Chris Learmonth, VFX editor at Cinesite for 22 years, has been a key member of Cinesite’s Fantasy Premier Football League for the past 20 years. As the league starts its 21st year, we caught up with him to ask a few questions about how it works and to find out some highlights from the past roll call of honour!

Why the celebration?
With the new English Premier League football season kicking off on Friday 15th August 2025, I’ve once again kicked-off the Cinesite League Fantasy football competition. It dawned on me that the first year I started the Cinesite league was in 2005, and therefore we were now entering our 20th year playing the game!

So what’s it all about?
Well, it doesn’t involve any actual running around kicking a ball for a start!
It’s a website based game where you assemble a team of 15 players from any team in the English Premiership. There’s a budget you have to stick to, so you can’t just go all Avengers Assemble and pick only the best players; that’s where the skill (or luck) comes in.

The amount of points you score depends on how well your players do in the real world football games that are played throughout the whole season. Whoever scores the most points at the end of the league campaign is the winner.

I always say that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. So if you don’t score particularly high in the first week, you have another 37 weeks to improve, with the competition running till May next year.

Do you need to know much about football?
I don’t believe you actually need to know anything about football to play the game. You could just review the online stats each week, and see which players are scoring points, and then make changes to your squad to try to improve it. Or, as some staff have done, you could just pick players as you like the sound of their names!

Why did you start it up at Cinesite?
I originally set up the league as a bit of fun, but with a wider desire to bring together people from different departments who might not otherwise get the chance to meet. And it worked!
Whilst making a cup of tea in the kitchen I could bump into people from matchmove, modelling, texturing, lighting, comp, editorial, production, accounts, runners, and we’d all be able to have a chat about how well (or poorly) our teams were doing.
I can honestly say that being in the league has helped me get to better know so many of my colleagues.

Last season over 11.5 million played the game in the UK, with Cinesite having 19 people in our mini-league.

Is it competitive? How do you perform well?
I believe the popularity of the game is mainly due to its simplicity. Once you’ve spent 10 minutes entering a team at the start of the competition, you can do as little or as much tinkering as you like.  Some people pick 15 players and leave it at that.
However, to win the league you generally have to keep an eye on your team, and try to make little improvements as and when needed, in order to maximize the points you score.
I guess it’s a lot like compositing.  Version 1 is usually a decent start, but if you ever get to v38, it’s gonna be the best comp ever!
It is of course all for fun, though to keep things competitive I did introduce a ‘Manager of the Month’ trophy that would get passed around the office to whoever scored the most points that month. I’d like to think that wee trophy was highly sought after. Ha!

How close can it get?
It always amazes me that a game that lasts 10 months can still come down to the final few minutes to determine who wins the league. For example, on the 2023/24 season, the winning manager scored 2404 points, leapfrogging the second placed manager at the last minute who scored 2398 points!

Has the format changed much over the years?
Over the course of 20 years, it has had a few extra features added to keep it fresh. Though I personally feel, much like the original Star Wars trilogy special additions, the enhanced features don’t really add much to what was already a pretty great format.
There’s always a freshness with starting a new league game campaign, with everyone starting again on zero points and assembling their squads from scratch.
It feels a lot like getting the first turnover at the start of a big show.  There’s a giddy excitement about starting something new in the hope that when you get to the finish line several months down the line, you’ve created something special.So, I once again look forward to competing with my colleagues both old and new, playing the game in the hope to win some bragging rights down the pub.

Here’s a roll call of honour from the past twenty years of outstanding managers:

2005/2006 season  – Mark Sum
2006/2007 season  – Paul Ensby
2007/2008 season  – Lee Chidwick
2008/2009 season  – Dale Rostron
2009/2010 season  – Sandro Henriques
2010/2011 season  – Melvyn Polayah
2011/2012 season  – Melvyn Polayah
2012/2013 season  – Jon Neil
2013/2014 season  – Jon Neil
2014/2015 season  – Guled Ahmed
2015/2016 season  – David Steed
2016/2017 season  – Andrew Leighton
2017/2018 season  – Paul Lee
2018/2019 season  – Chris Learmonth
2019/2020 season  – Andrew Leighton
2020/2021 season  – Connor Woodey
2021/2022 season  – Connor Woodey
2022/2023 season  – Andy McNamara
2023/2024 season – Chris Learmonth
2024/2025 season – Ludvig Hallenius