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You Only Larry Twice

Escrito por LarryPampushky

There's 8 teams left in the English Cup. It's Round 10, and the quarter finals await. A remarkable 7 of the 8 remaining teams are based in the Premiership, and the one that isn't knocked out a Premiership team last week. It is, of course, the reigning Champions, Shakhtar Donuts. Their manager, LarryPampushky, basking in the Golden Glow reflecting from the club trophy cabinet has taken some time out to answer a few more questions, to whet the appetite for tonight's games.

The last time we spoke (19872) was on the eve of your victory in last season's Cup Final which you went on to win in a penalty shootout, after a 3-3 scoreline at the end of 90 minutes (597182996). I guess having a long shots team always made you favourite for a penalty shoot-out but were you anxious & hiding behind the sofa anyway? (Please tell us a bit about how it felt to be watching your team in the cup final, presuming that you were actually watching it live?)

I was on holiday and struggled to follow the final live. I did manage to catch most of extra-time and the penalties (on a 1st generation Kindle that has 3G ― and, no, Hattrick isn’t very good on an e-reader). I suppose I did have a slight advantage with my players all having decent SPs, but I think penalty shoot-outs are heavily dependent on experience and Frankie’s had the edge there, so it could easily have gone the other way. I’m still smiling about it four months later.

As the Cup Winners, you automatically qualified to represent England in the Masters. You progressed to R3 before being knocked out by a side from Uruguay with Divine side attacks and a better m/f playing 2-5-3 AoW. Please tell us a little about your experience, and anything that you may have learned about this tournament that might help any future England managers?

I didn’t know much about the Masters having never really paid it any attention before. I followed the last couple of matches in Malk’s ridiculous win but that is about it. So I had to read the rules in the manual, and I also asked Matt- a couple of questions about PIC/MOTS effects. I didn’t start with any great hopes for my team’s chances, but after beating the reigning champions in round 2 (602726334) I thought I could win the thing. I was soon brought back down to earth.

I notice that this season’s eventual winner started his team a mere five days after I did, but he has made 2300 transfers since then, whereas I’ve made only 41, so my tip for future English representatives would be to make more transfers!

Your match against Phi's Fire in the Quarter Finals (R10) this season is the equivalent of the Charity Shield, as the Cup Winners take on the Premiership Champions. Phi's were knocked out of the cup last season by another Long Shots side, Magic Minton (596907180) and you beat them the last time you met them (s62 the season before last, when Phi's promoted to the Prem) (579656756) From the neutral's perspective this makes it a fascinating tie, but please could you tell us how you feel about facing them on Tuesday?

I think fear is always an appropriate feeling when taking on the mighty Phi’s Fire. Pheosiris is a manager I greatly admire. I remember first playing him in the cup with my previous team a long time ago and being astonished at how powerful his 2-5-3 set up was (it wasn’t that common at the time). I think I took a dive in that match as I couldn’t see how I could possibly beat him. He soon went on to win 5 titles in a row. I later played him in a cup semi-final; I didn’t take a dive that time, but the result was pretty much the same! Luckily he’s a nice guy so I don’t mind losing to him. I see he PICed at the weekend. Gulp.

The latest game evolution announcement seems to have incorporated one of your suggestions about how the game could be improved from our previous interview, with respect to splitting defender subs into Wb and Cd. (https://www91.hattrick.org/MyHattrick/Editorials/default.aspx?EditorialID=7229) Aside from the omission of FTW and normal Fwd subs being mentioned in their 'example' (which if omitted might actually help LS teams), what do you make of this latest editorial road-map and what do you think it might mean for the future of your team?

Who’d have thought the HTs read this rubbish?! It’s hard to comment on the road-map as it was all a bit vague. I’m interested to see how the man marking will work, but I suspect it will become mandatory or not used at all. I fear they will make a total mess of specialities.

It won't make much difference to my team as they are all getting on a bit now.

You included some interesting musical pointers in your last interview. Have you discovered anything since then that might be of interest and worth linking?

I’m glad I get a second chance at this as I should have mentioned the Parquet Courts last time as they were recommended by fellow Hattricker arkroyal (175003) (in the GOM fed – they’re not all Gits). Ooh look, one about Donuts: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNfV0vVNVQI)

A few seasons ago you posted links to an audio feed with respect to reporting English Cup results. Please could you tell us a little bit about how this all happened, together with a link for anyone who may have missed it to the mildly amusing results checker you posted at the time?

Sadly all podcast links have disappeared due to lack of activity, as has the old laptop I kept copies on. Think of the woman from Google reading the hattrick cup results and you get the gist. I guess I was bored and thought I’d mess around with the Google text-to-speech API. I soon got bored of that too.

In this season's English Cup, you are the only non-Premiership team left of the 8 clubs still in it. Will the cup distraction this season, or indeed did the Cup distraction last season play any part in preventing your club's progression to the top Division?

It’s more of a case of the league distracting me from the cup! Even if I manage to win my series this season it is very unlikely I would get auto-promotion so that leaves an away qualifier against a Premiership team. I think I have better odds of winning the cup! It was the same situation last season, which lead me to throw the league match before the cup final. Perhaps the competitiveness of the Premiership this season will distract the big boys from the cup, although that doesn't seem to be working just yet; I can't believe there are seven of them still left. I'll have beaten four of them in a row if I win the cup this season. Hmm, perhaps I should concentrate on the league after all....

What was the first gig you ever went to, where was it, and please tell us a little bit about the experience?

I was 14 or 15 and went to see New Order at the Birmingham NEC. I went on a coach with one of my friends. I can’t remember much about it (it was 1987 or 1988!) other than that our seats (yuck!) were about 15 miles from the stage and that a, then unknown, band called the Happy Mondays were the support (I thought they were awful, and they probably were).

Please tell us what Mrs P's current favourite TV show is and her favourite current 'hunk & tipple', please also tell us your equivalent and how any clashes are resolved?

I’m a little unsure if 'hunk & tipple' is a euphemism that I’m unaware of, but I know you speak funny down in that there London. Is it rhyming slang for nipple?

Anyway, Mrs P says that she likes Travel Man with Richard Ayoade. (http://cdn-static.sidereel.com/tv_shows/59199/giant_2x/travelman.jpg) She didn’t give me a hunk (I don’t think Ayoade counts, does he?) but I know she likes to drink red wine by the gallon.

Sticking with Channel 4 comedy, I like Toast of London (https://68.media.tumblr.com/a17041a216988738dabcbf48260e99aa/tumblr_inline_n9w1bxxKjv1rclbdh.gif); Scarlett Johansson looks like she’d be fun to get alone (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/99/c2/7f/99c27f92ca8074b348d9eab9dfb4df9c.jpg); and beer.

TV is one area where we don’t clash. Unless there’s football on. Then she sulks...

From a travel perspective, please could you tell us the top 3 places on your bucket list (if you had/have one)?
I don’t have a bucket list, but we like going on cycling holidays in Europe (this year we're cycling from Venice to Croatia via Slovenia), so I’ll pick three rivers to cycle alongside: Rhine, Danube and Loire. (http://www.citizenkid.com/application/views/images/media/49/original/Loire-velo-240351.jpg)

Come on you Donuts!