That's odd re Gareth Bale

From Classic Fantasy League's Team News - I think that should read 'paternity', unles there's something about Gareth Bale that I don't know?

Wayne Rooney's first post hair-transplant picture

Per Sky News, I don't follow Wayne Rooney on Twitter. Here's his Tweet:

'Hi all there's my head. It will take a few months to grow. Still a bit bloody to. But that's all normal.'

Well he managed 'there's' rather than 'theirs' but failed by putting 'to' rather than 'too'. Oh well, not too bad for a footballer.

Imogen Thomas - the name rings a bell

I seem to remember that I watched the Big Brother series that Imogen Thomas was in so I remember her like this...

In recent days the name has been popping up all over Twitter and the Internet in association (pun intended) with a married Premiership Footballer. I have tried very briefly to see who the footballer is and three names seem to crop up most often, but to be honest I really can't get excited at the story. What was interesting is that Imogen Thomas seems to have... changed a little, well a lot...

It seems that whilst I had lost track of Imogen Thomas her career had taken off albeit in publications that I very rarely or never read (per Wikipedia):

'Since her time on the Big Brother series ended, Thomas has become a glamour model. She has had covergirl shoots with Zoo and Maxim magazines, while she had long running contracts with the Daily Star newspaper. Thomas was in the running for FHM sexiest Woman in the world, coming in 58th. In 2008, she was included in the list of Playboy Bunnies on Playboy's website. In 2010 she shot her first calendar.

In November 2006, Thomas was voted the sexiest Woman in Wales, ahead of both Catherine Zeta Jones and Charlotte Church. Thomas has also been voted the sexiest Big Brother housemate.

...

Thomas had a relationship with American model Tyson Beckford, whom she first met at the Sanderson Hotel. Since her apperance on Big Brother she has dated Russell Brand, polo player Jamie Morrisson, and footballers Matthew Collins of Swansea City, and Tottenham Hotspur's Jermain Defoe. In 2010/11, Thomas had a six month relationship with an unnamed married Premiership footballer, who obtained via Mr Justice Eady a super-injunction so that he could not be named in the press. Thomas subsequently took advice from Max Clifford whereby her story was then published in The Mirror.'

It is odd how some pretty women often seem to have this career path now: reality show, some body remodelling, glamour modelling for papers and lads mags, date a succession of footballers & other celebrities and then marry one or sell their story via Max Clifford. It's not a career that I could follow but is it really any less worthwhile than being an estate agent for example?

Here we go again!

The Premier League starts again with Tottenham Hotspur vs Manchester City and I have many many fantasy football teams to manage on several different sites. Why do I do this? I will try not to let it affect my blogging.

Fantasy football meltdown

I have teams in several of the major fantasy football games and this season there seem to be problems. The Telegraph game site all but collapsed yesterday and so they started offering you the facility of signing up over the telephone, not that anyone answered the telephone number. This morning they have started offering you the ability to sign up via email and pay next week. A good idea but where does that leave people who have already signed up but want to make changes to their team before the 12:45 deadline? I'll tell you where, screwed as the site is "up and down like a whores drawers" and who has the patience to keep on trying on a Saturday with chores to be done?

Meanwhile Fantasy League have made so many webby "improvements" to their site that it is all but unusable and is also suffering availability problems.

How are the other fantasy football sites faring? Why do these companies not factor in that people might actually want to use their site quite heavily in the last few days of pre-season?

Edwin van der Sar beats Death

Edwin van der Sar's clean sheet for Manchester United against Everton yesterday means that he has not conceded a goal for longer than Reading's Steve Death who kept a clean sheet for 1,103 minutes in the 1978-79 and 1979-90 seasons, this was the previous English record.

If Edwin van der Sar can keep West Ham at bay for at least 75 minutes on 8th February then he will overtake Chris Woods and take the British record beyond 1,196 minutes.

If Edwin van der Sar keeps a clean sheet for the whole of that match against West Ham and then stops Fulham from scoring on 18th February for more than 64 minutes, then he will take the world record from Atletico Madrid's Abel Renso at 1,275 minutes.


Well done Edwin van der Sar; a Dutchman by birth, qualified to play for England by residency and a long term stalwart of my Fantasy Football teams.

Steve McClaren has become Dutch?!

Where did that Dutch accent come from?

Priorities - blogging versus fantasy football

This is my first year of blogging and I have a difficult decision to make now. The football season starts today and my various fantasy football teams in sundry leagues in different competitions normally take up a lot of my time, some of the leagues are VERY competitive, but I also have been enjoying blogging this year. I think that as a sign of increasing age, if not maturity, I should concentrate on blogging but the competitive instinct is strong...