An increasingly popular and keenly contested fantasy football league featuring shipbrokers and analysts has kicked off bigger than ever.
Organiser Vivek Srivastava, a shipping economist and strategist who has worked for Heidmar and SSY, said the new season has seen 54 players join.
Each year, competitors in the Shipping Research Fantasy Football League select players and earn points based on their performance in England's Premier League.
"This is going to be the biggest and best season yet," Srivastava said.
Manager of the Month for August is Howe Robinson Partners' Singapore-based sale-and-purchase broker Justin Hintz.
Srivastava said Hintz managed to kick off with a near-perfect squad selection, racking up 101 points.
He had both top-scoring midfielders, Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes and Liverpool's Mo Salah, as well as free-scoring West Ham striker Michail Antonio.
'Sneaky tactic'
"He also hit upon the sneaky tactic of selecting Liverpool's bargain £4m [$5.5m} reserve left back Konstantinos Tsimikas, who kept two clean sheets, notched an assist and two bonus points in the absence of first choice Andy Robertson," Srivastava added.
But in a cheeky nod to TradeWinds' article on Affinity (Shipping) chief executive Richard Fulford-Smith's rising pay, the league organiser said the prize money for August would not quite lift him into the broking super-league just yet.
In hot pursuit
Hintz is being hotly pursued at the top by league debutant Savas Tournis, TMS' finance director and Fearnleys Securities analyst Peder Nicolai Jarlsby.
The game is, of course, famous for punning team names.
This year, for the first time, two players independently came up with the same one.
World Fuel Services' Mark Smith and IHS Markit's Niall Hall both dreamed up Who Ate All Depays, a name combining Barcelona's Memphis Depay and the unflattering English enquiry as to whether someone has put on weight through a predilection for pastry-based foodstuffs.
"The law of large numbers dictates this was bound to happen eventually," Srivastava said.
"But if you two are down to attend any of the same events at LISW [London International Shipping Week] later this month, perhaps message each other beforehand to make sure you don't come dressed the same", he advised the pair.
