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An Interview with an Ape

Written by kingmonkey

Our intrepid reporter Bink286 interviews Kingmonkey, manager of former premier champions Legion of Killer Apes ahead of next round's headline cup-tie against Stinging Scorpions, to discover the team's future plans, past successes and the meaning of monkeys.

Your team, Legion of Killer Apes is facing Stinging Scorpions this week in R7 of the Cup. Way back in s39 (5 RL years ago) you made it to the semi-finals, where you were knocked out by the eventual winners, Bedworth. It looks as though you may have some unfinished business with the English Cup?

Not really. I could afford a few PiCs in the league this season, which helps a lot in the cup, but what I want most out of the cup is player experience (and a bit of cash). My focus these days is on training, not winning.

My semi-final loss (237209162) does still rankle a bit. Back then it was widely assumed that to win you needed to do lots of general training, and I wanted to do the double while making a training profit on the season. I got the championship, but the match engine had other ideas as far as the double went.

I may yet in the future make another run at the cup, but I don't have the team for it at the moment, especially with my keeper and 3/5 defenders injured. If I can survive the next round without yet more injuries, I'll be happy.

If you have a favourite tune of 2014, please provide a link to vimeo/utube/soundcloud for us to listen, but an older classic tune would be just as good?

2014 doesn't seem to be a vintage year for music, I keep looking at things that turn out to have been 2013 releases. I do really enjoy Weird Al's Foil, a spoof of Lorde's Royals, though. Link here:( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urglg3WimHA)

You took over your team on 27/05/2002, and won the Prem in s40. In all, you spend 13 consecutive seasons (6 of which were in the Prem) in the top two divisions between October 2007 and October 2011, which is an extraordinarily lengthy run up at the sharp end. What has been your rebuild strategy since, and for any manager thinking of doing a rebuild, what would be your top 5 tips to make it work as well as yours looks to be doing?

I'm not rebuilding my team, I'm building defensive forwards. I dropped out of the premier league out of boredom. I just find training far more interesting and rewarding than winning matches these days.

Having said that, I've done my fair share of rebuilds, so I'll say the key to doing it well is timing. Figure out your plan, and stick to it. Compromising your plan for short term benefit is always a mistake, because by definition the long term is what a rebuild is all about. Accept you're going to do badly at first, and time your training and spending so that you're not wasting money. When you do a sell off, you're going to drop down fast, but as you train during that period, your team starts to improve, so there's a natural bounce point where your stop dropping. That's the time to start investing in non-training parts of the team.

Some people go down the daytrading/step-trading route to pay for a rebuild, but I have no patience for the transfer market. Non-conventional training methods can pay big dividends even today, and are a lot more fun. I did a rebuild prior to my rise to the premier league by buying 22 young strikers and training shooting. Today I might look at training goalies in defending. Do research into the market and training speeds. A smart player can benefit considerably from starting such a plan just after a match engine change has been announced; figure out what the consequences of that change are, and you'll know what type of players are going to rise in value in the future.

If a fan wanted to buy you a pint, which pub would it be easiest to find you in, and what's your poison?

Good (usually Czech) lagers, interesting ales, and fine single malts. As I live in London, all of my locals have been bought up by developers to turn into luxury apartments, presumably for teetotallers. The newly opened Bohemia in North Finchley (http://www.barnet-today.co.uk/content/newsimages09/Bohemia%20pub.%203.jpg) , owned by the London Brew Company, is a current fave. My badminton club resorts to a seedy Wetherspoons in Turnpike Lane (http://www.pubsnearthetube.com/pub_toll_gate_turnpike_lane_2007.gif) , though.

This season, Postigod was voted in to be the England NT coach. Do you still have any interest in the fortunes of our National Team, and as one of the most respected managers in England, why did you never apply for the job yourself?

I follow the NTs and u20s closely. It's a fun part of the game and can help bring the community together. I'd like to see more emphasis on the NT side of the game, perhaps with a u24 tournament to bridge the gap between the u20s and the NT that tends to leave the best players about 6 game-years without internationals.

I've been a tactical advisor to a couple of managers in the past, but being the NT manager is about much more than just playing the matches. That's the easy bit. Communications, dealing with scouts and managers, promoting training etc. is vital, and I've always had a suspicion I'm too lazy to do that part well enough. I won't rule out running one day, but I don't plan on it.

What skill are you currently training and what stamina percentage are you currently using and why?

I'm currently training passing with 5% stamina. I'm about to change to playmaking training and a higher stamina %. As I mentioned before, my emphasis these days is on training, and currently I'm working on a crop of rather superb defensive forwards. I've had 3 in the u20s already (381610896) (355063664) (346329672), and my youngest trainee looks set to be the best yet (394969997).

You currently do not pay for supporter. As a former supporter, what do you feel hattrick needs to do to make you get your wallet out to resubscribe?

I finally gave up on supporter in disgust when there was an interview with one of the HTs where they stated they had no interest in hiring someone who understands game design because that's something they can all mess in with. Obviously it isn't. There are many flaws with hattrick's mechanics that stem from a poor grasp of game design, and years of frustration at their failure to listen and the way they keep making mistakes that any decent game designer would have spotted in a second, came to a head.

There are few features of hattrick supporter that I miss, honestly. Press releases were fun, and I miss being in a fed or two, but the current prices are ridiculous. If they introduced a "supporter lite" package at something approaching a reasonable price, or some kind of mix-and-match micro-payment thing, I'd be very tempted to sign up again.

Please tell us how/where you met your other half (or last conquest), and how he/she feels about your hattrick addiction?

I met her at university and have steadfastly avoided marrying her ever since. She's happy with this. We have our own places, so she's able to blissfully ignore my hattrick habit, apart from occasionally rolling her eyes when we're on holiday and I rush around looking for a WiFi connection.

According to our internet research, Killer Ape theory is a philosophical underpin to evolution. It was originated by Raymond Dart in the 1950s. The theory suggests we humans are the most murderous and aggressive of all the ape species which is why we have been more successful than other primates.

In the light of all this, it is true that the LKA manager is in fact just another metaphorical chimp in front of a keyboard?

It was long held that an infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite number of keyboards, would produce the works of Shakespeare. The advent of the Internet has shown that what they actually produce is an infinite number of lolcats.

The LoKA manager is no mere chimp. I am Kingmonkey, the stone monkey, born from an egg on a mountain top, great sage, equal of Heaven, who recovered the sutras of ancient wisdom from China.

What was your favourite movie of 2013/14?

The World's End was hilarious, Gravity was awesome, but I might possibly have to pick Guardians of the Galaxy. It may not be great cinema, but it's ridiculously good fun (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2015381/) .