NMA-11 Cup - Round-1 Results and Round-2 Draw

GW-24 was Round-1 proper of the NMA-11 cup. There were 40 head-to-head fixtures comprising the 32 ‘non-league’ teams who made it through the qualifying round together with the 48 ‘league 1’ and ‘league 2’ teams based on NMA-11 league positions after week 20.

There were plenty of goals around this week, so there was some very high scoring for a single week, with 91 teams in the league overall breaking the 100-point mark, which is normally the sign of a good week. In fact, 13 teams broke the 150-point mark, including four who were participating in the cup this week. Additionally, Chelsea and Brighton didn’t have a game at all, and a few teams suffered badly from no-shows.

As usual with the head-to-head format, some comparatively low-scoring teams won through, and several high-scoring teams fell. The unluckiest team of the round must surely be Jfdi (aka Salford City) who scored 151.5 points, the 12-best score in the entire league, but came up against Lua Lua (aka Cheltenham Town) who scored a league second best 166.5. At the other end of the luck spectrum was Voetbal FC (aka Hungerford Town) who prevailed 69.5:48.5 against Dreaming United (Havant & Waterlooville).

Here are the Round 1 results in full:

There weren’t many very close matches, with only four of the fixtures having a winning margin of less than 10 points. The closest game was another high-quality match-up: Team ivangyc (aka Oxford United) beating [TyF] Saint Gakkos (aka Forest Green Rovers) 142:138.5.

At the other extreme, Team c444si (aka Lincoln City) beat Team JackMcC98 (King’s Lynn Town) 152:65.5, that’s an impressive winning margin of 86.5 points, enough on its own to defeat quite a few teams.

40 teams have made it through to Round 2, where they will fight it out to be one of the 20 lower-ranked teams in Round 3 where the Premier League and Championship teams will enter the competition. Here is the draw for Round 2:

Round 2 will take place in DGW-26, which runs from the 19th to the 24th February. There will be eight teams playing twice, so it should be a big scoring week for many. Now is the time to start planning — at least line up a barn-door watch-list aimed at the DGW!

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Did you take part in Round 1, and if so how did you fare? Are you in Round 2? If so, let’s hear from you about your chances. Please log in and share in the comments!

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