Community » Hattrick Press

Happy Christmas

Written by HPE-Bink286

Bink finally gets to interview himself.

You’ve been in charge of your team since 19/06/03, you’ve lost two cup finals (189467177) & (221522211) and you managed a club best 3rd in the Premiership as well as serving two terms as the England U20 manager (nearly 30 seasons ago – we are now in s60). It has been 4 years since your last foray this deep into the Cup, have you deliberately been taking the slow train to success?

I suppose so. hattrick isn’t an instant gratification game though, is it? Before I signed up, I was playing LMA manager on playstation, and FIFA manager on PC, and neither were particularly rewarding to ‘win’. I suppose it comes down to what you define as success, and what your motivations are. You must always remember that whilst some people dream of success, others desire to crush those dreams. The trick is not to make dreams your master.

Have you a favourite tune from 2015, and if not an older classic would be just as welcome (link to vimeo or utube or soundcloud please?)

I can’t just do one. From 2015 here’s a selection:-

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP9luRtEqjc)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1m0mceKkx4)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWI3eSz1K2Q)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZZUY32iCzU)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLZ-i2hu6GA)
(https://vimeo.com/120879127)
(https://vimeo.com/133068708)
(https://vimeo.com/124769403)
(https://vimeo.com/132036081)
(https://soundcloud.com/caribouband/your-love-will-set-you-free-c2s-set-u-free-rmx)

According to your manager page, you are an HPE. What’s that about?

It’s just hype. Without the y.

HPE stands for Hattrick Press Editor. This means that I am responsible for encouraging and creating articles for the community to read (such as this one) which are available on the England main page. I’ve been informed that we are currently the most active country in the world on this front, in terms of absolute numbers of articles published over the year to date. The formula I’ve used to achieve this is to simply invite the lowest manager left in the English Cup to respond to a fairly bog standard set of questions in this interview format, and to for them submit them as an article for me to edit and publish.

Apart from in the Gym, when was the last time your rode a bike ?

I don’t spend much time on cardio these days. The last time I rode a bike was to commute to the West End in London for work from Addiscombe in the early 90’s. My door to door time was quicker than getting the train from East Croydon (record being just under 43 mins), and I spent marginally less than the cost of a travel card, which included getting platinum membership at Cannons Gym in Covent Garden (where I parked the bike) who also laundered my cycling gear giving me access to showers and equipment into the bargain. Any savings made on this arrangement were balanced out by the loss of about three bikes a year through theft and the extra carbs I needed as body-fuel.

Will you ever run for NT manager again? And what do you think of the current campaign?

After finishing 2nd 3 times in our NT elections, (including one loss by just 4 votes), I’m pretty sure England has decided they don’t want me involved in the NT, and as a result I’m happy to just to train my potential NT players from somewhere behind the back seat.

defunked was absolutely the best choice for the current campaign, although he did then draw a ridiculously tough group, and has probably drawn the short straw in terms of player talent, when compared to both the last and the next campaigns.

Please provide a link to your favourite work of art (ever) or favourite movie from 2015?

I’m way behind the curve on movies, and the only movie I expect to see in the cinema in 2015 will be the new Star Wars movie (although I still have yet to organise that). I did get dragged to the National to see an Impressionists exhibition this year though (by my visiting mother) and (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/upload/img/pissarro-fox-hill-upper-norwood-NG6351-fm.jpg) & (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/upload/img/pissarro-avenue-sydenham-NG6493-fm.jpg) surprised me a bit as Pissarro pieces on familiar roads that I drive up regularly crossing South London, and I’d had no idea that it was even possible to create a masterpiece from a South London landscape. Talk about polishing a turd…

How did the name Bink come about, and could you previously explain your current and previous team names?

In the original B.C. cartoons by Jonny Hart cavemen took it in turns to hit a rock with a stone hammer, which made a noise ...."Bink!" Man has patiently binked his way through to pottery, the industrial revolution, and somewhat more recently the interwebs. The patient ‘Binking’ that it takes to get anywhere with a hattrick team resonated, and my adopted name is simply a reflection of this.

Team names. I started out as saumur. This was as a result of my first attempt at registering a team in England being met with a ‘we’re very busy response’ so I’d tried to register my team initially in France (using a town name where I’d helped a girl friend (not a girl-friend) move to from East Grinstead) hoping to get my team set up quicker. The French GMs just referred me back to England, and I was then registered as a team in Avon & Somerset (alphabetical thing as I’d not set a region in England) with that name.

I then switched to Amarula Ant Lions. (http://downtownerdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Amarula-Martini-with-bottle-HR.jpg) (Amarula being a Southern African based drink) sold at the off licence next to my office, and (http://www.asergeev.com/pictures/archives/2011/978/jpeg/10.jpg) (Ant Lions being a creature that made these – something that was part of my childhood, prior to moving to England). I then switched the team to the Channel Islands (partly to avoid the derby issues I was facing in Avon & Somerset that wouldn’t be improved by moving to London, and partly because Alderney is just an amazing place), calling it Alderney Ant Lions.

Having failed to win anything under that moniker, I switched to Apostrophe Now. This, paying homage to Apocalypse Now, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now) was also paying my respects to the death of the apostrophe in English language. At the time I adopted the name, I was playing pool against a team in Sydenham from a pub called The Two Half’s (which has since closed)

If you were to win £10m on the lottery how would you spend it? And would me (PGHG1) and Dave benefit.

I’m an IFA (Independent Financial Adviser). I’m confident that £10m could be invested to produce £40k per month in tax tree interest, which could quite clearly pay for enough beer for you me and Dave to drink without ever leaving a pub for the rest of our lives. Which wouldn’t be that long, to be fair. I wouldn’t spend any of the capital, preferring to try to find a way to spend or give away this return every month. I'm sure that's easier to do than it sounds...

Do you think 5% stamina training is still the way forward to get a 17yr old into the NT set up.
If so, at what age would you advise upping it and why ?

This game rewards extreme approaches. Full training mode, means forgetting about match results, and vice versa. There is a bit of a grey area between the two, which is a bit of a tightrope, which is usually required in the crossover from one mode to the other, ideally with an NT prospect in training.

I've trained at 5% on some home-grown talent. I did this for 3 seasons on a 17 y/o, before being asked by our U20 manager to up it (which I did for a couple of seasons) before dropping down again to 5% for further 4 seasons. My 27/100+ year old player hasn’t been called up to the NT yet but his solid stamina is now helping me get better match results. I’ve upped to 15% then to 18% and now at 21% over the last 3 seasons, and will keep doing this up to 34% circa age 31.

In the ideal scenario, training at minimum stamina to accelerate training speed is a wonderful strategy. Managers do need to up their stamina at some point, in order to benefit team finances and to aid progression (not least in order to add experience to your player – especially in longer cup runs) no later than age 26 I’d suggest. I’ve found that the experience gain from upping stamina for U20 inclusion did not outweigh keeping the stamina low at 5% straight through to age 24 and then upping it to help earlier cup success (&/or inclusion in the NT set up). Contrast and compare (359852710) (my player) vs. (360615922) (PGHG1’s player)

Tis the Season of Goodwill and Peace to all men. Turkey and the Trimmings or something else with the brussel sprouts?

I’ll be spending Xmas at my partner’s ex-husband’s with their/our children (two teenage girls) and his parents. It’ll be a fairly traditional dinner that we are cooking, so yes Turkey and sprouts, along with Gingerbread stuffing (Nigella Lawson recipe) pigs in blankets, roast parsnips and some cranberry & port jelly. There’s plenty of Goodwill and Peace to all men at my end, I just wish the rest of the world could follow our example.

You’re running a platinum second team in Oceania, how is that helping England?

It isn't.

Last week, my second team got knocked out of the Oceanian Cup by a top team in the Pacific Premier (554803283), This week my first team will presumably follow suit against one of the best teams in England.

In Oceania, I’m just experimenting mostly, running a team on low wages and high stamina, training GK & only buying VFMs (value for money) representing the best ‘old’ players (by transfer value vs skills including an 'experience' fudge factor – I use a home-made equation to assess the value of the transfer bid required) with specialities, in order to help me optimise match ratings at minimum cost.

If I end up helping their U20 or NT just by ‘being there’ and running a decent YA set up, I’m OK with that, as my only living blood relative lives in Melbourne, and had things in life turned out different I’d have ended up being an Australian citizen instead of becoming a pom.

When is the date of the next London HT piss up?

Saturday 27th Feb works. I’ll post a facebook HT group invite and hopefully we’ll get a few more than turned up last time.