Diary of a Spread Bettor - 14th-20th Jan

By Bill Esdaile on 20 January 2010 at 03:37

When Liverpool went 1-0 up at home to Reading last night on the stroke of half-time, I feared for my £150 sell of supremacy at 2. However, Sigurdsson leveled in injury time to take the FA Cup tie into extra-time. It made no difference to me that the visitors went on to win the game - I made my £300 on the 90 minutes market and, in all honesty, didn’t care if Liverpool scored six in extra-time!

As you know, Reading did win and with just minutes left their fans could be heard singing –‘We’re winning away, we’re winning awaaay, how shit must you be, we’re winning away!’ An early contender for best chant of 2010…

I didn’t play on the Blackburn v Villa game, but did manage to lose cash on my old friend Supercast in Wolverhampton’s 5.10pm. My £15 buy at 10 on the index cost me half of my football winnings as he only managed fifth. I guess I’ll just have to pretend that Reading never equalised – I bet Rafa wishes he could do the same!

Friday 15th January
Is it me or is this year going really fast? I cannot believe that half of January has already gone… Cheltenham is getting closer though!

I also didn’t have a single bet – the racing was rubbish and it was difficult to have a strong opinion on the Ivory Coast v Ghana game. I wish I’d bought Drogba goal minutes though – he scored in the 90th minute again.

Saturday 16th January
The return of the Jumps... and sadly, I wish the snow had stayed! The ground at Kempton was desperate and the majority of relatively unfit horses were really struggling to get home. I bought £10 of Ciceron at 18 in the opener and a £320 profit looked a certainty as the runners turned into the straight. In the end, I was lucky to hold second as Venetia Williams’ runner emptied out in a matter of strides. Yes, I made £70, but I felt like I had lost £250.

I then lost £110 on Fiendish Flame in the next who stopped as if shot at the third from home. Duc De Regniere and Magic Sky then finished exactly where the market suggested they would and I ended up about £75 down after a lot of hard work.

However, I only had one football bet and that was a £100 buy of Norwich supremacy at 0.2 against Colchester. Martin (twice), Doherty, Johnson and Holt (in the 90th minute – ala Drogba) made the day though. I only placed the bet because I’ve backed Leeds to win the title and Norwich are the big dangers… a supposed hedge. It was a dream 5-0 result and a £480 profit… who needs horse racing?

Sunday 17th January
A quiet day at home with the family… I didn’t even watch the Arsenal game. Instead, I quite literally played Happy Families with my six-year-old and also paid for the world’s most expensive supermarket shop – the snow (and the fact that I eat like a horse!) meant that the Esdaile cupboards had run a little bit dry over the last few weeks. The spotty teenager on the till asked, ‘is it all for you?’…the cheek of it! All I could say was ‘no’, which made it sound like it was! I must have looked like the world’s greediest man and I had no answer to his cockiness.

Anyway, when he got to the nappies, he lifted them up and said, ‘are these yours?’ I wanted to say… ‘Shut up you big ugly pre-pubescent spotty twat’, but felt I may have been raising the stakes a little bit too high. Instead, I just responded with, ‘you’ll have to buy your own I’m afraid!’ He never said anything else and went a little bit red. I think I did enough to salvage a draw…

Monday 18th January
I left a really tricky looking Plumpton card alone and resisted the temptation to sell both Salden Licht and Song Sung Blue in the opening two races. Talk about dodging a bullet, as they both won. I had thought that both might struggle in the heavy ground and even though they did, they still managed to win.

So, I decided to stick to football after my weekend heroics and to sell goals in the Newcastle v West Brom game. I was convinced the game would end in a goalless draw as there was too much at stake. Well, I was right that the game would end in a draw, but less accurate on my predicted score. My £200 sell at 2.2 was looking very dodgy when Olsson put the Baggies in front on 13 minutes and potential disastrous when Guthrie levelled with 25 minutes on the clock. I had 65 minutes to watch and only 0.2 of a goal in my favour.

Well, I decided not to close at 3.4 at half-time which wasn’t a great decision when Bednar restored the visitors lead just seconds after the restart. When Lovenkrands levelled eight minutes later I was reaching for the sick bag. Luckily, that was the end of the scoring, but my misjudgement still cost me £360. If only I’d just backed the draw!

Tuesday 19th January
My father has been unwell, so I went to visit him in hospital in London where he is recovering from an operation. I was met by his anaesthetist who spoke to my brother (who is a doctor) last night – “Hi, I think we spoke last night”, he said to me. I wanted to say, “not unless you were the person who took my bet on the Newcastle game”, but instead told him that he would have spoken to my brother.

I was home in time for the second half of the United v City game which was fascinatingly poised at 1-1. I thought goals looked a terrific sell at 3.4 and sold £200.

When Tevez gave City the lead on 65 minutes, I had a terrible sense of déjà vu. Luckily that was the end of the scoring and I won £80 back from the previous night’s debacle. Now, all I need is to win back the other £280… then I can go back and visit my friend in the supermarket next Sunday. I’ve already decided I’m going to put a packet of Clearasil on the conveyer belt and lift it up and say, ‘is this yours?’

Wednesday 20th January
Time to get with Liverpool. I began this week cashing in on how bad Liverpool are and now I’m looking to back them. Their supremacy over Spurs just had to be bought at 0.3 for £150 and I couldn’t help but buy £5 of their shirt supremacy at 9. When you walk through a storm and all that…

Comments

Submit a comment