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Cup Final Interview

Written by HPE-Bink286

Apostrophe Now of the Premiership have made it into the final of the English Cup for the third time. The tables have been turned on their manager HPE-Bink286, as he usually asks the questions. Bink was also interviewed back in December 2015 (19354), so have a look there if you want to know why he’s called Bink or how to invest £10M tax free (clearly the Queen read the interview).

Questions helpfully posed by LarryPampushsky, manager of Shakhtar Donuts.

At the time of writing, you sit second in the Premiership, only two points off the top, and are in the cup final. Do you think you can pull off the double?

Pfft. I'm just taking it on a game by game approach for now.

Your Donuts should have enough in the tank to win their last 3 league games, so even if I had beaten you on Sunday, I only would have had to drop one result, which is pretty easy to do post any Cup Final, especially when I'm playing last season's runner up and then the reigning English Champions, both away from home over the coming fortnight.

As for the Cup, Kicker Conspiracy have knocked out 3 Prem teams including yourself over the last three weeks, and I had to bite my lip when I was looking at the ratings they put out in the semi, and was astonished with the defence ratings they posted to knock Red out in the quarters. I've been nicking results to progress with minority possession over the past fortnight, and so I just hope I can give them a memorable game.

Is your team prepared for the upcoming changes to the special events and the new man-marking system? Are there any other changes that you would like Hattrick to make?

Erm. Nope to the first part of the question.

My first team has 11 regulars aged between 34-36, and I've been entirely focused upon eeking out every last bit of performance I can possible squeeze from them in this final season before the SE changes. Its sort of their final hurrah. This means that any players I've brought in have been head or quick specced in line with the current weighting for SEs. I guess you could say I'm playing to the (final) whistle.

As for other changes, the most important thing that keeps me interested in the game is its evolution. Changes must be made periodically and, importantly, we should be allowed time to discover how those changes affect the game. I like changes that have undiscovered unknowns. These latest ones have that, as no one knows for sure what the optimum squad spec set-up will be.

I'd like to see more 'easter eggs'. Angry Kirk was the last example of a one off collectors item (https://wiki.hattrick.org/wiki/Angry_Kirk) although he was more of a Faberge egg than an Easter egg, admittedly.

I'd also like to be able to set conditional orders for injuries by position, in the same way that we can for red cards. The addition of a wing-back sub slot on the new match orders page went some way toward fixing this, but when you regularly play specialist DF/FTW/IMTW/IMD it's a bit harsh when you can't specify what the sub does when he comes in for an injury, or even which sub comes in based on the orientation.

Your homegrown player Harry 'Hurricane' Cochrane (359852710) played a total of 46 times for England. What were his skills at their height?

Solid defending & scoring. Brilliant passing. Mythical PM. Magical wing. The biggest lesson I learned from him that could potentially benefit England if any future trainers are listening, is that midfielders and wingers should have more scoring, especially under the new SE rules. Harry missed a crucial chance that could have taken us through to Q3 on GD late in the game against Hungary (604078605). Maybe we should have focused on my other winger Naik, with his better scoring, who actually scored a hattrick and set up a wing-head SE against Hacked last weekend (373230890). Paul's replacement as England manager is rightfully focused upon younger players that seem to be doing a good job, so he'll probably never get a cap now. I do like to think he was trying to make a point to Gove last week (613555590), for never having selected him.

Your team is getting on a bit. Do you have plans to re-build?

With current transfer market prices, I don't think there's another option, but I have no clear plan in place yet. It has to start with the youth academy and 5% stamina training for an extended period, which is fine as long as my 2nd team gives me something to look forward to on match days. That's only 2-3 seasons away, so in the meantime I might just look to train to sell to help build a small kitty for the other players I'll need.

If your team had a song to run out to, what would it be?

Ride of the Valkyries was used in Apocalypse Now. Here's a nice short version (for the short run out) from the Proms.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JeuQ-CA67w)

Your manager page states that you are a fan of Liverpool. Is Ian Rush the best striker they ever had? Do you think they’ll win the Premier League in your lifetime?

Rushy scored a lot but he also played a lot of games (346 from 660).

Gordon Hodgson scored 241 from 377 appearances (https://d3j2s6hdd6a7rg.cloudfront.net/v2/uploads/media/default/0001/27/thumb_26612_default_news_size_5.jpeg)

Luis Suarez scored 69 from 110 (http://images.performgroup.com/di/library/GOAL/16/c/hd-luis-suarez-liverpool-norwich-2012_1eghtzxpnsnm914gp027xay9ff.jpg?t=-802386103).

For me it's always strike rates like these that mark out exceptional talent.

We'll win the title next season (spoken like a true scouser).

Do you have a favourite building or architectural design?

This is the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan, designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. I've never been but it's a fine reason to visit Baku.

(https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2013/07/dezeen_Heydar-Aliyev-Centre-Zaha-Hadid-Architects.jpg)

What was the last book you read? Was it any good?

Elephantoms (Tracking the Elephant) by Lyall Watson. (https://d3myrwj42s63no.cloudfront.net/180/039/305/117/039305117X.jpg) I love this book. Elephants are magical beasts. Sadly the population explosion in Africa will probably wipe out the last of their wild habitat by the end of this century. This book records the beginning of that end by explaining what the colonial British did to them in the Cape, as well as reminding us that even when they are gone, they will still be there...

What was your first car or bike and what happened to it?

(http://www.kad-classics.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/IMG_1057.jpg)

I sold a verdite statue I'd bought in Zimbabwe (having sold a tape deck and some headphones brought from England to pay for it) and some old medals, a collection I'd inherited from my dad, and bought an old Golf to help me learn to drive in my final year at university. I drove it to Spa for the 1990 Belgian GP, slept in it on the Saturday night with my girlfriend as all the hotels were packed, and then drove it to Paris via Luxembourg. Terrified myself driving it round the Arc de Triomphe and then returned home, where I used it to get to work having graduated. After it gave me a few clutch problems and getting a job up in the West End it sat idle and I eventually sold it without tax or MOT for about £25.

Please tell us about how you met your other half (or last conquest), and how they feel about your Hattrick addiction?

I met Liz through her twin brother. He and I played pool together for our local pub in Crystal Palace, and had become very good friends. When I first met her I thought he'd got himself a new girlfriend, and it was only later I discovered she was his sister and became friends with her as well. She was struggling bringing up two girls and divorced, and started going through a really rough patch of her life when we got together properly and it was at that point that we knew it was time for me to move in. 5 years later we got engaged and so I'm now her 'bear'. Her youngest designed my team kits (both teams home and away) and as hattrick has been part of my life since before we met, she knows why I play it (to stay sane). I do get told off occasionally for spending a bit too much time on here, and this season has been quite demanding on that front, although she works on Saturdays which frees me up to do posts for the English Prem series conference in between doing the supermarket run and a few odd chores here and there.

What was the first gig you ever went to? And the most recent?

Well, I missed the induction weekend at Uni as I had old friends visiting London, so it should have been Erasure. As a Yazoo fan that was quite a big decision, to skip seeing Vince Clarke and his new band. Instead it was a trip to the Town & Country Club in Kentish Town to see Kim Wilde when "You Keep Me Hangin' On" was number 2 in the charts. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJZF-skCY-M)

The most recent was with Liz's brother when he visited us from Portland earlier this year. We went to see Leftfield's 'Leftism revisited' tour at Brixton Academy. It was fantastic. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SILVQpqmH7U)

I'm going to see Bonobo in Brighton in a couple of weeks time, which I'm really looking forward to. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Q4gqBUs7c)

What's the best investment you ever made?

It's what I do for a living! Maybe not the best in + terms but one of the most memorable was about twelve years ago. I had a couple from NZ who wanted to get all the money out of their pensions (from UK National Insurance contributions reclaimed by contracting out) under the old triviality rules (and before the current flexibility rules). Unfortunately, his fund was slightly too big to be permitted to do that, and so they asked me to transfer it into a fund that would lose money so that they could get it all out to buy a Camper van to tour Europe before going back to NZ (where they had other money). It took me about 3 weeks using a Chinese based emerging markets fund that was sliding, and then they were away in Ireland when I needed the paperwork signed to switch it into a cash fund, but we got it done in the end with the fund around £300 less than the cut off.

Would you rather have a hand made out of ham or an armpit that dispenses suncream? (Copyright Richard Herring)

According to the internets there's a few caveats:- You can eat the ham hand, but it doesn't grow back instantly. You could nibble at it a bit and it would be grow back almost instantaneously, a finger would take a few days to grow back, and if you ate the entire hand it would take a month.

The armpit can dispense a limited amount of sun cream, but again replenishes itself at a slow rate; there is pretty much enough for two adults per day, assuming normal usage.

I think this would be easy if you regularly travelled to exotic sunny locations.

Sniffer dogs at airports would make life hell with ham hand, and the armpit squeezy lotion would save plenty of the hassle about not being able to carry your Piz Buin in your hand luggage because it infringed the container size rules. I had some Piz Buin confiscated leaving Portugal once. I wouldn't have minded but I bought it in Meribel before taking it to both Australia and South Africa. It was in my hand luggage on every occasion as well as going to Portugal on that ill-fated trip. Travelling with only hand luggage was one of my 'skills' before I settled down with Liz. I did 6 weeks in Australia with only hand luggage there and back. I did lose a tin of Leatherwood honey at Melbourne airport though. Gits.

As someone who doesn't travel much anymore, its probably a case for which is the lesser evil. We have a devil bastard cat called Jasper that goes nuts when he can smell ham. Being the wazzock he is he'd probably just eat from the stump trying to grow from my wrist every night while I was asleep and then sick it up for me to clean every morning with just one hand. I suppose I could solve this by wearing a glove for ham-hand to sleep in, but then again, sweaty ham-hand?

Unforseen spontaneous ejaculation issues with the armpit dispenser might prove tricky to explain, especially if it squirted just for redheads. Overall though, this seems less problematic, so I'd choose the armpit dispenser.