What a month it has been. It’s hard to believe it was 4 weeks ago when all of this kicked off and even harder to believe the planning of this started back in April. But here we are, 360 players and 20 managers later down to just two finalists and I guess if we’re completing this then 36 players. Having said that, there’ll also be the all important 3rd/4th place playoff game but you can forget it if you think I’m re-writing a whole paragraph.

Marvellous. We’ll start with that bronze medal match between Glipton Grasshoppers and Rostance Rovers

Third place playoff: Glipton Grasshoppers vs Rostance Rovers

Sid gets home advantage here because this same match took place in the groups with Tom at home. Yep, that’s how I decide things. Literally nobody cares about this match. Tom’s instructions were to play Steve Potts and Wrighty. Sid declined to comment. I guess if you’re looking for interest, Alan Shearer is second in the golden boot race with 7 goals. Alfonso has 8 but he is out of the tournament.

As promised, Tom plays Steve Potts and Ian Wright. Salas has five goals so far so a big finish could put him in the race. Other than that, it’s a great day.

For the penultimate time this tournament, here’s the video:

This match clearly meant so much to me I forgot to get the half time stats. Sorry about that. Salas gave Tom the lead but Scholes equalised. Edgar Davids spent most of the half trying to get sent off and was finally successful in the 39th minute.

With 10 men, Rostance were always going to be up against it and Shearer made it 2-1 on 49 minutes. He needed one more to win the golden boot and despite trying, he couldn’t find that extra goal whilst Batistuta added a third to clinch that all important bronze medal. There is no medal.

Confirmation for you:

All that is left to do now is sit back and enjoy the final.

Final: Bells United vs Sporting Po-Taitos

Two very consistent teams make the final.  Bells United boast a 100% record having won every game, including a last gasp winner in the semi final. I gave the lads the option of a two legged final but both wanted a one legged guts and glory affair, so that’s what we have. Ross gets home advantage for his superior record in the tournament so far.

Unsurprisingly, Ross is unchanged. Hasselbaink needs two to go joint top of the scorers chart.

Rob is unchanged too. He’s opted to stick with Leandro over Oli having chopped and changed between the two all tournament.

Here’s the final video.

It was one way traffic for the first half, chance after chance being spurned by Bells United. Some of it was down to the brilliance of Kopke but there was some wasteful finishing to go alongside the German’s heroics. Somehow, it was 0-0 at the break.

The second half followed a similar pattern with Hasselbaink eventually breaking the deadlock. Rob’s side were so much better than their first half showing and found Barthez in top form, as he has been all tournament. Bakayoko added a second and despite Rob throwing the kitchen sink at it, the bald Frenchman was in no mood to be beaten and Bells United took the glory.

Let’s see that confirmed:

Congratulations to Ross who completes the clean sleep of winning all 7 games he has played. A far cry from his German disaster last summer. His prize for winning is the coveted trophy but also a voucher from Classic Football Shirts, our splendid sponsor.

Final top scorers table:

PRIZES

So the main reason many of you will still be reading this is to find out if you won our prize bundle…

Thanks to all of you who entered but the winner drawn at random was…

Dave Sankey (@DTS1109)

Congratulations! If you could DM me your address I will get that posted out asap.

We’ve reached the end of the tournament. It’s been good fun and I’ve put a lot of time into it, so I hope it has been an enjoyable read for you and well done if you’ve stuck with it to the end.

This was going to be the last tournament I ran, my impending fatherhood duties will of course take priority going forwards meaning I probably can’t spend several hours playing CM, let alone editing it. However, I’ve had plenty of offers for help for next year’s tournament so we might even be able to go bigger and better. Watch this space. For now though, I’ll be giving you some peace and quiet during July but will be back in August with a brand new save.

Thanks for keeping us going for another season, see you soon.

Dave