Just So's We're Clear:

Here to play games and hopefully have some fun. Don't expect to win them all, or even the majority, but I like to be able to conceive of the possibility of being competitive. Thank you very much for offering to play my 1500TV, Rookie-level team with your 2000, Super Star one, but please don't be offended if I decline to give you an easy win for SPP-farming purposes.

I frequently stall. Given the chance I will try to push people into the crowd. However, I don't systematically try to kick other teams to death. This is a personal choice, of course, but having been on the receiving end of this sort of thing I don't think the benefit I get from frequent fouling justifies something which can often seem a bit mean-spirited.

Anyway...

WE: 22/7/16

Overall: 23/18/57, so a 0/1/2 week, largely because my laptop died and needed replacing. Two league games, fluked one of them, the third was against Wood Elves so you can probably guess the rest.

WE: 15/7/16

Overall: 23/17/55, so 2/0/7. Not a strong week, obviously, and the fact that both the guys I lost to were very vocal about being diced didn't help much. Hey ho. As I said in a match report, I think the fact my expectation is to lose may be impacting on my games. But the fact remains that my average result is a 2-0 defeat.

WE: 8/7/16

Overall 21/17/48, this week 3/1/4. Very nearly at that point where I start winning more than losing but still not quite there, obviously. A couple of new leagues starting up soon so I suspect my win ratio will drop a little.

One slightly dispiriting thing that has struck me is that all three of the teams I beat this week were very quick to call 'dicing' and, to varying degrees, give up on playing the ball. I think it's fairly reasonable to suggest that expecting to lose is a good way of guaranteeing that happens. On the other hand, I'm as guilty as anyone of giving up and just settling for beating up the opposing team if it becomes clear I don't have a chance in terms of ball-play. Hmmmm.

(When you can't play the ball and are being taken apart by the opposition as well is another story. This happened to me this week. If you fancy playing a 720TV Ogre side please let me know; I think they'll struggle to get a game via conventional routes...)

WE: 1/7/16

Overall 18/16/44, this week 2/0/4 (a quiet week, for various reasons). Well, this week saw the end of an unprecedented 4-game winning streak, then a highly precedented 4-game losing streak, including a couple of League thumpings. Possibly too small a sample size to usefully draw conclusions beyond the fact I'm still NBG at this game.

WE: 24/6/16

Overall 16/16/40, this week 3/3/5 (previous week 4/3/9). Yup, for the first time I've won and drawn more games than I lost, and come within spitting distance of winning and losing the same number. Admittedly this is partly because I've decided to be more selective about my games - specifically not routinely playing people with massively higher levels of skill and experience than me. That said, finally won a league game, too. We'll see if this trend continues...

WE: 17/6/16

Overall 13/13/35. This week 4/3/9 (previous week 3/2/7). No evidence of much improvement, especially when you consider two of the wins were from dubious concessions. On the other hand the other two were what I would call 'steady' wins, not dicey, against relatively 'normal' opposition.

On the other hand any/all of my teams can get blasted off the pitch with monotonous regularity (5-0 defeats are not unheard of) so, you know, I still feel like I'm playing to play rather than playing to win...