Golden Boot Game Web Log

MAGIC EIGHT BALLS

We start this Week’s blog with some words of appreciation for winners of the last ever Golden Boot Game, Magic Eight Balls. This is their sixth time as champions, extending their own record. They also won this season’s Golden Boot Cup, the one prize that has eluded them until this season, to complete a unique double. Notwithstanding their exploits of this season, their contribution throughout the entire history of the Golden Boot Game has been immense. They are one of the very few teams to have competed every season, showing their potential by winning twice in the first three seasons (and adding a handful of Hot Spot Game wins as well). Their four championships over the last ten seasons have really made them our pre-eminent team, using all their experience to prevail in some of our most competitive seasons. Along with congratulating their coach on their triumphant season just ended, we must thank them for their loyalty and support throughout the 21 seasons of the Golden Boot Game. If any team and player epitomise what we were all about, it is Magic Eight Balls and their Coach.

OUR OTHER PRIZE WINNERS

There were, of course, several other prizes handed out at the end of this final Golden Boot Game season. Our second prize, for the runners-up in the overall Golden Boot Game goes to Upforthecup, who fought long and hard with Magic Eight Balls over the top spot but eventually had to give best. Congratulations to their Coach on winning the prize for second place. The prize for third place goes to Team Of The Weak who, while not being able to challenge for second spot, did hold off a spirited challenge from behind. Congratulations to their Coach on winning the prize for third place.

The final prize to be won at the end of our final season was for the winners of our last ever Hot Spot Game. Cheshire Town took control of the Final Final Five Game at an early stage, so it will come as no surprise that they managed to keep their lead right to the end. Their consistently good scoring proved too much even for a determined effort from OneunitedfanTrev. The final margin of victory was the biggest gap in the final standings. Congratulations to the Coach of Cheshire Town on winning this historic final Hot Spot Game prize.

REVIEW OF WEEK #35

What exactly happened in the final Week of the Golden Boot Game? The answer is, less than you might imagine. There were eleven selected strikers who scored goals and therefore points for their teams. Four of them scored more than once. Mateta’s hattrick was a help to just four teams. Foden’s double, on the other hand, helped fourteen teams and produced almost half of all the points in Week #35. The doubles from Wood and Eze each had just one taker. Of the seven single scoring strikers, only Isak with twelve appearances and Havertz with seven, scored more than a handful of points. The lack of goals from more fancied strikers meant that four teams finished their Golden Boot Game careers with a blank Week.

I suppose it is up to the other players to decide whether the Controller’s team, PJ Auxerre, posting the best score in our final Week is a fitting result or not. Fourteen Foden points plus nine from Mateta helped them to a 36 points total. Sofy also had fourteen from Foden in their nineteen points, the Week’s next best. Both Eight Wizards and Cheshire Town also got most of their eighteen points from Foden while champions Magic Eight Balls needed Mateta’s help to reach seventeen points.

There was no change in the positions of the top nine teams in the overall standings in our final Week. None of the three remaining teams reached the hundred goals mark. None of the Golden Boot Game records were broken. I suppose it was always inevitable that the Golden Boot Game would end not with a bang but with a whimper. Magic Eight Balls finished with a winning margin of 21 points and also had eight goals more than the next highest scorers, again Upforthecup. The team with most 8-point goals were Bury Wanderer who finished seventh, giving the lie to my theory that a team with more high scoring goals will beat teams with more overall goals.

THE FINAL FINAL FIVE GAME

The fact that Cheshire Town began by posting the second best score in both the first two Weeks of the Final Final Five Game and followed this up by posting above average scores in the final three Weeks only tells half the story. OneunitedfanTrev were always a little bit ahead of the chasing pack and for a couple of Weeks seemed to be making inroads on the runaway leaders. They just couldn’t make that decisive move that might have turned things around, though. Despite both teams showing great consistency, in the end, Cheshire Town just always had that little bit in hand over their rivals.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the players who have ever taken part in the Golden Boot Game, whether past or present, for all their support throughout the 21 seasons of the game. Without our players there is no game and it is all of you who have made this game what it has been. Every player has always played with fairness and respect for their fellow players. Even when the Controllers have, from time to time, messed things up, our players have always been understanding and we have never had any serious abuse. Given the state of the internet these days, being able to say that says everything about our players.

By the time you are reading this we will have added all the prize tokens won at the end of the 2023-2024 season. There are a few other things from our final season that we need to tidy up, which we will do in next Week’s weblog. That will be published on Wednesday 29th May and, inevitably it will be mostly, though not exclusively, about prize tokens. It will certainly not be our last weblog, though. That is a long way down the line still.