The First Post

Welcome to ‘Delusions of Randomness’, which is, essentially, a fantasy football blog.

Anyone who follows football knows that, for the most part, the reality is a bit rubbish, mostly disappointing or at the very least falls some way short of anyone’s ideal, even allowing for the vagaries of life.

Hence the need to make things better, to imagine a world where our favourite teams might occasionally have more of an opportunity to prevail and the particularly horrible ones (and we all know/agree who they are) needn’t even exist (some of them are way beyond pantomime villainy, so appalling and/or corrupt are they). To this end, some years ago I created a fantasy Football League based on the real English one and its structure, just featuring a selection of the teams/team names I actively liked or otherwise, to make up the numbers, didn’t mind as much as some of the others or regard as pointless.

Having over the last couple of years discovered a similar enterprise in the form of Marc Renshaw’s ‘The Sporting League’ – although it must be admitted, Renshaw’s is a more imaginative and rounded enterprise – presented as artistic practice, it feels time, as an artist myself, to go live online with my own creative football endeavour, the ‘England & Wales Football Alliance League’ and the adventures of its members.

By way of contextual introduction, continued intermittently since about 1990, 2014-15 will be the 35^th season of the league’s history in terms of its results and tables archive, the structure having been through a number of changes over the course of that time to the point where its launching on the internet here sees possibly the most radical overhaul yet, with a reduction from four to two essential national divisions of sixteen teams each.

The league began with 5 divisions of 16 teams – at that particular time, we had a lot of free time to devote to its upkeep – the constitution of which had been decided by 3 ‘prequel’ seasons’-worth of 8 regional leagues, with combined points totals within deciding the national divisional placings, underwent various ‘improvements’ (play-offs have been and gone) and streamlinings, before settling upon the most recent form of 4 divisions, the top 2 of 16 teams & the lower 2 of 14 each.

The break from these pre-online times has, then, been seismic and quite ruthless in some of the decisions taken about exactly which teams would constitute the new league as it will appear here, although a significant core has remained, particularly in the ‘Championship’ which is mostly faithful to its continuing history, whilst the 2^nd Division is about half consistent with its immediate past and half new/rebranded or manipulated (one of its number, Newcastle United, for instance, had finished last season languishing in the fourth tier, having declined alarmingly from consecutive championship-winning seasons a decade previously, but seemed to have the historical heft that  demanded inclusion in the brave new world).

Otherwise, things remain the same. The points system has endured from the very beginning: 2 for a home win, 3 for an away win, 1 for a draw.

The member teams – a few familiar English league teams, more non-Leaguers, a few invented clubs and others of an ‘ethnic’ nature that reflect my European football obsession - will be introduced and explained in more depth as the blog goes along, as, hopefully, will the posting of the historical archives to help illustrate how we got to this point.