To begin with in the league, Olly's XI set the pace, taking an early lead by the end of August. However, the quirk of Football Dreams' inaugural season was that my team, FC Abba, led the league from then on and also clinched the cup, giving me the Double.

FC Abba's dominance came from the pairing of Dion Dublin's goals (including seven in November) and the points racked up by my Arsenal players thanks to their mean defence. Crucially, though, the players in my team who were substitutes by May had, nevertheless, earned 129 of my 676 points. Without their points, I would have come third. Only The Best Ever Thom's Toon Army, managed by my younger brother, regularly had a changed starting eleven, and so their position as runners-up was no coincidence. It may have been much more convenient for us to make the substitutions, but had Adrian, the Flop-Flop Cheap Sheep manager, used Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink more often, for example, he certainly would have got more than six points from him. At the wrong end of the league table, Will Harrowven's Corker United occupied the basement position all season, apart from suffering from vertigo in fifth place during September.

The cup provided the season with a fine run from The Loony's Escaped to the final, knocking out both The Best Ever Thom's Toon Army and Olly's XI, two teams that finished higher than them in the league. Despite this, The Loony's Escaped and their lethal partnership of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole in attack were outgunned 85-38 in the final by FC Abba.

The season, however, was a success in that Football Dreams kept going for the entire season and, the top and bottom places apart, there were some interesting battles for league position, notably Thom's tussle with Olly for second place, while the cup did provide giant killings. Oh, if only there had been more substitutions!

If Football Dreams in 1998/1999 was FC Abba's season, then Football Dreams II in 1999/2000 definitely belonged to Thom's P.C.P. side, who topped the league from the first to the last weekend of the season. Only new boy Phil and his team, I Don't Like Cheese XI, prevented a whitewash, taking the new League Cup as P.C.P. settled for a league, cup and Super Cup treble. Furthermore, the two managers were the only ones to recoup their £5 stake in the new prize fund. Phil won £11.50 in a fine debut season but Thom earned a huge £19! My new team, Faithless, the Wonder Boy, failed woefully to relive FC Abba's Double heroics, finishing third in the league and crashing out of both cups early on.

While FC Abba's success had been built on Dion Dublin's goals and their Arsenal players' defensive capabilities, P.C.P.'s triumphs were due to the 85 goals that they scored, mainly thanks to Andy Cole and Thierry Henry. This was 18 more than I Don't Like Cheese XI's 67, and as goals were now worth five instead of three points, this gave an extra 90 points. Once again, though, the substitutions were vital, especially as each team now had five and not four substitutes to choose from. For example, Thom's bench contributed 164 points, points that would have made a huge difference to the teams who did not use their substitutes. Thom, Phil, Chris and me were the managers who regularly changed our line-ups. However, while Thom walked off with the league unchallenged and the battle for second ended as Faithless, the Wonder Boy spluttered along, mid-table provided plenty of action. Early on in the season, the bottom five were separated by a mere five points, and while The Yung Guns occupied last place from February, they had been fifth in October. The most interesting scrap, though, was when The Team on a Mission were sucked into this battle between the bottom clubs in February after occupying a comfortable fourth since August. They ended up sixth but Not the Greatest Team in the World, who had made the break to catch up Will's team, fell to seventh as both teams were leapfrogged by Paranoid Androids and Barry Fry's Mystic Penii.

The new League Cup provided some welcome upsets as P.C.P. claimed the Football Dreams Cup 93-75 against I Don't Like Cheese XI. P.C.P. fell in the first round to Faithless, the Wonder Boy, only for my team to lose to The Team on a Mission in the quarter-finals. However, The Yung Guns, heading for the league wooden spoon, made the final, where they lost 89-37 to I Don't Like Cheese XI. What made Adrian's team's progress so amazing was that The Yung Guns managed only 24 goals all season.

In short, it was sad that once again the league title was not closely fought but the mid-table scraps and The Yung Guns' amazing cup run helped to make up for this. Furthermore, Phil had an excellent debut in claiming second place in the league and reaching both cup finals, and Chris also tried hard in his first season and did not deserve to finish seventh after making many tactical substitutions and transfers.

After the one horse races of the first two seasons, Football Dreams III was the most open and exciting campaign so far. Thom retained the league title with his new team, Nin Huugen and the Huugen Notes, by 58 points from Abbzonspor, but only after having overtaken my team in early April. Thom also took the Super Cup again (the first cup tie to be played under the new one weekend rule) but the other three competitions were won by different managers; Daniel clinched the Cup in his debut year, Olly took the League Cup (which was now based on goals scored), his first honour in three seasons, and Phil won the new Champion Fives European tournament. However, despite winning nothing, I amassed £9.50 as I finished as a runner-up in three competitions, the most prize money collected by any manager that season.

The 2000/2001 league was entirely unlike the previous two in that four of the eight teams led for significant periods of the season. Phil's Robin Hood and His Merry Men were 23 points clear by the end of September, owing much to the early form of Michael Owen. However, as Chris Morgan's Morgsomniacs scored 13 goals to Phil's two in October, they reached the summit of the table. By the start of February, though, Nin Huugen and the Huugen Notes and Abbzonspor had come from fourth and sixth, respectively, in turning a collective 161-point deficit into a 6-point one. With Chris still suffering after swapping Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink for Teddy Sheringham with Daniel and so breaking up his partnership with Thierry Henry, I now led from my brother, meaning that I had come from last in August to first. In early April, a Marcus Stewart hat trick meant that Thom leapfrogged me into the lead, while a tally of 16 goals and 109 points for the month all but assured him of back-to-back league titles. At the other end of the table, Unknown were bottom from October onwards, despite being top after the first Saturday, and so Adrian was last once again. Olly and Chris Ferry, in his inaugural season, were in the bottom half of the table all year too, while Phil finished fifth but was seventh at one stage during his mid-season slump. Daniel and his Bjorn and the Warnerbirds team were never top but remained among the front four all season.

The two cups both provided welcome surprise winners. Daniel's 20-11 Football Dreams Cup Final victory over Morgsomniacs and Olly's 2-1 Football Dreams League Cup success over me were both managers' first trophies, Thom having been eliminated in both competitions' first round. Playing the ties over a weekend and not a whole month made the cups more sudden death and the goals only format for the League Cup was very interesting. Thom made it a hat trick of first round defeats in his group stage exit from the new Football Dreams Champion Fives, where Phil claimed a deserved 31-16 win over me in the Final, meaning that I had a hat trick of second places.

The third Football Dreams season was an unequivocal success, despite having lost three founding managers, in terms of its exciting league campaign and as half of the managers won a competition. Five managers also made regular substitutions, and it gave me great pleasure to see them achieve the success that their commitment merited.

Football Dreams IV always looked like it was to be the season when Thomas clinched his third successive league title and perhaps even a domestic treble. However, whereas in the previous season Thomas had hit form in April to race into the lead, this time he capitulated. Having led since August and reached both cup finals, Thomas proceeded to lose both and squander a 41-point lead in the League to Daniel. Therefore, while Thomas may have beaten Daniel in the Super Cup back in August, it was the vanquished on that day that went on to break record after record and to take the FDL title away from the Abbs household for the first time. Daniel's team, Pierre Imports Internationale, scored a record 761 points in the League, including a mighty 163 points in April, and won the Cup to complete the Double. In the other two competitions, Adrian won his first trophy in his fourth year by defeating Thomas in the League Cup, while Chris Morgan also experienced success for the first time by winning the Champion Fives tournament.

Daniel's success owed much to the quite simply rampant goalscoring of his team. Of the record 87 goals that he scored, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Fredrik Ljungberg and Robert Pires contributed 44 between them. It is surprising that it took until April for Pierre Imports Internationale to take control of the League, especially as they scored what was then a record 152 points in December. Apart from the late change in lead, though, the league had settled down by Christmas. There were a few interesting position changes in the early months, however, including my team rising from ninth to second during September. The table ended up being divided into separate battles, with Chris Ferry finishing bottom of the three tail enders, Adrian and Andy isolated in mid-table, Phil ultimately failing to take third place from me, and then the front two.

Daniel triumphed 51-20 over Thomas in the Football Dreams Cup to complete his domestic double. In the Football Dreams League Cup, Adrian trounced Thomas 3-0, his first trophy. Therefore, Thomas repeated my feat of last season by finishing second in three competitions. Chris Morgan defeated Phil, the holder, 26-16 in the Football Dreams Champion Fives to claim his first silverware too.

The fourth Football Dreams season did not quite match the competitiveness of the previous year but it was significant that the league trophy was not won by an Abbs. Daniel built on his Cup success of 2000/2001 and had the best Football Dreams campaign of any manager yet. With the completion of Football Dreams IV, seven of the nine managers had now won a Football Dreams competition at some point.

Once again, the key to success in the League was a free-scoring team. Thomas equalled Daniel's record haul of 87 goals last season, with James Beattie, Thierry Henry and Paul Scholes amassing 52 between them. Of course, other managers scored a lot of goals too but often relied too heavily on one player or were unlucky with their tactical substitutions. An example of the former was Phil, with Ruud van Nistelrooy scoring the most for him, 25 times, while Nolberto Solano was second but only with seven strikes. Furthermore, the latter most often occurred through Andy, who missed out on many goals due to unfortunately leaving out or substituting players who went on to score. Conversely, my tally of 72 goals was second only to Thomas' but my top scorer, Sylvain Wiltord, scored a mere ten times. Thomas controlled the League from mid-December onwards, before when Andy and me had had spells at the top. Andy eventually came fourth, below Daniel, but that was to prove enough to qualify for the Champion Fives. Below the top four, Phil had a disappointing season but did snatch fifth place from Olly in the final month. Adrian and Chris Morgan battled it out for the wooden spoon for most of the season, with Adrian prevailing, while Chris Ferry, who was last the previous season, finished seventh.

The two domestic cups brought me my first trophies since I won the Double in 1999. In the Football Dreams Cup, I defeated Thomas 30-27 and before that thrashed Adrian, the holder, 5-0 in the Football Dreams League Cup. Thomas landed the Football Dreams Champion Fives for the first time with a 25-23 victory over me.

It was a shame that Daniel did not rekindle his form of Football Dreams IV when defending his league crown and that Andy's title challenge did not stay the course either. However, I believe that Thomas' rather sedate reclaiming of the League will provide added motivation for other managers next year. Phil and Andy, in particular, are due serious shots at the title. Nonetheless, the season was a personal success for me due to my cup successes.

While Thomas was top from late September onwards, the only other consistent managers were Olly and Adrian as their teams plodded on in distant ninth and tenth places respectively. Adrian's 283 points and 17 goals (none of which were scored before Boxing Day) were both record Football Dreams lows. Thankfully, there was more excitement elsewhere in the league table, perhaps best illustrated by the path of the two new managers' campaigns. Joe was top during September but his season deteriorated steadily as his strikers misfired and so Josh, whose team had never been in the top half and was built on defence rather than attack, crept up to overtake Joe late on and finish an admirable sixth. In the race for European spots, Phil held on to second place from November while Andy and me took the other two qualification places after the challenges of Daniel and Joe faded. It was disappointing, though, that Chris did not mount the real title challenge he could have done as not making substitutions cost his team over two hundred points by my estimation and resulted in him finishing a lowly eighth.

Phil landed his first silverware for three years with a 24-8 victory over me in the Football Dreams Cup Final, meaning that the only competition he has not yet won is the League itself. Only Thomas can now better Phil's record of winning something in three separate years, with four of the former's Football Dreams campaigns resulting in the capture of some major title. It was Thomas who ended Phil's League Cup aspirations, before he then went on to beat Joe's conqueror Daniel 2-0 in the final. Daniel was also beaten by Thomas in the Champion Fives, this time by  29 points to 24.

Another year then, and another exceptional performance from Thomas. In the last five Football Dreams campaigns he has won 8 major competitions. While it was pleasing to see Phil return to form and win the Cup, I'm tired of the rest of us feeding off Thomas' scraps. It will take a big effort next year for a manager to wrest the title from his grasp, but it must be done.

After Thomas decided to buy a striker in the auction who wasn't Thierry Henry (who then ended up scoring 74% of Chris' goals) the season was set up to be the most competitive yet. Andy was top early on but quickly slipped away and it was Olly who set the early pace, leading the table until mid-October. Josh then took up the mantle and a free-scoring Joventus also had a short spell at the top before Phil burned away from the pack in the run-up to Christmas and never looked back. Four-time FDL champion Thomas plodded along consistently but ended up a distant second by May, 167 points behind Phil. Olly secured a fine third, his highest finish in six years, and I recovered from a very slow start to the season to pip Josh to fourth place. Sixth for Andy and seventh for Joe were not what they had hoped for in August but both had healthy points tallies. Harriet guided Thomas' second string to eighth with Chris flying the flag for Scotland in ninth. In a sad twist, Daniel, who had missed the auction, finished last by some distance only three years after winning the Double.

Phil reached the finals of three cups but only won one. After a surprise 67-31 win over Andy in El Torneo, Phil failed to score in the FDL Cup Final and lost to me thanks to a Ricardo Carvalho header, before Olly edged him out 13-7 in a low-scoring Football Dreams Cup Final. The FDL Cup result was like Liverpool falling to Wimbledon in the 1988 FA Cup Final, but no one could begrudge Olly only his second trophy in seven years.

Twelve months ago the gauntlet was thrown down for the other managers to stand up to Thomas' domination. Phil certainly took heed but with another Football Dreams campaign unlikely before 2008, he will not have the chance to build on his success.