P01 – CM9798: Half & Half Premier League | @KingOfTheRooks

Welcome to a world where in mid-1997, the Premier League experiment has failed. The sponsors have fallen away, Sky Sports have gone running to the hills. The clubs have gone bust! But there’s a saviour in town.

The Premier League has been saved from the jaws of death. A new owner has stepped in, taken on all the club and league debt. But who you ask? Why the worlds largest scarf production company. And to take on such a demand, they have but one ask…

…all teams must merge with their deadliest rivals to ensure the long-life of the half and half scarf. It didn’t go down well. Some clubs couldn’t find a real rival so didn’t make the cut. West Ham and Millwall (Westwall) are operating a three changing room stance. Two home dressing rooms and one away.

This shock means all the clubs have 1 for ‘blend’. In addition, they all have balances of just £10k and are currently managers, rudderless ships. Who will step in and take on the awful job? Who will the clubs sell to balance the books? Will there be fighting in the stands?

Okay, so on with the blasphemy, let us meet the teams. The clubs were allowed the best 14 players from each team. Although some have already decided to cut their roster.

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It’s the Annual CM9798 Birthday quiz! Also cast your vote for your favourite CM9798 players

Good morning to you. CM9798 will turn 26 on Tuesday and as Sunday is more or less the signature day for my blogs over the last 9 years (let that resonate for a second) I thought I’d bring the celebrations forward a few days. Nobody has the energy to party on a Tuesday – that’s just fact. So how do we celebrate the big TWO SIX?

In all honesty, I am running on fumes recently. Sickness has blighted CM9798 Towers and I’ve got very little to give. My laptop hasn’t been open all week until now, as I type this, at 10pm on Saturday evening. So here’s what we’ve got:

Take our Champed or Not Champed quiz! Remember to share your score on X (Twitter if you prefer old money). It literally starts below, so good luck.

If you are new around here, you could always take the quiz from last year

Or the year before.

Furthermore, last year we came up with Top 25 CM9798 Players. This was just from the Blog Squad votes so now we want your help in compiling a new list. It’s Eurovision style voting, all you have to do is give your points out below and we’ll reveal the results next week. 12 points to your favourite! If you can’t be bothered to do all 11 boxes that’s fine, any duplicates I’ll take your highest answer only.

CM9798 Best Players Vote

Don’t reflect too hard on 26 years of this great game, an awful lot has happened. Have a great week and I’ll be back hopefully soon.

Brits Abroad – Part 16: I know that was then…

Hello and I guess maybe that should be Konichiwa as the Brits Abroad are about to board a plane for Japan for the 2002 World Cup. To catch you up, last week Benfica’s Brits Abroad retained the Champions League and the Portugese league to add to the European Super Cup and World Club Cup. The only blemish was a Portugese Cup final defeat to Sporting, which will annoy me but the show must go on. Now matters turn International.

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Brits Abroad – Part 15: Deficit

Good morning and hello to you. I’m about to head out for my son’s fourth birthday party so if you land on this blog from X (Twitter, in old money) don’t be surprised if this misses the 10.30am post time. It is an annoying loss that these things don’t automatically post anymore. In any event, welcome back to Portugal where the Benfica Brits as nobody is calling them are fighting against the tide. After winning everything, I took the England job and for some reason our form dropped off a bit. So now we’re chasing down Sporting Lisbon and trying to defend everything and then all the same lads will go off to Japan for the World Cup. Wish me luck at the party – we’ve got a journey to go on first.

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Brits Abroad – Part 14: Air Miles

Good hello to you all! What a week it has been, for reasons I’ll not get into but the sanctuary of the weekend couldn’t get here fast enough. For Benfica, their squad full of Brits have made a mixed bag start to the season. It’s always been a mystery of this game where sometimes your unstoppable team just drop off. Did calling them all up for England prove to be a bad idea? I won’t have it. It was only a good idea. Let’s bring on the nonsense of this week.

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Brits Abroad – Part 13: Next Level

Well hello to you. It has been a week since we last spoke, I hope your ascent into October was seamless. This weekend my son moved up to the next year group for his Saturday morning football group. It’s barely football but of the 30 kids in the class, 29 of them seem quite content to go it alone. Their parents sit on comfortable chairs sipping coffee at the side of the sports hall. The 30th child wants Daddy to run around with him, so there I am, like a sporty version of Will Ferrell in Elf, playing what’s the time Mr Wolf as a 6 foot 3 giant amongst children. That is in no way relevant to what you are here to read but sharing is caring, or something. The Brits Abroad meanwhile are proving to be giants amongst mostly Portugese men, having won the league at a canter and going on to become European Champions. How do you top that?

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