I'm late starting up the Pilgrims' Patter Prediction League for 2021/22. I missed first competitive game - the Lincs Senior Cup game against Lincoln Utd, so I'd better get it going before next week's match at Stamford AFC.
Fans are now allowed into games so I have to decide whether to revert to predicting the attendance or to stick with the first goal time predictions that we had last season. If I can get my spreadsheet writing head on I may be able to do both.
For those who haven't played before, it has been all about predicting the results and attendances or first goal times of Boston United's competitive first team games throughout the season. As the season goes on you accumulate points and the winner is the person with the most points at the end of the season. There's no entry fee and no prizes apart from the honour of being the winner. It's just a bit of fun!
All predictions must be made before kick off - although I'm open to bribes of a pint of Batemans XXXB or Dark Lord to accept predictions that are a few minutes late.
You get 3 points for the correct score or 1 point for the correct result.
For attendance predictions it was 10 points if you got the attendance spot on or 3 points if within 5% or 1 point if within 10%.
For first goal time predictions it was 10 points for spot on, 3 points within 2 mins and 1 point within 5 mins. If you want to predict no goals will be scored just put in a time of zero (0) and you will get 8 points if the match does end 0-0. A time of 45 covers all goals in first half injury time and a time of 90 covers all goals in injury time at the end of normal time. You can be inconsistent with your result and goal time prediction so you could say predict a 2-0 Boston win and a goal time of 0, or a 0-0 draw and a goal time of 7 minutes.
Soon after each game I usually managed to process the scores and update the points table and post it on Patter.
You are allowed to edit your prediction right up until kickoff time.
In Cup games with extra time or penalties it's the score at the end of normal time that counts.
If a game is postponed or abandoned then all predictions for that match are null and void.
So if I finalise what predictions we will use by Saturday night I'll start up the League for predictions of the Stamford game on Sunday morning.
So let me know your thoughts and suggestions asap. Would you like to make predictions of:
A - Score and Attendance
B - Score and First Goal Time
C - Score and Attendance and First Goal Time