Fantasy FA Cup began in December 1996, when Matthew Mayer launched the first competition for pupils at Hazelwick School, Crawley. The 1997 competition had just 14 entrants, with Jawad Akhtar topping the table in the very first newsletter, a single sheet of A4 entitled 'Fantasy Football News'. By the sixth round the newsletters had gained the title 'Fantasy FA Cup News'. The winner was Dushal Patel.
The 1998 competition was run for Matthew's Duke of Edinburgh Award skill section. The newsletter expanded to four pages and the 21-entrant leaderboard was eventually topped by Ryan Keogh. Fantasy FA Cup made it's first appearance on the school intranet. Over the summer, Fantasy World Cup France '98 was won by Darrel Bryant.
By 1999, the score system had settled down to the current one, and the traditional pun-ridden headlines were much in abundance (David is third round Goliath, Ruud Awakening for Everton, Cox steers into second place). There were 30 entrants, and David Allen was the overall winner with a record-breaking 114 points. Fantasy FA Cup now had it's own website.
Fantasy FA Cup 2000 was bigger and bolder than previous years. The four-page newsletter had games and quizzes in each issue and there were now 36 entrants. Andrew Taylor, who had done well in several of the previous compeitions, finally won the trophy he sought, while Andrew Bunday won a third successive wooden spoon for coming last. Fantasy Euro 2000 was won by Phil Wallace.
Fantasy FA Cup 2001 was the first competition under the fantasyfacup.com banner, though most entrants still used paper entry forms. The end of the Hazelwick era was marked by an eight-page final newsletter. There were 51 entrants, with Mark Pollatos the 2001 champion.
Fantasy FA Cup 2002 went interactive! For the first time, the competition moved fully online and entrants from around the globe participated. The number of entrants shot up to 233. But when all the points were counted up, it was a familiar face topping the leaderboard: FFAC2000 winner Andrew Taylor.
Summer 2002 saw the biggest FFAC competition to date... World Cup Predictions. An astonishing 911 entrants made their predictions for the World Cup in Korea and Japan. Scotland's Peter Hull took the title out of England for the first time!
Fantasy FA Cup 2003, the seventh Fantasy FA Cup competition, the site got a new look and colour-scheme. For the first time, the 387 entrants could create personal profiles. Jamie from Sheffield took the trophy.
2004 coincided with my final year of university, so exams meant I couldn't devote as much time to Fantasy FA Cup 2004. Still, 318 entrants took part with Ireland's Alan Wolfe dominating proceedings.
For Fantasy FA Cup 2005, the site was rewritten from scratch in PHP and had a brand new design. For the first time there were team messageboards and free mini-leagues using the new "versus" system. 486 entrants took part and the joint winners were Simon Baister and John Shearn.
And so to 2006, which looks set to be the biggest competition yet. The Friday Fiver means there's more chances to win than ever before. Sign up today!