Its not often that the ageing and infirm "If Selected..." can be arsed to summon up the energy required to get angry, but today we have stirred ourselves into a pique of righteous indignation. And the source of our ire? Once more, it is those pen-pushing Mandarins down at Sportmans League HQ. Well, to help us calm down before we trundle down to the Post Office to collect our pension, please sit back for a moment and join us in a quick game of You Are The Mandarin!

Scenario One: A club is promptly suspended for some slightly tardy payment of fees - a serious offence in red tape circles. However the team in question - let us call them FC Wideroad in our hypothetical example - cough up their wad pronto. They have a fixture scheduled for Sunday against an amicable and generally accommodating club which we shall call Dialectica FC in our little example. As an experienced mandarin, you realise that payment of said fees means that FC Wideroad will no longer be suspended as of tomorrow, Tuesday. But in a fit of senile dementia you can't remember whether you have informed them of this fact. It is a fairly bad attack, and it also completely slips your memory to inform Dialectica FC that their opponents were / are / aren't suspended. But at this level, some aspects of administration are just instinctive, and without really realising it, you have informed the referee that the game is cancelled, even though you somehow fail to tell the venue in question the exact same thing. The upshot is that FC Wideroad and the referee have a lie in whilst Dialectica FC and the groundsman stand around for a good hour wondering why nobody else has pitched up. You Are The Mandarin! Do you:

(a) Award the match to Dialectica FC since FC Wideroad were suspended on the Monday when the fixture was arranged and therefore, according to your own rule book, should forfeit the game.

(b) Award the match to Dialectica FC since FC Wideroad were no longer suspended on the Sunday when the fixture was due to be played, but failed to appear anyway, whilst their opponents did indeed turn up at the scheduled venue as you instructed them to do on the Monday and therefore, according to your own rule book, should be awarded the match.

(c) Decide that the match should merely be postponed for reasons that are not abundantly clear even to you.

Scenario Two: Our second example a few weeks later involves the same hypothetical club, Dialectica FC, a team that has not once in their diligent and stainless ten year association with your league requested a game to be postponed. They come to you at the Monday night league meeting and ask very politely if Sunday's scheduled league fixture against opponents that we shall call AC Rodsrate could be postponed. You inform the Dialectica Supremo that this is acceptable as long as the opponents are agreeable. The opposing Rodsrate Supremo, being a reasonable sort, readily and sympathetically agrees, even going so far as to say that they would much prefer to play the match once Dialectica can raise a proper team. Having agreed to the postponement, and in a fit of administrative efficiency, you inform the referee that the match has been postponed and even try to reallocate the pitch, but do warn the Dialectica Supremo that he may liable for the cost of the pitch if this turns out not to be possible. Dialectica obviously accepts this. Both teams enjoy a rare week off and everybody seems happy. You Are The Mandarin! Do you:

(a) Record the match as postponed and attempt to rearrange the fixture for a future date which both clubs have free.

(b) Record the match as postponed but note that there is not much point trying to rearrange the fixture at this juncture.

(c) Award the match to AC Rodsrate to the utter astonishment of all concerned.

How did you rate as a Mandarin? If you answered (a) or (b) to either of the above questions you probably still retain some semblance of adminstrative common sense and fair play and, to be frank, have little prospect of a career in football administration. If you answered (c) to both questions, then you would appear to have the qualities of bumbling incompetence, bueaucratic inconsistency or plain rank hypocrisy that should stand you in good stead as a serial mandarin.

Now we have got that off our chests, I'm afraid we have little energy left to bring you our usual fascinating and in-depth analysis of last Sunday's results. In short, all the matches were drawn, including a 2-2 result in the big top-of-the-table clash between West Ten and our next opponents Wanderers that does not bring a favourable prediction from our Playground Calculator. The match award to Inter Wandsworth leaves us firmly bottom of the latest Division Two league table.

Division Two Results - Sunday 19th October
Club Deportivo Galicia 0-0 Spectraprint
FC Broadway 1-1 Bragança
Inter Wandsworth v Logica: Match awarded to Inter
Olympia 2-2 Rapid Decline
West Ten 2-2 Wanderers United

Division Two Fixtures - Sunday 26th October
Club Deportivo Galicia v Bragança
Everyman United v FC Broadway
Rapid Decline v Inter Wandsworth
Spectraprint v West Ten
Supercala v Olympia
Wanderers United v Logica

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the Editor and not necessarily that of any Supremo, player or fan of Logica Football Club.