GHF Contests
Jul 31st, 2023 by goonerholicsforever
Predictathon 2024-25
Youth to the fore in a swirl of change
By North Bank Ned & TTG
Every player’s score worsened in Match Week 3. By dint of the smallest reverse, Dr F. Jnr regains the lead, followed by C100, who shrugs off any suggestion of altitude sickness to hold second.
Potsticker pops back up to regain the third spot he held in Match Week 1, nudging Sancho Panza down a place from last week. Lonestar drops from frontrunning to fifth, ahead of Steady Eddies Scruz and Trev.
Your correspondent and Dino ease off the pace — tactical moves, we assure you — to round out the top ten. Meanwhile, the defending champion moved up seven places to the middle of the pack.
OM moves out of the relegation zone as Dr F. joins TTG and Ollie.
Brentford’s bright start is the most pernicious for players’ prognostications. Brighton, Forest and the Red Mancs are the other really bad boys.
Your Match Week 3 leaderboard:
Two Down, But Not Yet Settled Down
By North Bank Ned and TTG
With Match Week 2 done and dusted, the Predictathon pack is still sorting itself out after last week’s start. Everyone lowered their scores significantly, and everyone has broken under 600.
Lonestar, who reduced his total points by more than anyone else — a spectacular 312 — has now taken up the frontrunning, pursued by Countryman and Sancho Panza. All three are now sub-400. Dino is hard on their heels in fourth on 402.
There is a smidgin of daylight between the top four and a second group, comprising your correspondent, Scruz, Trev, last week’s leader, Dr F. Jnr, and bt8, all within a narrow band of six points.
Below are a lot of wise old heads who know the race is not won or lost in the first two weeks, including BtM, who racked up the second-best improvement in points this week, 274, to move clear of the relegation places.
The sharp-eyed among you may notice the appearance of a new player, Boff, who we welcome to our ranks. His entry and Willow donation were submitted in time but slipped through the administrative cracks. Our fault, not his.
Your leaderboard for Match Week 2 is below, and Match Week 1’s has been updated to include Boff.
And We Are Off!
By North Bank Ned and TTG
The entries are in. The lists are closed. The starting gun has fired.
We have a record number of players this season. We welcome Lonestar Gooner and welcome back everyone who played last year. The artist formerly known as Poosker has morphed into Steveyhyperdee.
The consensus among ‘holics is that it will be a battle between ourselves and the Blue Mancs for the top spot. Only two players forecast lower than second for City, suggesting few see a substantive points deduction in prospect.
The Scousers are considered a shoo-in for third, with the Red Mancs, Villa, the Barcodes, the Neighbours and the squander-bugs at the Bus Stop scrapping it out for the various remaining European slots.
At the other end of the table, it is expected to be a dog-fight between Notts Forest and the newly promoted trio of Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton to avoid the drop. What goes up must come down and all that!
West Ham and Wolves have the broadest range of predictions, seventh to seventeenth and ninth to seventeenth, respectively. There is also much disagreement over where Everton and Chelsea will end up — although probably less over where they should end up.
Steve Cooper is the favourite for the tin-tack, ourselves for the FA Cup and City or Liverpool to win the League Cup.
Best of all, it looks like we have raised more money for Willow than last season—many thanks to everyone for their generosity.
The first leaderboard of the season is below — not that it means much at this point. We would have run only the first 1,100 metres if this were an actual marathon.
Predictathon 2024-25
Enjoy the new season playing the Goonerholicsforever Prediction Contest, in aid of the Willow Foundation!
Can you harness your inner Mystic Meg and out-predict defending champion Pangloss in foreseeing the final Premier League table for the 2024-25 season?
Will you be more clairvoyant than CER and GSD were last season in predicting the FA Cup winner? Or TTG and Uply when it comes to the League Cup?
What’s your bet on the first manager to get the tin tack this season? Have you got a better inside track or insight than Dr F. Jnr?
You can only find out by entering the 2024-25 edition of the GHF Predictathon.
Again, the contest’s purpose is twofold. First, to enhance the enjoyment of the upcoming season by providing a degree of light-hearted competitive rivalry as the season progresses. Second, to support Bob Wilson’s Willow Foundation with another generous collective donation.
The rules of the game are straightforward:
1. The object of the contest is to predict the final 2024-25 Premier League table.
2. The winner will be the player whose predictions are closest to the table at the end of Matchweek 38.
3. This will be determined by a points score using the Difference Squared system. The lowest total score wins (see below for how the scoring works). The reward for winning is a full year’s bragging rights as the bar’s top know-it-all.
4. We shall post weekly updates and a leaderboard here in the Contests tab throughout the season so players can follow their progress. However, the final table at the end of the season determines the contest’s winner, just like the PL itself.
5. If more than one player gets the same score, the tiebreaker will be the most correct predictions. The second tiebreaker will be the most predictions out by one place, then two, and so on.
6. Download the entry blank above. Email your completed entry form to ghfpredict@yahoo.com. We must receive your completed entry no later than one hour before the new season kicks off, i.e., by 1900 UK time on Friday, August 16. No changes to entries or new players are permitted after that deadline.
7. To participate in the contest, contestants are honour-bound to donate to the Willow Foundation (link here) at least £25. This covers entry into the League Positions contest and the three bonus predictions (first manager to get the tin tack, and the winners of the two domestic cups). You can donate more to Willow — we encourage you to do so — but it will not guarantee a higher placing!
8. TTG will confirm with Willow that players are in good standing by the end of Match Week 1. Players who have not donated by then will have 100 points added to Match Week 2, with a further 100 points added for every week of delinquency. If players have not donated their entry fee to Willow by the end of Match Week 4, they will be removed from the competition.
9. In the event of any disputes, TTG’s decision will be final (right or wrong!).
Scoring System
This game will use Difference Squared scoring. This is how it works:
Players’ predictions for each club are awarded points equal to the square of the difference between the club’s predicted and actual place. For example, if a team were predicted to be in sixth place and ended up fourth, the points scored would be 4, i.e., the difference between sixth and fourth is two places, and two times two is four; if a team was predicted to be in fifth place and ended up 15th, the points scored would be 100, i.e., the difference between fifth and 15th is ten places, and ten squared is 100. The worse a prediction, the more the system, by design, penalises it.
Each week, each player’s 20 club scores are then summed. The “winner” of the week is the player with the lowest total that week, but the player with the lowest total relative to the final league table is the winner of the whole contest.
It was a lot of fun to play throughout last season, even though Pangloss strode through to the win nearly post to finish line…that can’t happen again…can it?
Good luck!
TTG & North Bank Ned
