The Mid-Table Thread

[K-Win]

Portsmouth

Sat 18 Mar A Bristol Rovers
Sat 25 Mar H Port Vale
Sat 01 Apr H Forest Gr....... ah what's the point?!?......

 

[thewwfc]

Portsmouth

Sat 18 Mar A Bristol Rovers
Sat 25 Mar H Port Vale
Sat 01 Apr H Forest Gr....... ah what's the point?!?......

such apathy bodes well for your mid-table chances. Pompey have suddenly gone odds-on.

But let's just remind ourselves of the rules.

Winner is the first onto the beach, i.e. can no longer either mathematically get promoted or relegated.

In the event of a tie, the winner is the one who is:

Closest to either 12th or 13th
GD closest to zero
Has the greatest number of draws

Winner gets a lifetime supply of white bread, vanilla ice cream and ready salted crisps

 

[Bobbin']

Surely the winner is just the team that finishes 12th?

The first team to mathematically be unable to go up or down could still finish the season 8th/9th or 17th/18th.

 

[thewwfc]

To me it's all about striving for mediocrity, and hitting that goal first, so you've got the most amount of time to scratch your arse and not worry any longer about this football lark.

Plus with the raging inconsistency of this division, the title tends to be settled quite late in any case, and the extremes that you mention don't tend to happen.

 

[denzel ecfc]

Really hope we win this, can't see it though

 

[BRFC_Gas]

Definitely would take this at the moment!

 

[Bartonyellow]

I think we won this one season and close the one after. Would love to be there now instead of down in the dogfight.
Mid table obscurity has its plus points. Think of your blood pressure, nothing to get stressed out about. Might put 5 years on your life..

 

[codaplenty]

This would represent an excellent finish by Fleetwood, you what lads I think we can do it !

 

[UppaTowen_ITFC]

My money is on Charlton

 

[Si Robin]

We won the League 2 version of this a few years back - it was better than when we won League 2 in 2021.

 

[K-Win]

Just so we know exactly who's in this:

Pompey - 42
Charlton - 40
Port Vale - 40
Exeter - 39
Lincoln - 39
Bristol Rovers - 38

May the best mediocre team win

 

[kieran_vale]

We might be able to pull this one off assuming it doesn’t go down to the GD or amount of draws tie-breaker. Be wonderful to add to our trophy cabinet alongside two pizza trophies and the Isle of Man pre-season tournament.

 

[thewwfc]

It's understandable that everyone's getting excited over this, as it's always key to the interest in a season to have something to half-heartedly aim for right till the end.

Hell, if (as rumoured), Ainsworth is off to QPR, we could make a late slump here and flop gloriously into contention.

But where prestigious trophies go, abuse of the rules will surely follow, so the authorities need to be vigilant.

Look for out for either suspicious concession of late goals that had no need to be let in, or shite players that previously haven't been able to hit a cow's arse with a banjo suddenly busting a gut to score, as teams try and game the system and work towards that precious zero GD, or if (because of how results are panning out elsewhere) they suddenly find themselves too high or too low in the table, trying to compensate with their own result.

It's been documented that saboteurs in the pay of shady betting syndicates may go as far as trying to get games called off by vandalising the pitch the day before a game, or wrecking the stadium electrics mid-game, causing the match to be abandoned. Obviously, timing is everything when you're striving (but not too hard) to be the first onto the beach, so a late abandonment can ruin everything, and hand the mid-table trophy to a competitor.

And fuck me, think of the hell that will break loose if Port Vale come close to this, but lose it at the final hurdle due to a ref disallowing a goal or giving a shonky penalty. The entire population of Burslem will descend upon EFL headquarters and burn it to a crisp, and there'll be street lynchings of anyone who even owns a whistle and a set of red and yellow cards.

It's not all doom and gloom and danger though.

The mid-table cup is where some signings - especially maligned January ones - really get their chance to shine, or at least sparkle faintly. We've all heard the outcry that some players get..."Jesus Christ (insert manager name), what the hell are you doing signing some over-the-hill journeyman that's done nothing in the game? They'll just be a squad player at best - they bring nothing to the team that we don't already have".

But this is exactly the calibre of player you so desperately need in the mid-table dogfight. Drifting in and out of the game, never doing anything that'd make you weep with frustration, but at no point are they going to pull off any kind of worldie shot/tackle/save/whatever. If, at the end of the game, you're thinking..."<insert player name>? Were they even playing?" then you know you're onto a winner.

Slowly but surely, once the mid-table cup is hoisted, the fanbase will come to realise the quiet genius of their manager's recruitment policy.

 

[valefan16]

Hopefully now we can well and truly cement our place in this, 16 off the PO's 11 off the bottom 4 so a win tomorrow could have us 13/14 so well rooted into the thread!

 

[Davidimp]

Our 12 home draws out of 15 games certainly helping us

 

[Sydney Posse]

We won’t be mid table for long the way things are going

 

[denzel ecfc]

Great result yesterday for us in this competition. I make us and Fleetwood favourites at the moment

 

[Greenacres]

Definitely would take this at the moment!

Take it...this is what we aspire to!

We finished tenth in the Conference, three seasons in a row, I think I must have slept through the majority of that time as I can remember very little about any of it...a sort of sandwich filler between struggling to survive and what seemed like endless play-off challenges.

 

[Trapdoor]

Great result yesterday for us in this competition. I make us and Fleetwood favourites at the moment

We are now nailed on winners for this. Bit of a disappointing season after a pretty good start. A few horrible curveballs with Taylor leaving suddenly and Jev getting arrested put paid to any possible tilt at the P/Os but equally our base level is not anywhere near relegation. Just give us this trophy now.

 

[Davidimp]

We're now 11th and must be getting close

 

[thewwfc]

We're now 11th and must be getting close

Credible threat from yourselves, Exeter and Fleetwood, all with a GD around the zero mark. Port Vale haven't done themselves any favours with that -14 GD, which could well count against them if things go down to the wire.

 

[kieran_vale]

Lincoln odds on favourites for me. All those draws they’ve picked up this season I bet they never thought it would result in helping them win a trophy after all.

 

[Laker]

Lincoln should get it purely for getting 87 draws this season.

 

[Luke Imp]

The other trophy we're going for is to remain the only side in L1 this season to have not scored after the 80th minute of a game (or 75th minute, can't remember which).

 

[YEO YEO YEO]

The other trophy we're going for is to remain the only side in L1 this season to have not scored after the 80th minute of a game (or 75th minute, can't remember which).

Just had a quick look, except for cup games, latest goal was Mandroiu 76th minute against Charlton in January.

 

[Davidimp]

We're such a strange team this season and no mistake.

 

[leedsvaliant]

I think we'll miss out on goal difference..disappointing.

 

[thewwfc]

I mean, you have to say that Lincoln look like absolute animals in this contest, with the ability to keep up those tasty draws week in, week out - but you can't write off Exeter and their glorious win-lose-draw style inconsistency - there's more than one way to win here.

 

[Luke Imp]

The other trophy we're going for is to remain the only side in L1 this season to have not scored after the 80th minute of a game (or 75th minute, can't remember which).

Another one to add is that we've not lost when scoring first, but haven't won when conceding first.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

We're such a strange team this season and no mistake.

We only gave you 6 points in order to take the mid table silverware