Football Champions Competition

Not sure if any of you lot would be interested in joining in this - just a competition I've started running - all the details below, PM me or drop a line to the e-mail address below if you fancy a punt and I'll send you an entry form.

Its summer, the domestic football season finished over a month ago, Euro 2008 is in full swing but England aren't there and the transfer market is slowing quicker than Lewis Hamilton in the pit lane - English football fans everywhere are in despair. But fear not - the season starts again in less than 8 weeks, pre-season friendlies will be kicking off a few weeks from now but most importantly - the Football Champions Competition is back, and this time it’s even bigger and better!

Last year's inaugural competition proved a massive hit and eventual winner Pete Jenkins scooped a tidy £120 for correctly predicting 4 of the 5 league winners. This year the competition will challenge everyone even further.

For those of you who don't want to / can't be bothered / haven’t got time to read all the rules for this season and want to jump straight into getting their predictions in there are entry forms attached to this e-mail (one in Microsoft Excel format and another in Notepad format for those who cannot open the Excel file). For the rest of you I will try to keep the rules and new changes as brief as possible.

CHANGES

There are 2 changes to the competition this year - firstly the competition will now incorporate the Blue Square North & South divisions to test everyone's non-league knowledge. And secondly, this season not only will you need to predict the team who you think will finish top of their division, you must also predict who will finish bottom of each division!

RULES

- The aim of the game is to get the HIGHEST score out of all the entrants. Points will be scored against each team's league position. For everyone's 'top' team prediction, the points will be scored in reverse to their league position, whilst points will be scored as per the league position for the bottom prediction. For e.g. if your predicted Premiership winners do win the league then you will score 20 points, if they finish 2nd you would score 19 and if they finished bottom you would score 1. If your bottom prediction does finish at the foot of the league, in the Premiership you would score 20 points, 19 if they finished 2nd bottom and if they won the league you would score 1. There is a maximum possible score of 320, whilst the lowest score possible is 14.

- If 2 entrants have the same points, they will be divided by the amount of games their top predictions have won plus the amount of games their bottom predictions have lost (WL Total). So if in the Premiership your top prediction had won 10 games in the season and your bottom team had lost 10 games, your WL Total would be 20.

- No two people can predict the same 14 teams. If this occurs, then the person who enters second will be asked to change at least one of their teams until a unique entry is formed.

- The entry fee to compete in this competition is £5. Prize fund distribution will be announced once the entry deadline has passed and the total prize fund is known.
- Once you have sent in your entry, your predictions will remain 'unlocked' until your entry fee has also been received. Once the entry fee has been received then your entry will then get 'locked'. Until your entry is locked, another entrant could potentially predict the same as you and if their payment was more prompt, they would 'lock' that selection and you would be asked to re-predict at least one of your teams.

- The deadline for all entries AND entry fees is 11.59pm on Friday 8th August. Any entry received after this date will not be added to the competition. If an entry has been made but no entry fee paid by this time, then that entry will be disqualified from the competition.

- Please Note: All funds entered into the competition will be distributed amongst the winning entrants as prizes. I keep no money from any entry fees and make no personal gain from running this competition.

- Entry forms should be sent to footballchampions@<REMOVE THIS BIT>hotmail.co.uk

Entry fee payment can be made by bank transfer, PayPal, personal cheque or cash. Once your entry form is received, you will be sent the information required to make your preferred payment. A receipt of payment can be sent if required - please request this when you return your entry form.

That's all the formal spiel over. All that is left to say is good luck to everyone and please send this on to as many people as possible - I'm aiming to double last years prize pot of £125 so try to get as many people to play along, whether they like football or not!!

If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on the e-mail address above.

Chris Rooks.