Week 12 Results

Aardvark Abacus 2 v 0 Athletico Phoenix
Final Fantasy XI 2 v 2 Claymore Athletic FC
Mega Buck Bandits 2 v 4 The Cow-Faced Juniors
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum 2 v 1 Real Muppets
The Dead Parrots 0 v 2 You Know Your Boston Rock FC
The Fabulous Artisans 1 v 9 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI
Trusted By Millions 2 v 2 San Dimas High School
York’s Returning Glory 1 v 2 Bassett Allsorts

Let's start with an if. If the Artisans had beaten Fred this week Ben would have cut the gap between the two teams to seven points and won Manager of the Month. You win nothing with ifs. Trailing 2-1 at half-time the Artisans were put to the sword by Fred's team, an inspired Dimitar Berbatov leading the way. The Bulgarian doubled his season's goal tally from five to ten in little over an hour. Everything Fred touched turned to gold this week. His team scored two of the four clean sheets that took place and Martin Skrtel slid in one of the two own goals. Crazy stuff. Boston Rock are hanging on to Fred's coat-tails after victory over 'bogey team' Dead Parrots. Sheriff had been held until the last ten minutes but then Micah Richards threw an outrageous dummy before firing home from the edge of the box and Jack Wilshere stooped to head his first WSFFL goal at the far post as time ran out.

Trusted are in third but lost ground with a 2-2 draw against San Dimas. Stephen Hunt bundled in his first goal for my team with nine minutes left to put me 2-1 up but a flukey deflection of Sylvan Distin six minutes later robbed me of a couple of points. The CFJs are three points further back after a come-from-behind victory at Mega Bucks. Dave's team were 2-1 up through headers by Evatt and Varney but a Samba header with seven minutes left levelled things and then Matt Etherington and a first of the season from Aaron Lennon in stoppage time gave Chris the win.

The Muppets have dropped away to fifth after a run of four points out of 18. It was another defeat for Ryan despite Chris Brunt's exquisite 'postage stamp' free-kick against Nil Satis. Tim Cahill (surprise!) with a header (surprise!) squared the game before half-time and then Lars Jacobsen got the winning clean for Paul shortly after half-time. The Aardvarks are back in the top half after beating the Phoenix 2-0. Brian's team held out until 11 minutes into the second-half when Marouane Chamakh beat the offside trap and slid home. An intricate passing move in the last minute teed up Mark Davies to finish the job and keep Brian on the bottom.

Bassett Allsorts beat York's to make it three wins out of four for Ben in November. Andy Wilkinson got the deciding clean just after the hour after Salomon Kalou (for Ben) and Samir Nasri (for Julian) had both scored in first-half stoppage time. Last up this week Final Fantasy's draw against Claymore. Seb Larsson's first goal of the year and then Andrei Arshavin put Ceri two-up before the break but Clive must have got stuck into his team at half-time. Two recent signings, Victor Obinna and Tom Cleverley (well-placed effort that one), both scored their first Claymore goals to bag their team's first point of the month.