Most sports are only watched during major tournaments and often only if they are played in the UK. Wimbledon, for example, is probably the only Tennis you will watch all year and you might not even watch it all, unless Andy Murray is winning and you suddenly allow him to be British, rather than Scottish for your full support. Cycling might get you shouting at the TV during the Tour de France, especially if it is in the English leg and you can see your town in the distance. You might have a little bet on the Grand National (with mini eggs in our house because it coincides with Easter) and you watch the boat race wondering why Oxford and Cambridge are the only two teams to reach the final every year. Rugby is for world cups, Cricket is for the Ashes with the hope that we show those Aussies who invented the game. Football, however, is to be watched religiously if 'your' team is playing and comments will include you, as if you were a vital part of the team, "We were rubbish tonight, hardly got a kick on the ball." Football is on the TV all the time. Even when the season is supposed to be over.
International Football tournaments, like the Bake Off and the imminent birth of a baby trigger a compulsory office sweepstake.
There was one at your office, right? You picked a team out of a hat (or more likely the box the photocopier paper came in or an empty crisp packet) and even if you hate football you were mildly excited when Iceland were still in, despite everyone laughing at you when they saw your pick. The person with the team that wins gets the money. If you work in a creative office there might be a prize for the worst team or the team that scored most goals but it's usually simple and straightforward.
This is not the case if you are an Engineer and your colleagues are somewhere firmly on the spectrum.
The Long Suffering Husband has tried to explain his office sweepstake to me several times and although I'm still not sure I understand it, I think this is how it works.
1. The organiser (we'll call him Fred, for no reason other than I prefer to use a name) uses some complicated mathematical technique to sort the teams into 5 groups. This could be based on world rankings, but there are almost certainly other factors involved which alter the statistical calculation to determine whether they are in group A B C D or E. Group A is the best and group E is the worst.
2. Fred's wife has made five beautiful velvet and silk lined bags with a gold cord drawstring with embroidered letters on the front. The team names are printed (Engineers can only write in print) on individual pieces of paper (all exactly the same size and shape) and placed into their correct bags. This step is checked several times, following the Engineers life motto, "measure twice cut once."
3. Each member of the office is seen in turn and once the fee has been taken from them and only when the fee has been taken Fred lets them pick their teams.
4. Each person picks seven teams.
This is where I started to get confused.
"What do you mean seven teams? Are there 3.4 people in your office."
"No, you don't understand. Listen."
5. They pick two teams from group A, two from group B and one from the other three.
"But there won't be enough to go round."
"Wait. You will understand but it's complicated."
6. Fred makes a note of the teams they have picked and puts them back in the correct bags. The person picking is not allowed to put them back, as they can't necessarily be trusted.
7. Fred goes to see the next person to extract money and make a note of their picks.
"So, lots of people could pick the winning team?"
"Well yes."
"That's silly."
"No it's not. It's more complicated than just the person with the winning team getting the money."
"It would be."
8. Each person who has entered is asked to guess the number of goals that will be scored over the whole tournament as a tiebreak decider. This, of course, isn't a guess but is another complicated mathematical calculation based on the number of goals in previous years, weighted by the length of the goalkeepers hair.
"Ah, so if two people have the winning team then the winner will be the one with the closest number of goals."
"No. It's more complicated than that. We'll come back to the goal thing later."
9. Fred makes a beautiful spreadsheet to keep the results in. He enters the names of each of his colleagues, the teams they have picked and their total goal 'guess' He colour codes cells and adds formulae so that he can keep up to date with how things are going.
"What if nobody has picked out the winning team?"
"That won't matter."
10. The tournament starts. Fred relaxes: he has nothing to do for the first few games.
11. After the first round the people who have teams that have been eliminated get zero points for those teams.
12. Teams that are eliminated in the next round get 10 points each.
13. Teams that reach the quarter-finals get 15 points each
14. Teams that reach the semi-finals get 25 points each.
"Oh, I see. It is complicated."
15. At this point someone will have worked out that their combination of teams could get them to win if only they had Germany as well. They seek out someone who has picked Germany and makes them an offer of combining both their teams and splitting the money. Fred rules the idea out, as, "it is not in the spirit of the rules", as he devised them.
16. After the final, Fred sets his spreadsheet to work. The second place team gets 50 points and the winner gets 100 points. Fred has the final scores for everyone.
"So you could have picked out the winning team and still lose because you haven't got as many points?"
"Yep."
"Weird."
"I know."
17. If two people have exactly the same score then their guess of total goals becomes the tie-breaker.
"See, I told you the goals would become relevant later."
"Yes. I wonder if Fred will have to use them?"
"I hope not. We're only up to 103 and I calculated 124........." He goes into a long detailed explanation of how he worked out an average of goals over the 45 matches multiplied by the tensile strength of the goalkeeper's toenails.
18. Fred calculates the winner.
"So the winner gets all the money?"
He looks at me as if I have lost my mind, "Well, no."
19. Fred give the person with the 4th highest score 10% of the takings. The person with the 3rd highest score gets 15%. The runner up gets 25% and the winner gets half the money.
"How many people are there in your office?"
"Twenty two, why?"
"I was just thinking that it might not work out but it will be alright because the 4th placed person will get £2.20."
"Oh no, Fred thought about that. There's no point in splitting pounds up. It was a £5 stake."
20. Fred delivers the winnings to his colleagues. Each colleague tries to explain how the sweepstake could be improved for next year. Fred sulks and refuses to speak to anyone for at least two months. The rest of the office are relieved: talking at work is most definitely over-rated.
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