In my first blog https://keysersozefantasyfootball.sport.blog/2021/04/25/how-i-started-playing-fantasy-football/ I explained how for 9 years, I operated as a casual player, winning my local league just once, although I did manage 3 other cash place finishes. I wasn’t a terrible player, I just didn’t really understand the game, the rules fully, and the tools that were out there.
Every year I would enter my 1 team (I had no idea multi’s existed) I always enjoyed the game, and the banter with friends, but that was the extent of it for me. Of course I knew through the Sun newspaper, there were big prizes available, but at this stage I myself wasn’t entering the official league and I was just manually working out points for my mini league. I guess I thought players winning big were just having amazing once in a lifetime seasons, I had no idea it was the same players, challenging year on year not just in ‘sun dream team’ but the other big national newspaper games too.
Sometime around 2015, I came across sites like ‘fantasy football scout’ and ‘fantasy football geek’ however at the time I wasn’t playing FPL which these sites were largely geared towards. It was the summer of 2016 where things really changed for me, when I joined Twitter and joined a ‘fantasy football group’ on FB which was focused on sun dream team (let me know if you want to join)
The first thing that shocked me, was that previous BIG national winners were on here, not only were they active, they had known each other for years, many since the late 90’s. They would share tips, and had their own mini leagues between themselves. On Twitter I was amazed at the size of the community and the levels of amazing content people produce.
I think it was a mix of seeing the success others have had, wanting to get better myself, and ultimately win some cash leagues that led to my hours spent on ‘fantasy’ to increase dramatically since summer 2016. Results came almost immediately and I have won my local cash league (approx 35 players) 5 years in a row since then and the World Cup version (a future blog will cover cash leagues in more detail) I began playing multiple teams for the first time often to join the enjoyable ‘novelty’ leagues with different unique features rather than just traditional leagues.
Upon joining cash leagues with these top national players, there was definitely doubt at the beginning (am I wasting my money/ are they trustworthy/ will I be able to compete) to my surprise I began challenging and winning some of these too. I even started running some of my own leagues before too long.
In terms of the increased time spent on ‘fantasy’ I find myself spending hours keeping up to date with injury news/ setting alarms for transfers and team news/reading match reports/ analysing stats/ as well as providing updates for the leagues I run. The actual watching of football may surprise some people in that other than Man Utd games, I don’t watch that many other full games, however I do watch highlights of all prem/ fa cup/ league cup and international games.
The move from being a ‘casual’ player was really about understanding the ‘inner workings’ of the games, building budget/ making transfers at the right times/ looking ahead at fixtures and understanding match ratings.
For the next 2 years until 2018 I was still only playing ‘sun dream team’ my next blog will detail my move into multiple formats. Feel free to share how you moved from being a ‘casual’ player. Thank you for reading
Keysersoze fantasy football 