After a joyous afternoon's crawl from Cork airport into town, via an audience with the latest member of the Earl family - Fred, Manager Edwards directed the troop to his pre-booked accommodation.

The few 'location' based grumbles that had presented themselves on Auction Eve duly dissipated, and everyone was full of praise for Edwards choice - a townhouse in the beautiful setting of Cobh, which would be home for the next 36 hours.

Baynes Junior was up first for a bit of last minute research over coffee, before all had breakfast in the Irish sunshine on a Cobh side-street overlooking the Quay.

After bagels and more coffee, it was down to business back at the house. Manger Lucchesi dialled in as usual from South Korea, joined online, and not in person for the first time ever, by manager Peggs back in Blighty.

As per usual, Goalkeepers kicked things off and Ederson was again re-signed by Cheese and Onion Biscuits United for the 5th season in a row. However general spending was down on average for the man between the sticks, from last years £4.9 to £3.9m. The top three spenders were:

7.2 – Ederson, Nick
6.4 – Onana, Mike
6.1 – Alisson, Lawrence

Defenders were up next, and for the 6th season in a row overall spending on a back line dropped further, with the average spend on defence falling from £11.5m last year to just £10.0m. Top defender was Alexender-Arnold at £8.5m who this year signed for the Wheelers:

8.8 – Alexander-Arnold, Walters
5.8 – Robertson, Nick
5.5 - Stones, Nick

With little time for a break, it was swiftly on to the next batch of players. The auctioneer's seat was vacated by the Chairman as manager Pritchard Snr. took the helm for the midfielders. Spending in this category was up year on year, with managers forking out an average of £13.3m on this position compared to last year's £12.2m. The big 3 signings were:

10.4 - Saka, Matt
9.7 – Fernandes, Mike
8.6 - De Bruyne, Scott

Finally, it was time for the showpiece forwards finale. It felt like so many managers had saved money back for Erling Haaland, and it proved to be so as the Man City forward was not only the most expensive sale of the day, but of and auction in SFP history. Both FC Chuggernaut and Al-Munson had held back in excess of £40m each, 80% of their budgets, to bid for the big man.

The general feeling that a record was about to be broken came to the fore, and as bidding passed the 18 year old record; the £31.1m that the Chairman paid for Thierry Henry in 2005, we wondered how far bidding would go. Pritchard Junior and McNamara went blow for blow, all the way to £39m before FC Chuggernaut were able to re-sign their star buy from last year. Top buys were:

39.0 – Haaland, Ed
19.0 – Salah, Martin
16.7 – Rashford, Scott

And with that, one of the greatest auctions of all time was concluded. Managers Peggs and Lucchesi logged out, while the Irish contingent headed into the town of Cobh for post-auction analysis over lunch, a few drinks, a wander round the quay, a few more drinks and a Chinese takeaway.

The 3 days of organised fun concluded with an early morning flight back to Stanstead, before all parties headed off full of hopes and dreams for the coming season...