After thirty-eight weeks of deliberating, cogitating and mastering the intricacies of Fantasy Premier League it was a (very) old face who finally came out on top of the pile of the twenty OHAFC players taking part: veteran 1st XI winger David Lederman proved that he really does know what he’s talking about when it comes to the beautiful game as his aptly-named team ‘Advantage Michu Cat’ finished with a total of 2064 points to top the table ahead of Dave Stead (2037) and long-time leader Paul Molloy (2014).

Lederman’s success owed much to a glorious late run that saw him climb from seventh place at the turn of the year to consistently post the weekly high score in the closing months. He reached the top spot in week 36 and held on for the final two rounds of matches to oust Stead and Paul Molloy who, along with Olly Hadden-Paton, had topped the table for the vast majority of the season.

Interestingly enough, Lederman was one of the few players who resisted picking the most expensive player in the game – Manchester United’s Robin Van Persie – for long periods, only selecting him for around ten weeks of the season. Luck inevitably plays a large part in the game, the final week a fine example as the hitherto unspectacular Romelu Lukaku, a late switch in for the competition winner, bagged an unlikely hat-trick against United to earn sixteen points.

After several weeks of wild celebrations, OHAFC.com finally caught up with the Club’s leading fantasist relaxing at his summer retreat on the Continent.

Many congratulations on winning the inaugural OHAFC Fantasy Premier League competition. You must be delighted to have finished top of the pile? Thanks, yes it’s gratifying to prove that I really do know more about football than anyone else here. I had long suspected it to be honest, but to have it confirmed by the numbers is very pleasing indeed.

What was the key to your success? For long periods of the season you were stuck in mid-table. Well having not played the game for twenty years or so it took me a couple of months to figure out what the best strategy was. I took a big gamble not picking van Persie which to start with looked to be a bad decision but then he went through his bad spell and I started to gain ground on the leaders. I think consistency is the key as well as not being afraid to make multiple substitutions each week – some people stick with the same team week in, week out. I chopped and changed depending on circumstances.

Who was your star performer? It’s very difficult to consistently pick high-scoring defenders and ‘keepers, goal-scorers are much easier to select so for that reason Bale, Michu and Suarez are the obvious choices. Of course lots of players selected them as well.

Can you defend your title next season? I would be very disappointed not to. A few people in the club seem to know a bit about the game but they are what I call ‘Playstation fans’ – they know all about the star players but have little knowledge of players at the smaller clubs. You can see it on the pitch on a Saturday as well – all these tricks and flicks but ask them to maintain a consistent 93% plus pass-success rate even over just a few games and you’ve got no chance.

I see. Finally David, are you going to undertake any special preparations in your bid to retain your crown next season? Well I don’t want to give too much away but I have been putting together several excel spreadsheets over the last few weeks detailing key trends from last season that I will extrapolate to produce some predictions for each game of the competition next term.

You are a big fan of excel spreadsheets? They are very useful indeed, from winning Fantasy Football competitions to detailing the Michu cat’s food rota, there is no end to their usefulness.

With that Lederman took off into the night, clutching the Fantasy League trophy in one hand and a sachet of Ocean fish Iams cat food in the other. Just another day in the life of a champion Fantasy Leaguer.

Next season’s competition will commence on Saturday, August 17th at 3pm.