Mainland Premier League

I'm guessing it's less conspiracy and more mediocrity. 

Funny seeing all the promotion, updates etc for the schools competition this week too.

If Tech won Mr Searle will be all over it. If we do the double today. Surely Hutchy gets the sack for winning nothing with that squad n resources. Piss bloody poor I say 

YES YES!! Fraser Angus of the bench please Danny. Goals in him

English Cup Final

Cashmere Technical 2 (Danny Boys, Lyle Matthysen) Ferrymead Bays 0 HT 1 - 0

Steve Sumner MVP Medal - Danny Boys

So what happened?

Guess Hutch keep his job then huh? Good on him, top lad

Do you mean on here? 

Link to coverage of the game:

Good lad. Average coach. Oh well was still a good season. Bit lucky but got the job done. I'll be doing a roadydown to Dunedin. 

So team of the year goes to:

Cash Tech: 2nd in the League, English Cup, Semi of Chatham

Ferrymead Bays, 1st in the League, 2nd in English Cup. 

I heard that Uni's centreback is in the running for player of the season? He was certainly busy, but player of the year? Would love to see the actual nominations....

Process is MPL coaches nominate their top three players (can nominate players in their own team) in the various positions - keeper, defenders etc, with others asked as well - to work out the top three, with each position winner then used to sort of the overall winner.

Doesn't Willy Gerdsen get a say in it too?

Believe so.

And Hutch for MPL coach of the year?

South Island Championship:  Caversham 2 Ferrymead Bays 1

Caversham 2 (Sam Collier 2 - incl. pen) Ferrymead Bays 1 (Mark Peers) HT 0 - 1

Apologies for the incognito chaps but with what I'm about to say I would like to do that. I have been around the traps for 40 odd years and this year was lucky enough to watch 2x MPL games a week on average with the time differences due to teams playing at English Park as their home. We will start from the top. The team I once supported is no longer in the premiere (don't exist) so really no biases

Bays - Luckiest team to ever win the league. Good on them. Nice to see a new winner. They seemed to have the most depth which helped them tremendously. I thought their games against Tech they showed how poor they actually are and against other top teams tand even bottom teams luck luck luck. The Western English cup game was my favourite. Only once every 40 years a team playing like that will win the league. Was great entertainment. Depth and a physically strong backline did help their cause along with other results. I did watch the game they actually beat Tech 1-0 in the early rounds. Extremely freakish for them to win that but again a win is a win. I don't think they will keep a squad that deep again. We might see Bays with an FDM and a star player next season

Tech- deserved winners of the league. I have never in all these years see a team score so many goals. It was fun to watch the Nomads games inparticular. It was a shame what happened in the Chatham. Always like to see them win it being from chch and all. My fave fixtures to watch though was the Tech v Spirit games. Tech really did struggle against Spirit on all 3 occasions though so it was no coincidence losing to them twice and in the end it cost them the title. Always talk of Clapham retiring again. Maybe Kyle Matheson to Pheonix Wellington. I like he went to Tasman. Corey was my MVP

Coastal Spirit - I had a feeling they were going to win it after the first Tech win. I really enjoyed watching their games the most as I could never pick the result. Always interesting players ive never seen and a different formation. Well done to Ekaw and Spirit. Established themselves as a force in chch for once. (Rangers n New Brighton were always hopeless). What I really want to know is what happened mid season when they lost lots of players and must have lost a few games at that time too? That cost them. I've heard they have signed 3 new national league players too. Exciting

Nelson - obviously I get to watch them the least. They are pretty average whenever I see them. But I hear they are a different team in Nelson. Hmm they seem to scramble a bit. If it wernt for the two Irish boys coming in I'd see them coming 6th. Big Ben must be getting on. They need Whitey back or maybe Brockie in his last year's. I think they are in big trouble but then again let's see if they have some good youth in the Tasman young team. Might be a good chance for Richmond or FC to take the Nelson helm

FC - They were such a dead Set 5th all day. Always better then the 3 under them but never breaking into the top 4. Another club with an GSM as a good player. A common theme these days. Could be about time wee see a few if these young fantastic players hunt for trophies and  Chatham cup exposure for their C.Vs. If Glen does resign which seems to be the case then it may be a free for all. My friends son plays for their U19 and they have plenty of even younger talent knocking at the door. Not sure who will get that job. One of the Mainland guys maybe. Seb left and is now a champion. Good on him.

Nomads - I actually think they were a bit hard done by. Two years in a row we see a team that's promoted finish well. I don't think they got enough games out of their FDM to challenge FC for 5th. Can see them do well in 5 years if they swallow Western and Halswell. Andy seems to be hanging around. Wouldn't be surprised if he's coach n attracts some of his canty youth boys he did well with.

Uni - The better team stayed up. Good on them. And even bigger hurdle next year though cause I hear Selwyn are no Western. They lost a lot of players from last year. I like their coach. But I think it's bye bye Uni. I do hear that they might be getting an old head to co coach or something. Don't think that will help them much. Nice to see them experiment with different formations. A guy in the midfield was solid. Cotters?

Western - Be strange not seeing them in the league. Many many many ex Western players at other clubs. I wonder how Dre n Jacob feel. Or even Clapham. If a club is unable to retain players it creates then what's the point. Their captain is one of my most unliked.  Never anything nice to say. Poor captain decision. 

I have never seen Selwyn play so really looking forward to that. Welcome. 

My opinion. Thanks to all involved. Was a fun year to watch. 

Great band, great review.  I wanna do one too seeing as I watched every Coastal game this year so got to see every team. Look forward to it tonight!

Here's the nominees for the Mainland awards. I see someone on their facebook page has complained there is no CCL nominees amongst them. 

it's usually done by each coach for each category in both premier league to get the finalists. Not sure if highest after that just wins or its discussed further

Deffo discussed further, Willy Gerdsen gets a say in it.

Loved the Duran Duran review, so will do my own. You all know my bias however I've seen every Coastal match for years on end so have seen all these teams 3 times this year. I didn't get up to Nelson for the last game however but did make the first one.

Bays

Yes, probably the luckiest team to win the league, and I guess the points they got back from the FC2011 debacle and the fact that Coastal did them a massive favour beating Tech twice helped them out. They appeared to be a rag-tag bunch of players stuck together however they came up with the goods in the end. Apart from the bottom teams, all their games were relatively close however the total points don't lie. 

Tech

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of ____. Great to see a new winner of the league, even if it wasn't us. Even better that Coastal beat them twice at home and got the shield. Probably the best team in the league, with a massive +63 goal difference, however the 3 losses cost them dearly. I'm sure they would have appreciated being gifted 3 points after losing however they managed to put 12 past FC2011 so it didn't happen. I'm sure there will be plenty more $ put out there next year to get their champions spot back. 

Coastal

Sigh. The year that could have been. If ever there was a chance to win the league I believe this was it. Beat Tech twice, looked powerful in the first round, however a mid-season slump really hurt. Drawing with Uni (wtf?) then losing to Tech, Nelson, Nomads, FC2011 and being 2-1 up over Bays to lose 3-2 was just terrible. Coinciding with losing what could possibly be our best ever player Sam Orritt overseas meant that whatever title shot we could have had was gone. Starting a season with a heap of players, to end up with half of that is a pretty sad state of affairs as well. Best fans in the league. :-)

Nelson

Love the Nelson trips, although sticking to my previous post about only having one Nelson team in the league. Good side, but jesus they can be as up and down as Coastal and a seesaw. Always seem to attract good overseas players and wonderful to see Skippy out there. I honestly can't see them ever winning the league. 

FC2011

Despite the ever increasing ridiculous name, they did well at times over the year. Some good young players and the crouching tiger hidden coach seems to get the best out of them. The 6 points dropped would have seen them right up with the top half and would have probably been more of a fairer result. In saying that, shipping 9 goals to Tech shows a bit of gap right? Heaps of good players coming through (jealous) so the future looks good.

Nomads

I thought they did really well this year. They pushed Coastal every game, and were unlucky not to get more out of our games. Bit of a random old skool coach who was entertaining to watch on the sideline. Might find 2018 more of a relegation challenge with Selwyn being no Western. 

Universities

Just better than the worst. I enjoyed watching the super-afro-man coach as he was entertaining and seemed to gee his players up however across the field they were simply lacking talent. Hard to imagine a team with a -46 goal difference and a single figure points column in a 21 game league staying up but there you have it. They will find the Selwyn challenge the hardest in 2018.

Western

Honestly sad to see them go. A club where Coastal used to pinch their players from, and then later on pass them off to. Love the history of the club, with legends like Woodsy senior and junior, and plenty of players that have gone on to greater things. However with little to no junior section it's always gonna be tough. They did have the best dressed coach in the league before sacking him. Can't see them coming back either though however who knows what will happen in the CCL next year. 

All you Yellow Fever folks should get on down to Canterbury Utd over the summer, it's a great day out. Not as good as supporting your club but it's close enough. It's also the only time you'll ever see me cheering on a Tech player. :-)

Here are the final stats for the MPL - Part 1 (a bit late but have had a few PC issues)

Bays home record immpressive with only four points dropped with Tech's 3 home losses costing them dearly after only dropping two points on the road. 

Home Record: 

Award Record:

Final stats for the MPL - Part 2

They say that stats always tell the story with Bays on top of the key stats so deserved champs with the reverse the story for Western. 

This table shows the number of times each team scored, number of clean sheets and failed to score.

This table shows numbers of points (and %) of points each teams earnt against the top half and bottom half of the table and the % of avail points won 

Of the 84 MPL games 74 were won, (72 in 2016) with ten draws - the lowest in the history of the MPL. There were 283 goals scored, 12 down from 2016. 24 were own goals the highest ever number of 'oggies', mainly due to the 4 'awarded' games with 23 penalities scored - one short of the all time record. 

There were 30 different scorelines during the season with the most common being seven each for 2 - all results, 1 - 0 wins to the away side and 3 - 1  wins to the away side.  

Have highlighted the winners in bold over Player of the Year was Sean Morris

Other awards referee of the year Ben O'Connell other finalists were Craig Duff and Ryan Mahalm

Seeing as there's some coach rumours going on in the qualifying league thread, here's one I heard. 

John Brown to coach FC2011 in 2018. 

How was Timaru?

I have misinterpreted the clues on the Qualifying League thread then as I thought they pointed towards John for the Western gig

That's the best thing about rumours. There's a high chance there is no truth to it whatsoever. 

Someone did say this to me however, I haven't just made it up. I'd love to see Broonie back in the MPL too!

Glenn coached Burnside/FC20 teams at a time his kids were coming through - from junior teams all the way to firsts. Why would he go to Western?

Mr Brightspark you seem to know a lot about Western and Simon Bell in particular...I wonder who you could be?

On a completely unrelated topic I wonder who Simon Bell will be coaching next season? He must have offers flying in

Just lifted from the Nomads facebook page:

The Committee of Nomads United AFC are excited to announce the appointment of Andrew (Andy) Pitman to the position of First Team Head Coach for 2018.

Andy has had a long association with the Club and brings with him the necessary skills, qualifications and relationships for this position. Andy played his junior and youth football in the UK to a representative League level and is a former Canterbury United player, Canterbury United Assistant Coach and Canterbury United National Youth League Coach to name a few!

The Committee embraces Andy’s passion and drive and we welcome him to this position.

Congratulations Andy

more than happy for Simon to head East

Any updates on how the meeting went last evening around the format for the Souuth Island Leagueand how it willimpact on the MPL and CCL.