennett, Jenny Burgess and the afore-mentioned Karen Woodland are in positive spouse territory, and this on top of Wal Beale and Rhoda Miles whose oppos Dave and Phil failed even to get out of the tunnel this year in pathetic pre-surrender to the inevitable. That Harvey Weinstein has a lot to answer for as the hashtag #MeTooGoLevredGals is now trending all across social media. Come on lads!

On the actual football pitch, in Group D there was great excitement as Argentina's on-off flirtation with an early bath was finally resolved positively with a late winner much to the delight of Diego Maradona in the stands, his exuberant pleasure at getting two competition points (he'd predicted a 1-1 draw) again being wilfully misconstrued by the world's watching media, the stress brought on by the accusations requiring emergency paramedic attention. It’s all happening. By contrast, Group C's closure was a complete bore.

The day cannot be allowed to pass however without highlighting the performance of two people in particular. Firstly Rhoda Miles, her record-breaking 37-point day-haul lifting her from nowhere (well 14th) to 3rd (and prompting the Levred male introspection), and secondly Michael Frain who seemingly missed the signal to step out with the rest of the back-five and is consequently left as the winner of our “Last Red 10 score” competition. Many congratulations Michael! Too much time spent on anagrams (although curiously not today?) and not enough on the competition basics it seems.

27th June - Day 14: It seems the fickle pendulum of fate won't be denied after all as Toni Kroos turns from German hero against Sweden to South Korean tap-in provider, and hence Teutonic travel-agent, as the pedestrian Prussians are sent packing. Just one of a set of ludicrous results ensuring another generally low-scoring day (and indeed a complete personal nightmare but let's move on). What the oddities do mean however is that we've got an incredible three-way tie at the top now with old suspects Karen Woodland and Dave Herbert now joined on 204 points by Belgium's finest, Carl Van Gysel, limboing in under the radar to arrive undetected and unsuspected to take the spoils, cause annoyance and draw tears from those below not unlike a sudden wood-worm infestation in the loft. There are a few 20-point merchants but the day's finest is Kyran Penny with three correct results including red ink for the Switzerland 2-2 Costa Rica debacle, Kyan obviously foreseeing the penalty rebound whacking the Swiss keeper on the back of the head in comic-book fashion.

Meanwhile, at Scrabble-school, Michael Frain tries to make light of his continuing predicament viz-a-viz ever actually getting a score completely correct, but only serves to raise eyebrows and indeed the interest of the vice squad with this offering describing his chosen solace:

Red ten? Woeful, hate this. A cab quick! Go suck my poxy toe. Bye pet.

28th June - Day 15: The Group Stages come to a tedious end, Gareth Southgate expertly achieving his aim of managing England expectations downwards courtesy of Adnan Januzaj's inability to follow simple instructions. How Roberto Martinez must wish he had the unashamed discipline of Marcus Rashford available to his Belgium third team.

But where does this return to footballing normality leave our little competition at this crucial juncture I hear you ask. Answer: with Karen Woodland leading the way by a short head from Karen Herbert. But wait! Graham Clayton has finally been spurred into rolling up his sleeves far enough to make a day-best 30-point dash to a third place tie with Dave Herbert, this pair at least pretending to make a fight of it on behalf of the Y-chromosomes. Lower down there are 29-point returns for Terry Bennett, Andrew Foggo, Loic Martens and Australia's-finest Matt Micale, precipitating northerly moves for each, whilst 20 points is enough to lift Phil Hornby from the base of proceedings to be replaced by Michael Frain who pauses to celebrate the unfortunate swiss goal-tender, and more, in cerebral style:

Scatty nutjob keeper thwacked. Fact! Mexico boys, go sup thy tequila.

Such commitment deserves a 94 point bonus I think.

30th June - Day 16: The knock-out stage begins with defeats for Argentina and Portugal meaning that the world's two best players are sent packing. Yes, both Karen Woodland and Karen Herbert managed a nil-point day and have consequently paid the penalty. It seems even now that going to the disco toilet for a natter about "boys" comes at a price, that price being trampled underfoot by Rhoda Miles, Graham Clayton and stealth-fighter Carl Van Gysel now three points clear at the top. Apparently Carl was in Russia last week (really) and rumour has it that he happened to mention to a complete stranger he bumped into that "the weather is unusually inclement in Gorky Park today" whereupon he was passed a brown envelope containing the KGB-arranged result of every match until the end of the tournament. I agree with Carl (or "Agent Lukaku" as he is now referred to in certain lever-arch files within the Kremlin) that it would be churlish to pass up such a gift-horse however much it spoils the Corinthian spirit the rest of us are abiding by.

Elsewhere, day-best 19 point scores see good progress for a number of hitherto unfancied runners whilst a developing Belgium spy-ring means the Ant Twerps further consolidate top spot in the team game.

1st July - Day 17: A day novichok-full of penalties (or "pelanties" in Waddle-speak) sees perhaps the final death throws of tippie-tappie, the Russian bear barging through with just a smidgen of assistance from the KGB (a doctored feed to the VAR studio, the seeding of rain clouds etc etc) along with the dark horses of Croatia who won the battle of the bigged-up little-teams, and with it promotion to the top of the list for the up-coming attention of the Kremlin technical Johnnies.

But what did today's extended spot-kick spasm do for our little table? Well a 12-point Red Ten from Dave Herbert from the Russia match is enough for him (temporarily) to leapfrog Agent Lukaku into top-spot glory, whilst a day return of 14 points is enjoyed by Dom Shepherd, Andrew Woodland, Sue Overend and, er, Jenny Burgess with progress all round. However the really big 24-point day-winners were, in delicious competition irony, Neil Hanks and Al Breen, the only two players who failed to submit any second round predictions and were consequently "given" 1-1 for each match by the competition pools-panel in accordance with Rule 23 Clause 5, as advised, just to fill up space really.

All this nonsense above however is a mere side-salad to THE news of the day, to wit a first Red Ten for Michael Frain! Alas not enough actually to elevate up the table but it is something to work on Michael. But only after you've got another anagram in please, I'm struggling to fill the space.

2nd July - Day 18: An almighty scare at the hands of Japan for another of the tournament favourites Belgium, ultimately rescued by Lukaku's inspirational 94th minute leave, it taking him that long to realise that he was never going to score himself tonight and that jumping over the stupid thing might be his best option. But what's this? Japan's sad demise together with the regulation dismissal of Mexico by a Brazilian team featuring some more Oscar-nominated Neymar play-acting, means that England are now through to the last 10 of the competition and we can even dare to dream of making it, with some good fortune, through to the last 9 before our match kick-off tomorrow. Come on lads!

Meanwhile, in the competition that really counts, literally, Dave Herbert does enough to fend off the chasing pack, 18-point hot-shots Barry Braine and Rhoda Miles now joining "Agent L" as heel-snappers-in-chief whilst it's Mike Sherrin who is the day's 21-point smart Alec, being the only person to foresee the late Japanese 3-2 capitulation. Other 18-point punkah wallahs include competition veterans Tom Clayton, Steve Bell and Andrew Woodland all desperate for some late respectability in their respective personal battles. Well it's all relative I suppose.

3rd July - Day 19: Well, well, well. What a turn up for the books. Yes Love Island is getting really interesting now isn't it? Aside from that and England actually manage to win (or lose-least anyway) a penalty shoot against a team of Columbians more interested it seemed in getting two falls or a submission than a goal until, er, they did get a goal, but you know what I mean. We were then put through the emotional ringer alright. When Pickford finally got lucky meaning we actually had a chance the nation waited with baited breath for the answer to the question of who was going to take our fifth. When the camera alighted on the face of Eric Dyer I'm sure the collective recoil of horror around our television set must have been replicated across the nation. But little did we know it was a Gareth Southgate master-stroke because dear Eric certainly seemed to be in his own bubble and pretty much unaffected by the world going on around him, much like usual in fact, and able to capitalise on Ospina being an Arsenal player. And so the dream goes on.

In our competition the canny operators at the top seem to be slugging it out like punch-drunk boxers with little net effect, Dave Herbert and Rhoda Miles still first and second but both ready to fall down unconscious in a double knock-out to leave the way clear for the rest of us. Lower down and Jens Dekeyser has a perfect 23-point day courtesy of a micro-fisch full stop received in an email from Carl, himself currently pretending to be a western double-agent by dropping off the pace to 4th.

To the Quarters!