Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, Crazy Nights

Apologies for the late blog this week. I had a week away and returned to the office this week expecting to get a quiet Saturday evening to file my weekly report on here… how wrong could I be!

This week’s betting blog will be a little different from my usual day to day report, as my memory span is akin to that of a goldfish. Suffice to say, that if we laid any big bets on the horses this week, they obliged!

Racing Results

I’m beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t just open the office before about 1.30pm, as every single favourite seems to win before that time. Maybe the powers that be should put the less competitive races at the end of the card so at least us bookmakers have half a chance of getting a few quid in front on the day before all the good things start winning! I lost count last week of the times when favourites won the first race at meetings and on a couple of occasions they won across the card at all the day’s meetings.

Early Football

Fortunately for us this week, the round ball has come to the rescue of the four-legged beasts (or, as the boss once memorably called, them ‘Hoofed Scum!’). Fulham did us a favour in the Monday night game, as Liverpool’s inability to beat ‘lesser’ teams and lack of firepower saw them go down 1-0 to Fulham beside the Thames. That was of no use to the punter who had £75k on them with us: he may had felt like heading towards the river.

Alas our same intrepid punter led us towards the river on the Tuesday night with a four-timer of Champions league action. We were hit by Olympiakos against an already safely through to the knockout stages Arsenal, Chelsea with a much more important game vs Valencia and double results for Shakhtar and Zenit . We’ve had great results from Zenit before, but this time both the Soviet (or former Soviet teams) obliged to give us a good beating!

Alas our man came back firing the following night and we laid the 2nd biggest bet I can recall since being here (the biggest being the Conservatives to win most seats at the last election) on Lille to beat Trasbonspor. Unlike our right-wing friends the Northern French side (which to me is only a place where the Eurostar whizzes through on the way to Paris) went down in Star folklore as being the biggest bet ever floored by this firm as they failed to break down the Turks and the game ended in a stalemate.

Weekend Football

The weekend saw us against Birmingham and Notts Forest in the Championship. Birmingham went a goal down to struggling Doncaster but, as in the case of the punter who backed them, they always leave it late and they came back to win 2-1! Luckily Notts Forest (who haven’t exactly pulled up any trees since Steve Cotterill took over as manager) failed to beat Crystal Palace going down 1-0.

That was only us getting back earlier losses from our punter who loves playing total goal minutes and for the umpteenth time had a late goal. Southampton (hurts me to type that as a Pompey fan!) snatched a late goal and a 2-2 draw with Blackpool and keeps their fans going on about their unbeaten record at St Mary’s. Never mind. Victories in the afternoon for Norwich and Swansea gave us a boost, as did Barca winning the evening ‘El Classico’ flooring a hefty draw-no-bet wager on Real. Having said that, Mr Leave It Late got away with it as no player managed to get booked in the last 20 minutes and landed a bookings under/overs bet.

Saturday night belonged to one punter who just went on a pure frenzy; whether it was Sittingbourne, Tampa Bay, Wolverhampton or even Crayford on the new Greyhound channel on Sky, he was there. Five-figure bets were flying about, and there were so many swings to and fro that if it had been election night I think Peter Snow would have combusted!

The Dogs

We laid I think the biggest dog bet we have ever laid in this office on an A2 at Monmore (Ben confirmed he did once lay a bigger one on a 4/11 chance at Walthamstow one evening). The dog got beat and we ended up the evening ahead, but any hope of a quiet night was erased by this punting frenzy that had everyone on their toes in the office- the adrenalin was flowing here so I can only imagine what the punter was going through!

Sunday

Sunday ended up the week on a winning note too, but we had a last-kick Sunderland winner to thank for getting us out of the brown stuff as we laid both Blackburn and the draw. Hopefully, next week we can get back to normal, although with our Christmas party on Sunday night after a small game of football in Hampshire Sunday lunchtime I’m not so sure!