--------------------- Press from Mel's Desk --------------------- Are your training and bids in? ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Sherwood Bandits ------------------------------------------------------- H--ho, hi-ho, it's whip the players we go, dum-dum de-dum, hi-ho! ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Melbourne Bloods ------------------------------------------------------- A new season dawns........ Welcome to the new Bloods, Damian Seymour, a high flying defender, and Andrew Johnson, a rover/wingman. Also welcome back Michael Jones from an almost career ending injury. He'll be nursed along this year, with the team looking for him to step in and play next year. Also welcome new Bloods Joe Mist, John BigToe and John Thorfin, all from Himeji. Roll on the first game....... the boys are primed! ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the New Sturt Blues ------------------------------------------------------- New Unley: One Week In And Blues Haven't Lost A Game! Of course, it would've be hard. In real life Blues news, the Sturt Football Club had a bye this week in Round 1 of the SANFL competition. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Christminster Clerics ------------------------------------------------------- The squad certainly looks stronger now with our three new HOT recruits! ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the CSUA ------------------------------------------------------- Time for a new season. Do any of these players remember the rules? ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Roxburgh Kittens ------------------------------------------------------- For up to date press releases and team info, see http://www.horizon.bc.ca/~ogier/sparf/ ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Buffalo Knights ------------------------------------------------------- Buffalo Knights management was unhappy to announce at the weekly press conference that the team had failed to secure a rookie in either of the first two draft rounds. "We're certainly disappointed that this team seems to be growing older on a daily basis." confessed John Larry. "The roster moves seem to be simple stop-gap measures with no real plan or intelligent vision inherent to them." John Moe then came to the podium and hit John Larry with a large metal flying pan. "That's not true. These moves were all born from genius, nothing less than genius I tell you!" When informed that the entire draft review committee had been sacked by Knights' new ownership corporation, Virtucon, John Moe hit himself with the frying pan and collapsed in a heap. John Curly came and removed the bodies. John Shemp ate cheese. That is all. (Hey man, we're still undefeated in Gold this season!) ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Manix Maulers ------------------------------------------------------- ============ How "Scouting Reports" Will Work This Season ============ There are two sections to this, one for veteran managers and one for newer managers. The veterans won't need to read this whole thing since it's already stuff they know. ============ Here's the information for veteran managers: Yobbos have handed cable over to Manix. Send your scouting reports to smithda@cder.fda.gov with the Subject WMNX:youremailaddress and your scouting report as the body. There should be no line breaks except after the Age column (where they should occur anyway). I'll send out whatever I have by 06:30 EST Mondays or 11:30 GMT Mondays or 21:30 Sydney time Mondays. I'm going to be strict about this cutoff, so please don't be late. ============ Some Background on the SPARF Cable Service ============ Every year since I've been managing a SPARF team, Scott Emery has been running cable, or the weekly distribution list of scouting reports. Management of cable has been transferred from the Yobbos to Manix starting this season, and we'd like to formally thank Scott for his diligence in getting cable to managers in the last few seasons. For those managers who are new to SPARF, scouting reports on the teams that you play can be made available. Every week after a match, Mel sends out the results of the match, and the lineups of your team and your opponent's team. Exact point values are replaced by adjectives (to add some mystery), so you'll get a file like this: Player Name Mark Kick Scram Defense Age LFP Tris Speaker TRIFC OUTST TRIFC POOR 3 FF Gary Bettenhausen OUTST OUTST GREAT AVG 3 RFP David Dunsmuir TRIFC OUTST VGOOD POOR 5 LHF Gavin Wanganeen OUTST TRIFC VGOOD GOOD 4 CHF Jim Rhodes OUTST OUTST TRIFC OUTST 4 RHF Cliff Secord OUTST TRIFC TRIFC GOOD 4 LW Hans Ravensburg AVG POOR AVG LOUSY 0 C Hale Irman OUTST VGOOD VGOOD VGOOD 5 RW Stefan Sperlich VGOOD AVG LOUSY MDCRE 0 LHB Peter Johansson POOR AVG AVG GOOD 0 CHB Ed Settera TRIFC GOOD MDCRE VGOOD 6 RHB Helmut Ruger MDCRE MDCRE POOR MDCRE 0 LBP Ted Tingle TRIFC VGOOD VGOOD TRIFC 5 FB Dietrich BonHoeffer TRIFC TRIFC VGOOD OUTST 5 RBP Larry Zeel GOOD VGOOD MDCRE GOOD 6 ROV Lynn StJames SUPRB GREAT GREAT GREAT 3 RKM Zack Wheat EXCPT EXCPT GREAT EXCPT 3 RKR Josef Mueller TRIFC TRIFC TRIFC VGOOD 5 IC1 Heinrich Strecker AVG POOR AVG MDCRE 0 IC2 Warmer Korper Ein PTHTC PTHTC PTHTC PTHTC 5 IC3 Warmer Korper Zwei PTHTC PTHTC PTHTC PTHTC 5 .. along with the same thing for your opponent's team (both of them will be in one file). Now, what the cable service will do for you is give you a central place to send your opponent's half of the file, and in return for sending your opponent's scouting report, you will receive all of the other scouting reports that other managers have sent to the cable service. Participation in the cable service has been quite good, so there's always a chance that the scouting report for your opponent next week will be included in the weekly cable service. ============ Fundamentals ============ 1) Participation in the cable service is entirely voluntary. You do not have to participate at all, and if you participate this week, you don't have to participate next week. 2) The cable service is not not not not not something that Munch handles. Do NOT send scout reports to Munch. Instead, send them to Dave, whose address is smithda@cder.fda.gov The cable service is completely independent of Munch. 3) If you send in your opponent's scouting report to the cable service, you will get all of the other scouting reports that have been mailed in for that week. This will include teams outside of your division. This can be especially instructive for new managers, since they will be able to see how Gold managers and other veteran managers structure their teams. ============ How to Participate ============ If you'd like to participate, this is what you need to do: after you have received your post-match scouting report from Munch, send an e-mail to smithda@cder.fda.gov with the Subject WMNX:youremailaddress (and if I get email from someone who takes the above Subject line literally, I'll mock you in my press). In the body of your message, include only your opponent's portion of the scouting report. Please do not send me anything with weirdo tabs or line breaks other than the ones in the original Munch message. I have to do this by hand, and it'll take much more time to get the cable together if your mailer thinks it's clever. Scouting reports will go out every Monday starting after the first match and continuing until the SPARF Cup. If your scouting report isn't in by the Monday morning deadline, then you'll have to wait until the following week or mooch the scouting report off of someone else. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the The Mythstics ------------------------------------------------------- The Mythstics management apologise for Madame Venusia's absence. Normal Press Seances will be resumed as soon as possible. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Newcastle Novas ------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to all of the new recruits. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Air-Pacific Groundhogs ------------------------------------------------------- This is KUOP, severing the Central Valley and Mother Lode areas. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Port Coquitlam Circus Stars ------------------------------------------------------- Reporter: I'm here at the Circus Star training camp, and I have to say that I'm very surprised at what I see. Rather than the free-for-all party I've seen in other years, the players are actually out on the field running drills! Let's see if I can get an interview with one of the players. Wait, I think I see Johnny Juggler, last year's star mobile....Johnny, what's going on here? Johnny: Well, I know in the past we haven't exactly taken this thing too seriously, but after making it to the Sparf Cup Final last year, and being narrowly defeated by the Redwoods, we've decided to come out this year and actually _try_. Reporter: Wow, now that is an innovative concept. I see a few new faces, and lots of old ones. Johnny: Yes. Somehow 'Bounce' made the team again this year. That guy is older than you and I put together. I mean, he had a whole career before he ever started playing footie. Reporter: And you managed to sign at least one over-priced rookie. Johnny: Actually we thought 'Pick Pocket', our new rookie, was a steal in the draft, no pun intended. Reporter: But at $214k sparf? The guy's unproven. Never played a game. Johnny: We have a feeling that Pick Pocket might just pay for himself in a couple games. Gotta go! Reporter: What did he mean by that last comment. Hey! Where's my wallet! Come back here! ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Petawawa Purple Platypi ------------------------------------------------------- Weez haz for nu rokez, butt weez dun wants to mor. Loopy Creature PPP ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Connecticut Yankees ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Livermore Rowdy Yobbos ------------------------------------------------------- It's Mourning in America all over again as the old guys are shipped off to pasture. Faves from past years are given tearful farewells and young bucks snort derisively as they run and run and run and run. Vehement denials of abuse fade from season to season as THE PUBLIC begins to regard them and the accusations which spawned them as less important even than starvation in the Third World. Charges and counter-charges are swinging in the same groove, trench warfare in the same ruts, futile as the Light Brigade flying into pieces at the cannons of disinterest. Impure, unclean. The uncollected beer cans of last season leave a yeasty stench which saps the will. Someone hired these pasty faced wretches, but were they paying any attention to the details of their sordid pasts. The wretches we know haven't become fresh, the fresh wretches seem stale. Beer doesn't have the foamy head of yore. Decay doesn't remind us of rebirth anymore, it simply rots. Undefeated so far! W L T 0 0 0 Support your local team! Go Rowdy Yobbos!