[theo_luddite]

I'm stepping into AmChaffs warm and comfy shoes this year.
I hope she wears flatties as high heels bugger up my knees and play havoc with my bunions.

I know it's short notice and I haven't got the whole list of events together yet, I'll have the full list up by the end of the week as websites that claim to show the full list of all the important stuff don't. Most of them don't even agree with what they (or I ) call important. What a surprise, but as the Aussie Open Tennis is already underway, if you want to predict that one (or two) please get your predicted winners in by the end of Saturday night's (in Aus) matches. Anything posted after the first serve at start of play Sunday won't count. I know Saturday night matches will go into Sunday, they all count. It's the games after everyone has had a good night's (or morning's) sleep where the cut off point comes in. Typically that's ~11:30 am in Melbourne from what I can work out. I think that's the fairest way to do it rather than midnight here, there or anywhere else.

January 2025

Aussie Women's Open Winner -
Aussie Men's Open Winner -


Rugby Six Nations starts on 31st Jan but you don't have to predict that yet.

I will accept predictions up to kick-off in the first Six Nations match unless it's someone who has already informed Snoots they are on holibobs for his prediction league and they want to join in asap when they get back.

As always, you can change your mind up to the competition starting (Aussie Tennis obviously you've got until the end of their Saturday schedule).

Sports Predictions 2025

Dates Sport Event
January

12th-26th Tennis Aussie Womens Open
12th-26th Tennis Aussie Mens Open
31st Jan-15th March Rugby Union Six Nations (Mens)

February

9th Feb American Football Superbowl

March

15th-23rd Apr Curling Women's World Championship
11th-14th Mar Horse Racing Cheltenham Festival Cheltenham Non-Irish Trainer winners
14th Mar-7th Dec F1 World Championhip - Driver
14th Mar-7th Dec F1 World Championhip - Team
22nd Mar-26th Apr Rugby Union Six Nations (Womens)
29th Mar-6th Apr Curling Mens World Championship

April

5th Apr Horse Racing Grand National Aintree Colour(s) winning Silks
10th-13th Apr Golf The Masters
13th Apr Rowing The Boat Race
19th Apr-5th May Snooker World Chamionship
19th Apr-Jun 22nd Basketball NBA Play-offs
TBC ~ 19th Apr onwards Pond Hockey Lord Stanley's Shaving Mug

May

2nd May Football Scottish Championship
3rd May - 13 Sept Speedway Grand Prix
3rd May Football Championship
3rd May Football League One
3rd May Football League Two
5th May Football Premier League
11th May Football Womens Super League
17th May Football FA Cup Final
25th May F1 Monaco Grand Prix
25th May - 8th June Tennis Womens Open Paris
25th May - 8th June Tennis Mens Open Paris
31st May Football UEFA Chamions League

June

8th June Rugby League Challenge Cup Final
11th-15th June Cricket World Test Championship Final Lords (Aus v Seth Efrika)
12th - 15th June Golf U.S. Open
20th June - 4th August Cricket England v India Tests
28th June-2nd August Rugby Union Lions Tour of Australia
30th June-13th July Tennis Womens, Wimbledon
30th June-13th July Tennis Mens, Wimbledon

July

2nd-27th July Football Euro 2025 - Women
5th-27th July Cycling Tour de France
6th July F1 British Grand Prix
17th-20th July Golf The Open
26th July-3rd Aug Cycling Tour de France - Femmes
31st Jul-3rd Aug Golf The Womens Open

August

22nd Aug-27th Sept Rugby Union Womens World Cup
25th Aug-7th Sept Tennis Womens, US Open
25th Aug-7th Sept Tennis Mens, US Open

September

20th September Rugby League Super League Winners
26th-28th Sept Golf Ryder Cup

October

29th Sept-31st Oct (prov) Baseball World Series
11th Oct Rugby League Super League Grand Final

November

16th Nov Canadian Football Grey Cup
21st Nov-8th Jan 2026 Cricket The Ashes

December

14th Dec-2nd Jan (prov) Darts PDC World Darts Chamionship
21st Dec-18th Jan 2026 Football 2025 Africa Cup of Nations



Play-off Decider Football League One 2024-25 Season Huddersfield Town Total points plus goals



A few explainers

The spreadsheet when I post it will have more detail - including deadlines. Generally take the start date as the deadline though some will be much earlier (e.g. Football, Feb 3rd) and some are later as you can wait until the teams for the play-off's are known. Trying to paste more than a few columns off a table into a text based system just gets plain ugly and confusing. Just pick someone, some team, some country for now, you can change it later if you want to.

Note some sports that run across a number of months are in the month where they start rather than finish, some are in the final month just to spread them out a bit so keep an eye out for the deadlines.

Aussie Open Tennis - done to death below.

Rugby Union - I think explains itself across the competitions

Rugby League - Super League starts in February but this appears at the end of the League season in September. There is then a separate pick for the Grand Final which you can select up to the kick off of first play-off game as League position decides who is involved. The Challenge Cup Final is in June but the 3rd Round is when all the Super League teams are involved and is scheduled for the weekend of 8th-9th Feb. TV might decide to screen a game before the weekend so it's the kick-off for the first 3rd round game that is the deadline.

NFL Superbowl - play-off games this weekend will decide the 4 teams for the Conference Finals - pick from those 4 teams. You might want to check Monday's sports headlines.

Horse Racing - now I know horse racing like I know the back of your hand and I couldn't name a current jockey or nag to save my life. So as Cheltenham is renowned for being a magnet for the Irish, and Irish trainer trained horses (not always in Ireland) tend to win a lot of the races (so my scant research tells me) - so how many races across the 4 days will be trained by folk who are not Irish? For The Grand National you are invited to pick the colour or colours of the Silks worn by the winning jockey. If you pick Blue or Yellow for example, there can be no other colour on the Silks. So if the winning jockey wears Silks with say blue with a yellow motif, cross, stripes, spots or sleeves on it then you need to have picked Blue and Yellow. The colour selection does not refer to their caps.
Note I will update how many races are expected at Cheltenham (I think it's normally north of 20) and a link to runners/riders and colours for the pin stickers for The Grand National at some point before it all starts.

Pond (Ice) Hockey - I'm beginning to think this sport doesn't have an off-season anymore. No matter when I go over the pond it's on the tellybox. Anyway, the NHL "regular season" has been running since the first frosts fell in Florida back in September and after they all play each other about 20 times at least (it seems like it) until the final frosts in Florida in April. Then they hold the play-off's which will go on all Summer until some of the teams have played each other another umpteen times before they declare one of them the winners of The Stanley Cup - the largest trophy in Sports. https://www.nhl.com/

F1 - don't just pick the driver, pick the team that will win both Championships over the whole season, which starts in Aus. There are also a couple of races to pick winning drivers in those races only.

Golf - I've not picked every Major Championship as I've also included the Ladies Open and The Ryder Cup

Tennis - deadline is the first serve of the whole tournament, regardless of whether it's a women's or a men's match (or even a doubles match, but that's less likely). Seniors not juniors obvs.

Football - I've gone for The Scottish Championship https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/sco...ship/table rather than The Scottish Premiership as that would appear to be Celtic's to lose right now. You could argue the same might be true of the EFL Divison Two as Walsall have put together one of their once every 20-25 year teams again. Walsall however, are no Celtic when it comes to winning things. Teams must be selected by 3rd Feb when the Transfer Window closes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/pre...ague/table
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/league-one/table
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/league-two/table
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/wom...ague/table

Rowing - might be controversial but this is only the Mens Race. If I catch a crab, so be it.

Speedway - pick the winning rider for the whole of the competition across the summer, not just the first meeting in Germany. If you need a link - https://www.fimspeedway.com/sgp/riders

Canadian Football - now I know some or even most of you won't be sure what this is. The CFL is The Great White North version of The NFL.
https://www.cfl.ca/schedule/2025/

and as the words to Tom Hicks great song go by way of explanation .....

We say eh! You say y'all
Ya we both got pro football
'Cept we got bigger balls and a longer field
(and one less down)
You say "zee", we say "zed"
Sure we watch all your TV
and you gotta stronger army down there,
But man up here .......
We got stronger beer !!

So now you know all you need to know eh? The teams are in the link above and Toronto won last year. Woah, did I just type that?
A Toronto team won something? Wow. Who knew, eh?

What song you ask? - This one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E064kb3UnU

Here, the nearest comparison is Rugby League and Rugby Union but as you probably realise, that comparison isn't that close.

Baseball - when the frosts in Florida are finally no more, "The Boys of Summer" come out to play. This goes on until the end of September while everybody seems to play each other at least 30 times and then play-offs are used to decide the American League and the National League Winners. Then the two winners of those competitions play the slightly different version of each others game against each other until the frosts in Florida are deep enough to declare one of them The World (sic) Series Champions and The Pond Hockey guys can play again. Though in all honesty, the Pond Hockey guys don't usually play on a frozen Baseball Diamond as most of them are outside ande pitchers mound tends to get in the way. https://www.mlb.com/
Who'd have thought a frozen pond would be outside?

January Finish - The Ashes, The Darts and The Africa Cup of Nations all start this year but finish in January. If you're still with us by then, hang on for the gripping finale. Hopefully my New Year's hangover will have cleared enough to post the final points and declare a winner.

Tie Breaker - so if all that excitement isn't enough to declare a winner, you've to predict by the 3rd Feb what Huddersfield Town's combined points and goals will be at the end of this League One season (not including any involvement in those Play-off wot-nots). After yesterday's 1-1 draw at Blackpool, Town have 48 points and 39 goals for what my abacus makes a total of 87. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/tea...town/table
Hey - I had to elbow Town into all this fun somehow.

Otherwise any disputes will be subject to a VAR review by my schizophrenic brethren, otherwise known as me, myself and I with my decision as final. In case of further dispute refer to the previous sentence.

Right, so now I've got to make the spreadsheet look pretty whilst you get on with picking your winners.

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one, theo. She doesn't wear big silly heels, so you're alright there.

I'll go for Iga Swiatek and Jannik Sinner for the tennis and Ireland for the rugby.

[themaclad]

Alcarez

Sabalynka


France

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Sensible shoes only. Thanks, theo.

---

Djokovic

Sabalenka

Wales

[theo_luddite]

Slight amendment to the above - obviously where some competitions have already started in 2024 I will provide a latest date for predictions and changes. So for example our home/European football competitions, then the end of the January (to coincide with the generally accepted) transfer window. Some North American sports such as pond hockey and bouncy ball into a waste paper basket, the first play-off games. I'll try to explain it all with the full list. Pass me a beer, I think I've a busy weekend coming up. That and I'm trying to get rid of my jalopy and find a more recent one. There could me more than a few backfires this weekend.

Further edit, the transfer window goes into February this year

[St Charles Owl]

January 2025

Aussie Women's Open Winner - Sabalenka
Aussie Men's Open Winner - Alcaraz


Rugby Six Nations - Ireland

[theo_luddite]

I'm going for Zverev, Swiatec and Ireland.

Note for the Aussie Open Tennis competition ONLY if your current pick is knocked out by the end of play in the Saturrday schedule you can still pick an alternative. You have until the first serve of Sunday's schedule to change your pick(s).

All other competitions will have deadlines in accordance with the currently announced start date. Some of these deadlines e.g. Baseball Divisional and Conference Play-Off's leading to the World Series won't be announced until later in the year in case they need to play deciders to see who plays in the Divisional play-offs at the end of the regular season (28th September).

[jjamez]

Swiatek
Sinner

France

[SHEP_HTAFC]

Aussie Women's Open Winner - Sabalenka
Aussie Men's Open Winner - Alcaraz


Rugby Six Nations - England

[theo_luddite]

It's just gone 22:00 UK time which if I've got it right, is 09:00 on Sunday in Melbourne - so you've 2 hours 27 mins from this post to get your predictions or any changes in.