Tinkering with your fantasy football teamsheet before matchday might earn you pub bragging rights, but watch out it doesn’t take over your life!

You’re staring blankly into the middle distance and your partner asks you what you’re thinking about. Are you pondering one of life’s big questions, she wonders, or plotting the next move in your stellar career? Not a chance! You’re mulling over whether Leighton Baines will get more assists than Paul Konchesky this season. Well done, man, you’re a fantasy football addict!

Today, 50 years since the first fantasy league was invented by three American football enthusiasts, more than 35 million of us take part in a worldwide phenomenon believed to be worth almost R30 billion. In the United Kingdom alone, about 3,5 million people play at being fantasy Fergies and virtual Wengers; even you could be the “chosen one”.

Of course, when we say people, we mean mainly guys, because of the 2,6 million players in the fantasy Premier League game only 7,7 per cent are ladies. It seems the utterly engaging but essentially futile nature of fantasy football appeals to men’s trainspotter type minds. Once embroiled in a season, you’re hooked. Time that would otherwise have been spent usefully at work, at home, thrashing out that great South African novel or down at the pub now belongs to fantasy football...

For the full story of the dangers fantasy football poses to your job, your health and your relationship, grab a copy of the FHM February issue. On sale now!