and the Thorpe Bay Billy No Mates survive!

Who could have seen this coming six weeks ago? The Thorpe Bay Billy No Mates looked like toast. After a stunning first week massacre of the Goat belief was high in the camp but then a run of only one win from six led to a 2-5 record and the only hope of making the playoffs was to win out.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Well that makes you in the majority – a heavy majority.

The Thorpe Bay Billy No Mates are my fantasy NFL team in the ESPN league ‘Twitter Tw@ats’. My draft was awful in retrospect. Javhid Best got concussion and is out for the year. Ryan Grant just never got going. Chad Ochocinco never made it into Tom Brady’s good books and Austin Collie got nothing from whoever was playing under center for the Colts as it wasn’t Peyton Manning. So basically both my starting RB and WR stunk and the dream was over.

Or was it?

People said I had given up. So I decided to really stan the waiver wire and see what could be done. Plaxico Burress was on my bench and he came in. I still had both Tom Brady and Philip Rivers in my QB/Offensive Player positions and had two great Tight Ends in Antonio Gates and Aaron Hernandez although they both faced injury issues in the middle of the year. I picked up Reggie Bush who started to play great and I was cobbling together wins.

In week eight the first win of the six needed came – 98-65 over Scotter Steelers. Thanks in large to a 28 point performance by the Lions Defense. It was a start but before I could dream of the promised land I needed to at least get to .500. The next week I came against a team who would eventually be good enough for the playoffs in Grant Holt’s Moustache and triumphed 123-96 thanks to a breakout day from Julio Jones as well as Reggie Bush’s coming out party. Next week the Portsmouth Pirates went down 93-69 and it was on.

Then came week 11 and near disaster. A 79-77 win over Pompey Giants and that match-up was still in doubt heading into Monday Night Football. He led by 11 and had the Chiefs QB. I had Tom Brady. I was without a doubt the underdog by Tyler Palko’s stinky night led to him only getting three points and Tom Brady amassed 16. A skin of the teeth victory and now two wins and I was in.

The Yorkshire Pudding’s put up a great fight in week 12 only to go down 98-91 and then we come to this week. I was down by 12 heading into Monday Night Football. My oppo the Malicious Penguins had the Chargers D which scared me. I still had Philip Rivers (who had been a bust in all honesty all year) and Antonio Gates still to go. I thought the Chargers D against the stinky Jags O would score real points so I thought Rivers would have to remember he was Philip freaking Rivers and go to the vertical passing game. Oh boy did he.

Rivers threw for three scores and over 275 yards for 23 points and a 103-88 result ended the regular season. From fighting for last place I have made the playoffs and a two-week match-up against the 10-3 MileHigh Orangesquash who have been as dominant as any fantasy NFL team I have seen. Still my boys have been on a roll and I hope to make it interested. I need to see my players play at the top of their game. We’ll see how they do but whatever happens my slogan for weeks on my Tuesday morning twitter feed and in my Tuesday morning e-mail to the other Neil (the fitter, more athletic, more important businessman type one) has been ‘and the Thorpe Bay Billy No Mates…’ with the e-mail just saying ‘…survive!’

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