Barely have Predictorship feet tiptoed into the New Year’s snow before there’s an unhealthy whiff in the air.

Possibly not on the level of the Chicago Red Sox or Fred Lorz – the marathon champion who travelled by car (or even David Robertson who picked up his golf ball to move it 20 foot across the green in the 1985 Open), but shameless behaviour on any scale should not be encouraged.

Nevertheless, the murky waters of the Predictorship pond are swirling with eddies of intrigue and insider dealing once more.

Always the man to rise above suspicions is Stat Man Matt, the Alistair Darling of Predictorship HQ, but is the Suffolk Druid as White as he seems? Making angels in the snow to celebrate his 16 point haul and rise to 6th place it would certainly seem so:

‘The decision to play my joker this week was just about a success, but my 8 bonus points could have been considerably more had Liverpool and Manchester United won as expected, Bolton failed to score a last gasp fourth and Arsenal found one more goal!’

Pondered a prostrate Matt, but is it all a smoke screen? After all, greasy palms are difficult to spot underneath those winter mittens and questions are being asked:

• How did third from bottom of the table Andrew Thraves manage to draw Normanetta in the FA cup? Surely far too easy a victory.
• Is it a coincidence that two of this weeks top (non joker) scorers with 10 points, Sally Moon and Tom Roberts been seen fraternising with the board?
• Have the other 10 pointers, Gabe Bevilacqua, Wendy Nathan and Sanjiv Sachdev been topping up Matt’s sherry a little too often?

Tales of late night poker games in Church Langley raise questions about whether Janet Roberts’ 7 weeks at the top this season has been more to do with shaking Chairman David’s vodka martini’s than match winning form. We know the Chairman is partial to a party game or two.

Predictor of the week Joe Roberts (another coincidence?) for Bolton 4 Lincoln 0 can vouch for that.

… and for the proof of insider dealing we need look no further than Baggies Boy, Mark Young who should surely be red-carded for attempts to subvert the scoring and influence a Chairman under the influence…

‘So, my New Year Resolution was to get my predictorship predictions in on time every week… Can I have a mulligan?’

Inveigled Mark.

‘If I knew what a mulligan is, you could certainly have one as long as its legal.’

decreed the Chairman.

To enlighten the you all then:

A mulligan in general speech means any minor blunder which is allowed to pass unnoticed or without consequence. It is implied that a mulligan is forgiven because it was either made by a rank beginner, or it is unusual and not indicative of the level of play or conduct expected of the person who made the mulligan.While mulligans are typically reserved to the sound discretion of the league commissioner, they should be used extremely sparingly and only in such instances of legitimate human error, rather than in cases of mistake resulting from carelessness, laziness, or inexcusable neglect.

Need I say more?