Close finish!The first ‘season’ of the NUFCBlog competition finished yesterday and it was pretty close!
First of all, Happy New Year everyone. I hope it’s a good one for you all (and for the Toon of course).
Now, as to the competition, I note that three people were inconsiderate enough to finish in first place, which is a poor show.
Clint can’t claim a prize as he’s a writer here – sorry Clint but congratulations on a good finish. So that leaves El Toro and GeordieMagpie as joint winners, with GrandPooBah in third.
The draw means we have to implement the competition’s version of a Duckworth-Lewis rule, which involves much differentiation and integration. I worked on the calculations for 8 hours last night, using up much time on IBM’s ‘Big Blue’ supercomupter, and found that after much mega-mathematics it resolves down to merely totalling up the first and second prizes and dividing them by two.
Thus El Toro and GeordieMagpie will get £75 each (£100 + £50 / 2) and GrandPooBah will get £25.
Well done guys.The new competition will start in a few week’s time.
Around the Grounds by Chris Nelson.Some of my best days supporting Newcastle have come away from St James’ Park. I don’t mean that as a criticism of our home ground as, quite simply, it isn’t.
Being at a match at St James’ Park can be a unique experience which is unrivalled so far on my travels, but being the adventurous type, combined with a lack of time, and sometimes a lack of money or transport, means that a lot of my support is now done away from SJP.
I would like nothing better than to be able to make every home game, but unfortunately I can’t. It costs me roughly £150 for a day at St James’, and sometimes that just isn’t possible.
Many of you know that I also work nights nowadays, and that it can roll into a Saturday morning, which also counts against me trying to make the 420-mile round trip to Newcastle. So as a compromise, I try to do as many games as my time and money allows me to, although perhaps inevitably most of these games come away from St James’ Park. (more…)
