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Cup Final Interview

Written by Phillipw

Phillipw's Topoftheleague have made it into the final, meeting Low Fogrigg on Tuesday. They have played each other once before, in a Tournament game (1342954) just over a year ago. In this interview Phillip gives us his take on some familiar questions.

1 Your team, Topoftheleague, is in the final, overcoming Alieland's LS side in the semi-finals, facing Premiership contenders & s49 Cup winners Low Fogrigg on Tuesday. How does it feel?

Overwhelming! I've wanted it, and almost expected to get to the last few rounds in the cup for several seasons and it was just not happening. I'd almost given up hope and then this season it just came together for me. I have to admit that I rode my luck along the way, and so I'm hoping this will continue for just one more week!

2 What is the last album/track you bought, please also provide a link to vimeo/utube/soundcloud for us to listen?

I don't usually purchase CDs these days and prefer to get my music on the fly via internet sites like youtube or internet streams like Digitally Imported (http://www.di.fm/)
My friend send me the video for SKRILLEX+ALVIN RISK-TRY IT OUT (NEON MIX) which will not be to everyone's taste. I was lucky enough to do a lot of globe-trotting this year and in this video they feature the artist in various places around the world meeting lots of cool people, so this video kinda sums up my awesome year of travel experiences.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iQRaZje0RA)

3 Who is your favourite ht-player and why?

I actually have two and my ultimate favorite would be Cade Warbrick (250649436) as he came from my youth academy and is still with me after all these years. He is a total success story of a Home Grown 17 yo trained all the way to the English National Team. Sadly he is injured and may miss the Final. (Ed. Cade is currently bruised but training, so may yet feature)

I've also got to mention George Carey (http://wiki.hattrick.org/wiki/George_'Archbishop'_Carey) as when I first started he was one of the greatest players in the game sadly he was lost when his team went bot, I always hoped HT would make a NT hall of fame so the greatest players can live on.

4 How much is a pint of beer in your local & what's your usual tipple?

I've actually almost given up alcohol, I only drink on special occasions and holidays. I do enjoy fruity ciders but if there is football on, its Carling. One of the upsides of not drinking is that it helps prevent me from making rash transfer purchases at 3:00am (I'm sure I'm not the only one to have done that in the past!).

5 What's been your key to success in the cup?

Building and developing a quality team and praying every year for this sort of elusive cup run. I did start the season with a decent bank balance and yet at one point I was spending more on wages than I was making from the additional cup run crowd income. Over the last few seasons I've learned to only ever purchase squad fillers and subs when players have been injured to help with cup games. Everyone in my first team has been on the squad 4+ seasons, with most of the players having been with my club for 6 seasons, so loyalty and experience has probably started just to make a difference over the last season or so.

6 What skill are you training at the moment and why?

Defending, with a touch of set pieces for Warbrick and Shapiro (my Jamaican NT star). Once Warbrick is certain not to play for the NT again, I'll have a last run at fame before rebuilding, but have not yet decided what I'll train then.

7 Please list the contents of your glovebox/downloads folder.

Glovebox?

Car manuals, goalkeeper gloves and some cds from the early 00s ha ;-)

8 What's your view on 2nd teams?

I have a second team but I do not spend much time on it.

It has reminded me of how much I prefer the old youth pull system compared to the YA, and so I am considering a switch back to the old system with my primary team, especially as I have had no decent prospects for a very long time.

My view on 2nd teams is that they are good fun and can take the boredom out of doing a 1st team rebuild once you get going. I don't think it is such a great idea for managers to be able to run a second team in other countries to their own (a bit hypocritical since mine is in Jamaica). I also think the cost (value for money) for keeping your second team is far greater than the gain and enjoyment gleaned from having it, but that's a whole separate debate.

Everyone who purchased a 2nd team has started from scratch all over again, and I have also been reminded that brand new users to the game have to wait far too long to really get going. You need to grind away sticking with a certain training strategy for 2 real years before you can really start becoming competitive. I'm all for the patient approach and slow evolution of HT, but there are so many gaming alternatives nowadays and I fear that the lead in time for playing HT is too slow when compared to all the modern plug and instant play games, in terms of growing the game again. I suppose this is more of a problem with gamer attitudes rather than HT, but HT could benefit from moving faster in terms of developing with the times. Where is our Android app? Full in Facebook play? 3D Matches? There's a lot of improvements that I think are needed which could improve the game, and in this context, second teams represent a complete lack of improvement in any of these areas.

9 Tell us how you met your OH (or last 'conquest' if single)

My answer isn't terribly exciting. I met Claudine through work and a month or so down the line we got together on a works night out. We worked in separate departments that didn't really interact so it was not too risky. I'd previously attempted to avoid having a 'work' relationship. We got married at Niagara falls in September this year after 6 and a bit years together. She puts up quite well with my Hattrick addiction, though I've not convinced her to have her own team...

Yet.

10 In a resource management game, some say it is unacceptable to hoard resources. Discuss?

IMO Hoarding often results from how much time you put into the game per month. If you don't log on so much, or you're just busy its easy to just train to sell, building and saving money. Similarly, the more time you put in, the more you want to spend on improvements to your team. Id like to say to the teams in VI with £60+ million that they should definitely start spending it, and if they have and take the time to buy a good core squad of players, and pick a team every week, as they'll get a lot of instant success. Player transfer prices are nice and low these days so you can buy a great squad for half of this sort of sum!

The only problem with hoarding as a strategy is that if even if you do opt to hoard you can guarantee someone else will be doing it too, so its not like you can always instantly buy the cup or the prem title, as there will always be another team as good as you are, and then its down to player loyalty boost and tactics.

PS. I was expecting you to add a bonus question of how scared are you of Fogrigg haha.

Id say very very scared.