Shut the FA Cup!
Last night, as a few of you may be aware, the fourth round of the 125th annual F.A. Cup competition [Wikipedia] was concluded. The greatest team in the land grinned heartily in the face of danger and promptly ... got ... thrashed ...
That, however, is not important. What is important is that, after a record number of 674 teams had entered the competition this year, 658 have been taken outside feet-first, and the identities of the sixteen teams left standing are now known. They are:
- Team (Current Division) [1]
- Aston Villa (Premiership)
- Birmingham City (Premiership)
- Bolton Wanderers (Premiership)
- Brentford (League One)
- Charlton Athletic (Premiership)
- Chelsea (Premiership)
- Colchester United (League One)
- Liverpool (Premiership)
- Manchester City (Premiership)
- Manchester United (Premiership)
- Middlesbrough (Premiership)
- Newcastle United (Premiership)
- Preston North End (Championship)
- Southampton (Championship)
- Stoke City (Championship)
- West Ham United (Premiership)
Unlike many other knock-out competitions, the draw for the F.A. Cup is not set in stone until the semi-final stage, and the fixtures are determined by random lots after each round has been concluded. The fixtures for the fifth round (or round-of-sixteen, or eighth-finals) have already been drawn and are as follows [2]:
- Bolton Wanderers v West Ham United
- Charlton Athletic v Brentford
- Liverpool v Manchester United
- Newcastle United v Southampton
- Preston North End v Middlesbrough
- Aston Villa v Manchester City
- Chelsea v Colchester United
- Stoke City v Birmingham City
[These matches will be played on the weekend of February 18th / 19th]
The Competition
The basic aim of the competition is very simple: Predict who will win the F.A. Cup final (scheduled for 13/05/2006).
As there are only sixteen teams left in the competition, and more than sixteen competitors should be allowed to enter, some extra
random guessworkskillful deduction is also required.Firstly: Pick the team you think will win the final (e.g. West Ham United). This is the most important guess as it is theoretically possible to win the prize by getting this right and nothing else.
Secondly: Predict a scoreline for the final (e.g. 3-1).
Thirdly: Pick the team you think will lose the final. (e.g. Charlton Athletic)
Fourthly: Pick the time of the first goal in the final by the winning team in minutes from the kick-off [0-120]. (e.g. 27)
Fifthly: Before the deadline, post a top-level comment in this diary (and nowhere else); this is to avoid concurrency issues. Please make the title of the comment / message 'HUSI FA CUP 2006 GUESS', or something of a similar flavour, so I can give it priority over the usual prattle ;)
Use the following as an example format (obviously supplying your own values):
Winners: West Ham United
Score: 3-1
Losers: Charlton Athletic
First winners goal: 27 minutesSixthly: Please read the rules!. Either that, or just accept that arbitrary and random shit might happen for no apparent reason.
I was trying to think of the fairest and most internationalist way of doing this, so that everyone gets a chance to enter, but also to maintain their privacy, whilst simultaneously not inconveniencing me too much. I've settled on the following format.
The prize can be collected in one of three ways, to be chosen by the winner:
Option 1:
If the winner has an account at Amazon.co.uk, they can choose a book (nothing else) from their wish list to the value of ten UKian pounds (£10 / $17.60 US approx [see rule 2]).Option 2:
If the winner is happy to shop from Amazon.co.uk( Note: Amazon UK ships world-wide), they can choose to receive an email gift certificate from there to the value of fifteen UKian pounds (£15 / $26.40 US approx [see rule 2]).Option 3:
If the winner isn't happy with either of Options 1 or 2, or lives in an inconvenient location, they can choose a book (nothing else) from Amazon.co.uk to the value of ten UKian pounds (£10 / $17.60 US approx [see rule 2]) and I will personally ship it to them worldwide.
If none of these options suffice: tough luck. I'm not Santa Claus. The variance in the rates is to cover the variations in shipping. Different options may work out better for different people depending on where they are and what they want. The prize is supposed to be a book, although, if the winner chooses the gift certificate, I obviously can't enforce that. It would be nice if the winner posted a review, after receipt, but it ain't mandatory.
The following are unnecessarily anal but are designed to clear up most of the "ifs" in advance. Please read them at least once.
Unless stated otherwise, all times are in UTC and all dates are in dd/mm/yyyy format.
The official currency for this competition is UK pounds sterling (£).
No two competition entrants can have the same identical values across all four guesses (winner, score, loser, first winning goal time). Guesses will be accepted on a first-come-first-served basis.
Entry to this competition is restricted to registered members of the HuSi website (http://www.hulver.com/scoop/) with user identification numbers (UIDs) lower than 2649 (the lowest invalid UID at the time of this posting). Each member may have one competition entry (entry by suspected and known duplicate accounts will be ignored). Entries must be by comment IN THIS DIARY; comments made in other diaries may be accepted, but entries here will be given priority.
All competition entries will be acknowledged; most probably with a simple comment saying "Check [nt]", or something of similar ilk. This is to make sure that all entries have been checked and there are no clashes or inconsistent data. If your entry is from before the deadline and hasn't been acknowledged for a day or two, feel free to hunt me (yicky yacky) down, but leave a decent amount of leeway, as I'm not online all the time and may not see them immediately.
Competition entrants accept that their information (username, UID, competition guesses etc.) may be stored in a database for the purposes of easy data manipulation and future reprinting on the HuSi website and possibly an off-site website with real-time updates. No data provided will be given away or sold to any third party.
The winner will be determined according to the following criteria in the following order:
Choosing the correct winning team.
If more than one person has guessed the correct winning team, the competition will be decided based upon choosing the correct score. No interpolation or proximity evaluation will be used here: Either the guesses are right, or they are not.
If two or more people have the right team and the right score (or nobody has the right score, but more than one person has the right team) the competition will be decided based upon choosing the correct losing opponents. The randomized nature of the draw makes this almost impossible to predict with any great accuracy.
If more than one competitor is equivalently correct at this point, the competition will be decided based upon choosing the time of the first goal by the winning team. In the event that two or more guesses are equidistant from the actual time, the lowest one will be considered superior.
[ For the purposes of the competition: Goals scored in any "injury time" at the end of the first half will be considered as having been scored in the forty-fifth (45th) minute; goals scored in any "injury time" at the end of the second half will be considered as having been scored in the nintieth (90th) minute; goals scored in any "injury time" at the end of the first half of extra time will be considered as having been scored in the hundred-and-fifth (105th) minute; goals scored in any "injury time" at the end of the second half of extra time or as part of a penalty shoot-out will be considered as having been scored in the hundred-and-twentieth (120th) minute.
All other timing information will be taken as an integer value from the official match report as it appears on the BBC Sport website (Note: Not the minute-by-minute update, not the 'current games' section, not the television or radio broadcasts; the one-and-only, official, post-hoc match report). ]
In the event that two or more competition entrants are still equivalently correct, the prize will be given based on a yet-to-be-decided tie-breaker.
After the completion of the semi-finals, in the unlikely event that it is impossible for anybody to win (e.g. two teams nobody chose have got to the final), a re-jigged competition will be run based upon the known facts at that time.
In the event that, after the final, nobody is correct, the prize will be held in trust ("It's a rollover!") for a future competition.
The closing deadline for entry is 18:00 UTC (13:00 EST | 10:00 PST) on Friday 17/02/2006. This is because the fifth round kicks off the next day.
I (yicky yacky) am the sole judge of the competition and reserve the right to amend the rules, alter the criteria for winning, exclude / disqualify an entrant, or adjust the competition in any way I see fit and at any time for any reason. [3]
I (yicky yacky), reserve the right to cancel this competition at any time and for any reason whatsoever, declaring any winner invalid and witholding any prizes as necessary. [3]
Fearfully Anticipated Questions (FAQ)
- I have a question ...
- Is this for real?
- Why are you doing this?
- I'm a useless newbie / furriner who doesn't know much about football; Can I still enter?
- I'm a newbie and want to increase my chances; what can I do?
- It's too confusing. I can't figure out everyone else's guesses in order to make a valid one.
- May is a long way away!
- How can I keep up-to-date on the situation?
- About the prize; would it be OK if ... ?
- Could I use a different Amazon from Amazon.co.uk
- Shouldn't it be called 'Soccer'?
Make sure you've read the rest of this blurb, especially the rules. If your question is definitely not answered, ask it below and I'll answer it if I can. If it's a good question then — thanks to Hulvers great, new, diary-editing patch — I'll post it here with an answer.
Yup. Go for your life.
1) I like competitions.
2) I like football (especially The Cup).
3) I like HuSi.
4) I'm testing out a database abstraction layer.
5) Consider this a trial run of sorts.
I'm a useless newbie / furriner who doesn't know much about football; Can I still enter?
Absolutely. The more people that enter, the better. Despite appearances, the competition's been designed so that knowledge of football / The Cup / the Premiership (EPL) is actually of fairly minimal advantage. Randomly picking two teams, a score and a number between zero and one hundred and twenty will give a reasonable, non-zero probability of winning.
I'm a newbie and want to increase my chances; what can I do?
Firstly: Read the notes; they give you most of the pertinent information to make some good guesses.Secondly: Tend towards picking one of the Premiership teams to win. Generally speaking, the higher up in the Premiership the team is, the better they are. Despite the free-for-all nature of a competition with over 650 teams entering, the last time a team from outside the top division won the Cup was in 1980 and, arguably, it's gotten a lot tougher since then.
Thirdly: The F.A. Cup final is often a fairly low-scoring affair. A score of 1-0 or 2-1 is a lot more likely than 5-3 (unless, of course, the game goes to penalties).
Fourthly: Bear in mind that the F.A. Cup is a knock-out competition. Unlike the European Cup or the Superbowl, there is no league stage first. Thus if, for example, you're tempted to pick Manchester United or Liverpool — both prestigious, successful, rich teams who, under most circumstances, would be regarded among the favourites — then be aware that they've drawn each other in round five; therefore only one of those two will survive.
Fifthly: Ignore everything I've just said. The F.A. Cup is notoriously unpredictable, which is part of its charm. The knock-out format can suit a lesser team more than a league format.
It's too confusing. I can't figure out everyone else's guesses in order to make a valid one.
You don't need to. Firstly: The information is available in a much more digested form on the status webpage. Secondly: Don't even worry about it. Make any guess you like and I'll tell you if it clashes. If it clashes, you can correct this by altering one aspect of your guess so that it doesn't — the 'goal time' is probably the least destructive.
That is true, but this is the way of The Cup. Learn patience, grasshopper. It has to be scheduled to fit in between the usual league and European Cup competitions. Bear in mind that there are four rounds left (including the final) and that, until the semi-final stage, tied games are resolved with a replay (see [2]) so things should keep bubbling along fairly eventfully in the meantime.
How can I keep up-to-date on the situation??
In terms of keeping everyone up to date, I'll post summary diaries every time a given round is fully completed (to keep the spam down), letting you know which teams (and HuSi members) are still competing fiercely with each other and which have bitten the dust.
In addition, a webpage will be set up (hopefully later this afternoon - 09/02/2006) which will be updated in something approaching real-time. This will summarize the current situation with both the draw and the competition entries.
Update [2006-2-9 12:52:38 by yicky yacky]:: The status webpage is currently situated right here.
About the prize; would it be OK if ... ?
Almost certainly not. A lot of thought was given to the situation regarding the prize and it is quite clearly described above. I'm not prepared to spend my life negotiating so that someone can make two dollars at the margins by doing something differently. This competition isn't meant to be taken too seriously. However, if it is something of very mild and not inconvenient consequence, I'll consider it, but bear in mind the answer will probably be "No".
Could I use a different Amazon from Amazon.co.uk?
Almost certainly not. This is a minor glitch brought about by an unfortunate fit of ethics in my youth which resulted in a ethical and morally-spotless, but not universally-accepted, credit / debit card. Amazon.co.uk is known to accept it with no problems (and, oh boy, do they ever?) and they ship world-wide. If this is a serious problem to the winner, I'll see what I can do, but don't ask unless it's a real issue, as the answer will probably be "No".
Shouldn't it be called 'Soccer'?
No.
[1] - The English football league system is centred around a hierarchy of four divisions. At the end of each season, the three teams at the top of their respective divisions get promoted to the division above, and the three teams at the bottom of a given division get relegated into the division below. The exception to this is at the bottom of the bottom-most division, from which two teams get relegated and into which two teams get promoted from the massive, parallel, pyramidal system of localized divisions which exist below the "mainstream league".
In the olden times, the divisions were, rather conveniently if socialistically, called "division one", "division two" ... etc. Unfortunately, due to massive rebranding for commercial purposes and various historical idiosyncrasies, these names are now archaic and loaded with confusion. For the purposes of this competition, and to give some guidance as to the abilities of the teams, the following table gives the current state of affairs:
- Brand name = Status
- Premiership = Best division
- Championship = 2nd-best division
- League One = 3rd-best division
- League Two = 4th-best division
Yes: This does lead to the rather Orwellian state of affairs where the "Championship" is nothing of the kind and "League Two" is actually division four. Don't ask me; I didn't invent it ...
[2] - In typical football notation, the A v B format means that team A will be playing at home. In the F.A. Cup, the team which has home advantage is determined by the draw. However; if the teams are tied after a full game, the game will be resolved by a replay (another full game) at the other team's ground. At the end of this replay, if the scores are still level, the result will be determined by extra-time and then penalties. This system changes at the semi-final stage; semi-finals being traditionally played on neutral ground.
The final itself is played as a one-off event. If the scores are tied at the end of normal time (two halves of forty-five minutes each), an extra thirty minutes is played (two halves of fifteen minutes each) which is called "extra time". If the scores are still tied after extra time, the game is resolved via a penalty shootout. This is similar to such shootouts in ice hockey and has five normal rounds followed by "sudden death" (a penalty shootout is pretty much a random event and is almost impossible to predict - England losses notwithstanding ...).
[3] - I fully expect everyone to approach this in good-and-true HuSian spirit, but, in the event that anyone does decide to behave like a tit (it's the internet, after all), I think it's fair to retain complete control over something that's just meant to be a bit of fun.
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