It’s been 15 years, but I still remember how I was introduced to the FPL game. It was back in May 2006 when my friends and I were browsing the premier league website for fixtures and putting in our yearly predictions. We were redirected to the fantasy page by some advert on the website. I had always been fantasy games freak and played many fantasy games across various sports. Obviously led me to register and select a team and challenged my friends to play in a private league. Being a United fan, I got in Rooney and Saha (yes, double up forwards) and captained Rooney. The first gameweek of the season (and FPL career), it was United vs Fulham and United won 5-1 with Rooney getting a brace and an assist(16 pointer).
That GW started a journey that has been going on for 15 seasons. Obviously, it was a different ball game then for various reasons. In my first article for this blog, I just want to share my thoughts on how FPL has evolved over these 15 years.
Before reading further do check out our History: Highest Scoring FPL Players Each Year Since The First FPL Season in 2002/03, FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Defenders Since The First FPL Season
FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Goalkeepers Since The First FPL Season, All that you need to know about FPL cup and History Of Fantasy Football And Origin Of FPL, FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Midfielders Each Year Since The First FPL Season In 2002/03 blogs. Here is a category link to all our FPL History blogs.
FPL chips then and now
The official game itself has changed over the last decade and a half. In 2006, all we got was one wildcard for the whole season and that was it (sometimes I do believe bringing that back would make this game way more exciting). The word ‘chip’ was not in the picture yet. Also, no one cared much about DGW/BGW and mostly used the only wildcard in the first few weeks of the season. Imagine navigating BGW and DGW period without any chip or wildcard. Not sure if Ben Crelin was playing FPL at that time but sure wasn’t predicting a DGW or a BGW.
Then a few years later FPL introduced chips and along with existing Bench Boost and Triple Captain, there was a chip called “All-out Attack” where you could play 2-5-3 formation. It was scrapped later to be replaced by Free Hit. Although the chips brought more dimensions to the game, the recent seasons have shown they need to be freshened up or at least split into 2 halves of the season.
Evolution of FPL Bonus points
Plenty of players complain about the current bonus point system and wish it was better, however, they may not know how far we have come with respect to that. There was a time( till 2011 IIRC) where there was no disclosure about bonus points awarded( 1,2, or 3) in any game. After the games finished, FPL used to award bonus points to 3 players who they thought to be the best. What was funny (annoying at the time) was that some players were FPL’s favorites and when the game ended 0-0 or 1-1, almost certain to get bonus points. Fabregas, Essien, Charlie Adams are few names that come to my mind. I remember plenty of games that ended draw and the above-mentioned players neither assisted nor scored but came away with all 3 bonus.
Then FPL introduced BPS (bonus point system) which is similar to what it is today, but the stats used were not from Opta and there was no disclosure about the source. I think that system was only used for a season or two before FPL changed their source to Opta and the entire process became transparent.
I get that some people don’t like that Salah loses bonus points because of shots off target but it’s nothing compared to some fixed set of players getting bonus points without being involved in any FPL actions. FWIW bonus points calculation is now transparent, and FPL have done a great job in streamlining the process over the period.
Further Read: 2021/22 FPL Season: Bonus Points Explained | FPL Guide
How has the FPL website performance changed over the years?
I believe that in today’s tech world, FPL should be able to bear with the traffic of 8 million managers during games and still update the scores and tables in real-time. Having said that, FPL must have upgraded the servers to some extent as we don’t see many crashes and unavailability near the deadline. Those who played the 2012-13 season can’t ever forget that the FPL website crashed and was unavailable for many few hours before the first deadline of the season, and as a result, they gave unlimited transfers to all in GW2. Yes, it happened. Imagine the FPL Twitter if it happens today 🙂
As much embarrassing it might be for FPL, LiveFPL.net has saved all of us that pain of lack of real-time table updates. Premierfantasytools.com and fplgameweek.com also have been providing us with updated data in quicker than the official website. However, I do believe that FPL must do more to get the site working to players’ expectations. It’s now more than ever they need to build confidence among users when the likes of FanTeam and Fantrax are already taking some of the traffic off FPL
[kofi]
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Price changes in FPL then and now
In my first season in 2006, I was under impression that FPL randomly changes the prices of the players doing well and we have to make our moves sooner to get players at cheaper prices. As the seasons went by, we not only realized that price changes happen at a specific time, but also there was a way to decode(sort of) the algorithm of price changes and predict when a particular player is going to go up or down by 0.1m. I wouldn’t have believed at that time if someone had told me that in few years, there are going to be dedicated websites and features to track and predict players prices.
It has been widely debated whether someone should care about price changes or not, considering pre-match pressers could leak some important team news. I believe this is a double-edged sword and I have experience of both sides of it. There are definite advantages of an early transfer( It might mean that in GW25, you can afford to get in TAA while others with the same team can only afford VVD or Robbo.) and the risk of being burnt by it( transfer a player on Monday to see him ruled out in presser on Friday.)
It really depends on the kind of FPL manager you are, but personally, I’d still go ahead and do the move on Sunday or Monday if I feel it’s the right move. The odds of the same players being injured during the week are very less than some of the community believes to be.
Further Read: 2021/22 FPL Season: FPL Price Changes Explained | FPL Guide
Final parting thoughts on the evolution of FPL over the last 15 years
It won’t be wrong to say the game wasn’t as big as it is today in every aspect possible. I remember in my first season around 700k players playing, there were not many platforms where early team news, injuries, press conference quotes were available. There were no sources or leaks who keep an eye on every small detail happening over a week to predict the implications of it for the weekend action in FPL. There was no FPL community and most of the famous social media platforms didn’t even exist.
One thing for sure – The game is not played in a causal way anymore and there is a lot at stake for many players. It might be bragging rights for some or even a full-time job for others. Back in the day, who’d have thought that people would take immense pride in posting their OR history or the numbers of top10k finishes.
More number of serious players definitely means more intense competition and more red arrows than one might anticipate. However, that does not diminish the desire to play and do well in this game year in year out.
They say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. It has been a heck of a journey for me so far –
from the moment I found the game, to create a league for bragging rights,
from waiting till 4 AM in the morning to see the updated OR, to using LiveFPL.net,
from moaning about random bonus points to moaning about deficiency in Opta stats,
from not caring about Overall Rank, to feeling proud of a top10k finish,
from not having anyone to talk FPL, to having too much noise in the Twitter community
Thank you FPL, addicted forever!
[kofi]
If you like our content do consider supporting us by contributing to the website. ALLABOUTFPL is run by the community and for the community. All our content is and will always remain free.
Further reads from ALLABOUTFPL
All Time FPL Dream Team Since The First Season in 2002/03 | FPL History
FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Goalkeepers Since The First FPL Season
FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Defenders Since The First FPL Season
FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Midfielders since the first FPL season
FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Players Since The First FPL Season
FPL History: Highest Scoring FPL Forwards Since the First FPL Season
FPL Now vs Then | How Has FPL Evolved since the Early Years
History Of Fantasy Football And Origin Of FPL
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Shiva
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