NPower Championship Tournament Review

The Npower Championship tournament has concluded. Here is the review, I hope you enjoy it.

We start off in Group A consisting of four players in Tyke, SpursBoy, Kamran and Terry which on paper is a fairly close group. SpursBoy the group favourite did his business relatively early on beating Kamran 3 – 1 and then edging out Terry 1 – 0, doing to him what Terry did to him in his ill-fated last tournament. With him through Kamran and Terry fought out a thrilling 4 – 4 draw with the only real winner of that game being Tyke who capitalised on them dropping points by beating Terry 4 – 1 and then securing a point against Kamran thanks to help from the referee in a 1 – 1 draw. With both SpursBoy and Tyke though, Tyke would top the group in a dead rubber recording his first ever victory against SpursBoy finishing 4 – 2. Kamran had a right to feel aggrieved going out thanks to a dodgy referee, whilst bottom placed finisher Terry just wasn’t at the races.

Now on to Group B which consisted of all six players turning up, those being: RVPM, Wilshere, Obers, Choice, Ludy and Junior. Now one player mopped up the other players in this group pretty quickly, that player being Ludy. After dishing out big beatings to Choice, Obers and Wilshere to the tune of 5 – 1, 6 – 1 and 4 – 0 respectively he beat Junior 2 – 0 and drew a 0 – 0 blank with RVPM to top the group and leave the rest trailing in his wake. The battle for second however was a bit closer. Obers didn’t have much impact losing every game in the group, barring a 1 – 1 draw with Choice who also had a bad time in the group. His only other point came in an entertaining 2 – 2 draw with RVPM. Wilshere was close to making an impact on the group his victories against Choice and Obers gave him a platform for second place, however his heavy defeats to Ludy and Junior coupled with a 1 – 1 draw with RVPM resulted in him finishing fourth with a respectable seven points. Despite RVPM beating Junior 3 – 2, that draw against Wilshere he was left to regret as Junior’s cricket scorelines helped him progress via virtue of one goal difference, fine, fine margins and a cruel finish for RVPM.

Group C was a five player group including: 1man, Edin, Oscar, TopLad and newcomer Bubbles. In a tight group it was the returning TopLad who made the biggest impact. Despite a 0 – 0 draw with Oscar he notched up three victories against Bubbles 2 – 1, Edin 3 – 0 and 1man 5 – 1 meaning he secured a pretty straightforward enough progression. Meanwhile Bubbles and Edin were in a battle for that second place. Both had beaten 1man and Oscar, Bubbles beating 1man 5 – 2 and Oscar an astonishing tournament record of 12 – 1 (albeit Bubbles himself admits Oscar threw the game at 4 – 1). Edin’s matches were a bit more of a closer affair edging past Oscar 1 – 0 and 1man 2 – 1. So the deciding match between Bubbles and Edin finished 2 – 1 to the newcomer Bubbles who just like Edin last tournament, secured progression at the first attempt, Edin had to make do with third. Meanwhile 1man took fourth place with his only highlight being a 3 – 0 victory over Oscar, in a match that ended up voided. Oscar finished bottom with just a point and the humiliation of being beaten 12 – 1 to show for it, though whether he actually thinks of it as humiliation is debatable.

The final Group, Group D consisted of four players: Kent, Wils, SKA and Tbag. Kent the clear favourite in this group and for the tournament made pretty easy work of his opponents. Wils and SKA were both beaten to the tune of 3 – 0, whilst newcomer Tbag put up a good fight, but fell at 2 – 1. So that was Kent easing through. As for second place Wils and Tbag looked game on for that. SKA was dead and buried after a 2 – 0 loss to Wils, but did manage to secure a point in a 2 – 2 draw against Tbag. So Wils and Tbag for second place, saw Tbag edge this close in encounter with a 1 – 0 victory to perhaps give us the biggest shock of the group stages and join the rest of the qualifiers in the last 8.


CONTINUED IN FIRST POST