The Football season is back – and as well as the Real Thing we also need to think about our FPL team. 

At Bedford Lions, we have our own mini league kindly created by Luke Frost. It’s called Bedford Lions and Lionesses and plenty of players join in to make the game exciting- 29 in total.

The first week is always interesting as transfers are unlimited (obviously) and the wildcard chip is reserved from the next game week and beyond. It’s a tough call whether to use one of the other chips in the first week- such as triple captain or bench boost. Most players resisted with just one player using the bench boost.

The early leader is George Procter who scored 82 points for game week 1 with his team Cash In Cash Out. He played the sensible option of captaining Erling Haaland (26 points) who scored twice in Man City’s 4-0 win at Wolves. He also scored well on Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitike (11) and Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo (15) during Liverpool’s opening 4-2 win against Bournemouth.

George Procter- “Complete luck overall, a decent team but all of the back 3 kept a clean sheet and Haaland banging some goals in, seems life time ago since he done that!”

In my team Fast Eddie XV I also had Haaland but didn’t captain him. Instead I went for Ollie Watkins, who didn’t scored in Aston Villa‘s  0-0 draw with Newcastle United. My reason for choosing Watkins is that he has had a fairly good record at home against Newcastle in past meetings. However I failed to realise that Haaland always scores on the opening game of the season, so always do your homework before making selections!

Nevertheless, I always enjoy the opening game week, not just to see who’s picked who and who is playing but also who has worked wonders with their team name. You can choose your favourite from table screenshots below but some of my personal favourites include Twistin My Malen Man, Behind Emery Lines and Serious Consequences.

Of course, the opening game week table  is as relevant as the Premier League table after 1 game! Still always good to see how you are getting on, enjoy!

So I find myself in mid table mediocrity, joint 13th alongside James Fairgrieve and one Ian Taylor?! It has been lot of fun and everyone gave a fairly good account of themselves.

Now to the battle plans for gameweek 2!

You can follow the progress of the Bedford Lions and Lionesses mini league weekly on the website.