This season kicked off in January 2020 in Lincoln and after 19 events and nearly three years, it’s almost ready to come to a close. Our year-end extravaganza in Milton Keynes on 26th November 2022 will finally crown the fifth FOCAL champion.

Vying for the title will be the above players. Despite finishing 5th in the League Table, Ed Byrne will not be eligible due to an obscure FOCAL rule in which only one player photographed with that specific box of Thorntons Classic chocolates can take part in the Finals. Okay, not really, he’s just unavailable on Finals day, so #9 seed and this year’s Co:Brighton champ Jack Hurst will take his place.

So let’s take a quick recap of the four events that have taken place since our last blog update to see how our Finalists sealed their place in the Top 8.

Birmingham

Victory at our Birmingham event in August would eventually prove to be crucial in Bradley’s quest to pip 2019 champ Callum to top spot as #1 seed for the season.

A well fought win over Andy in the final saw Bradley clinch his second FOCAL title of the season, following his triumph in Blackpool last year. Speaking of Blackpool…

Blackpool

Bradley wasn’t the only person to win his second tournament of the season this year, as Tom beat all comers in Blackpool final to pick up his first title since all the way back in February 2020.

Edinburgh

A strong showing from contestant in the soon-to-be-aired Countdown series finals Alan Young was enough to gain him second place in our Edinburgh event, and give him the second best average points per event total of the season (behind Jack Worsley) from his sole FOCAL turnout!

But it was Conor who went one further to claim his third title of the season, and temporarily break into the Top 8 in our standings. Conor would qualify for the Finals in MK so long as he wasn’t overtaken by two our more players at our next event in Braintree…

Braintree

Unfortunately for Conor, three players overtook him at Braintree! Rob Foster required total victory to snatch what would become the position of first reserve for the Top 8, and that’s just what he did with an imperious display to claim his third title of the season and quite remarkably outscore Conor over the same number of events attended in the season.

While Rob couldn’t quite break into the all-important Top 9 (given Ed’s absence from the Finals), Thomas and Jack managed to do so with 4th and 5th place finishes, respectively. Tim also managed to mathematically confirm his place in the Finals with a 7th place finish.

Milton Keynes

So that brings us up to date ready for our season end event in MK on 26th November! The above-listed Top 8 will play a round robin, with the top two after seven games going through to the 2020-22 FOCAL Grand Final.

But the event isn’t just for the Finalists. Everyone else is welcome to come and play in our Open tournament. Not only will you get to see the Finalists battle it out, but you will get seven games of your own against your fellow Open players. Join us on 26th November to take part!

Also stay tuned for imminent information regarding our newly confirmed events in 2023. You can see a snapshot of the dates and locations of these on our Upcoming Events page.