Good Morning!
Firstly I hope you’ve all had a Merry Christmas and wish you all a happy new year and enjoy tonight’s festivities!
Unfortunately Lord Bench of Banterbury has had a number of things on this year and for various reasons I wont go into hasn’t been able to do as many updates, and generally spend anywhere near the time he would like in running the leagues. It would be such a shame for these incredibly competitive leagues to discontinue. So a new Lord, but only by name… @StuLord (on twitter) along with the help of a number of committee members will run the competitions. Hopefully next year Bench will be able to return back to his post but in the meantime you’re stuck with me.
That brings me on nicely to the competitions! Due to time constraints and time I am able to put in to this, there will only be one competition this year, a bumper sized Champions League!!!
The format is simple 8 groups of 4 teams play each other home and away so 6 group stage games Top 2 from each group will qualify for knock out phase round of 16, then quarters, semis and a final. All the knockout stages will be two legged over 2 gameweeks except the final which will be in GW 38. As usual after GW18 the teams were seeded an the top 8 from each of the leagues qualified for a 32 team strong draw! The teams will be seeded as follows, Top 2 in each league pot 1, 3-4 in pot 2, 5-6 in pot 3, 7-8 in pot 4. This will give a fair spread of teams in each group This draw was completed a couple of days ago, live on twitter, if you would like to view the draw here is a link!!! https://www.pscp.tv/w/1BRJjXkWYlaKw
If you can’t be arsed with watching that below is a link where the competition will be accessible for viewing.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kXO1ceOGq9dY-5HbBrdnxwv7GPZexg0US6_Yt0QIPNI/edit?usp=sharing
It already has the rules, schedule, groups and fixtures with links to the teams from the group league tables. This will be updated, providing I have time after each gameweek.
As you can see from the spreadsheet the group stages begin next week in GW21. Where top seed from each group will play bottom seed and the 2nd/3rd seeds face off too!
That is all for now, Apologies for the essay but a lot to write up! Any questions just ask on here (I’ll try to check this more frequently), DM me on twitter where I will be more responsive, or you can also add comments to the spreadsheet.
Good luck to everyone that has qualified for the Champions League!
The Banterbury H2H Leagues 