BLOODY LONG ODDS…

Having watched Turkey on the opening day of the 2008 European Championships in Swizzerlund unt Osterreich, I thought what better way to celebrate their performance than by a video of all the Top Diving we’ve seen in the Prem in recent years. Tuncay could take a leaf out of these boy’s books before he goes freestylin’ in the penalty area.

I ought to add, thet albeit it’s an excellent video, it’s clearly been made by a Londoner as there is not one Man Utd player featured! Even Ronald’oh seems to have escaped this one. But Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool fans…prepare to suffer. Well worth it though:

Paddy Power To Refund CL Final Bets If Ronaldo Scores!!
A rather interesting offer arrived in my inbox today. Now normally I bin these but this one caught my eye as it strikes me as a bit of a stick-on!

Basically, in a nutshell, Paddy Power are offering your money back on certain bets if Ronaldo scores in normal time during next week’s Champions League final.

Hang on let me just read that again. Hmmm, yep. That’s what it says. Now I’m no idiot, according to my mum, and correct me if I’m wrong, but if Man U score, Ronaldo scores. I mean OK, Scholesy got the emotional goal in the semi, but that was written in the stars back in ‘99, and this Portuguese boy…he’s the man in front of goal. Not to mention he takes all the Pens and FK’s too.

Why are they doing this??! Now I’m taking a punt here, but my guess is Paddy Power see Ronaldo scoring as a dead cert and if everybody punted on him they’d get taken to the cleaners. So, they worked out that refunding certain types of bet would put punters off betting on him. I’ll leave the maths to them, but I’m game!

So anyway, here’s the terms quoted by Paddy Power:

If Ronaldo scores in normal time, Paddy Power will refund ALL losing single pre-match Win-Draw-Win, Correct Score, 1^st/last/anytime goalscorer and Half-time/Full-time market bets on this match.

- Applies to singles placed before kick-off only

-Applies only to Win-Draw-Win, Corrrect Score, 1^st/last/anytime goalscorer and Half-time/Full-time market bets

- Max Refund €300/£200 per customer/bet

- Applies to win part of each way bets only

- Paddy Power football rules apply

- Ronaldo must score in normal time, offer does not apply to extra-time

- Own goals do not count

- Opta Index decision is final.

Er…see you there! Paddy Power…

Stumbled upon an interesting service today that provides all sorts of stats for would-be footie punters on English football. Actually, Stats On Sport provides statistics across more than just footie with Cricket, Golf, Grand Prix…all sorts of sports available. The idea behind the site is to give punters access to just about everything relating to individual matches, team stats, head-to-head stuff and pretty much anything that you could use to make a calculated bet.

Ignoring the fact that the bookie is always right and picking the favourite represents the best chance of winning, the “long shotters” should find this pretty useful I’d say. Just looking at the football stats and you get previews of upcoming games, match data, info on previous encounters between the teams like goals scored, form etc. Can’t see any mention of how many surgical supports Petr Cech has worn in the past season, but I guess (more…)

Well I am sitting here (a bit bored tonight as I am sure you can tell) watching Newcastle vs Spurs and the former have just gone 2-0 up - all fair considering they have had 71% of the posession so far!! And it made me think - all the start-of-season predictions really seem to be screwed this time round.

They were saying Tottingham would finally become the “only” team in North London, pipping their arch rivals Arsenal to 4th spot. And here we are, only 10 games in and The Arse are 18 pts ahead with a game in hand already! The Gunners fans celebrate the Tottenham “birthday” every year - the date always varies as it’s traditionally the date in the season when Spurs can no longer catch the Arse. The rate this year’s going, Spurs look set to have two birthdays in one calendar year. But I like Jol, and I would hate (more…)

Or so I’ve seen a few overly-optimistic Man City fans crowing on the boards. Clearly it hasn’t sunk in that a) they have Ericsson in charge and b) half their team were bought based on video footage! The Svengali was popular for his first few England games too - oh how fickle fans can be. Geovanni may have played briefly for Barcalona once, but a player languishing in the lower echalons of Brazilian football is probably one you’d want to do a background check on first rather than watch a video. Sure it wasn’t Betamax Sven?

Meanwhile, it seems people are equally quick to write off Sir Red Face and his team (more…)

Outright winner, the odds on relegation, finishing in the top 4, or in the top 6, top Premiership goalscorer, handicap betting, Premiership tricasts and forecasts, betting without Man Utd and Chelsea or the Premiership and Golden Boot winner…phew, there are so many betting options and all of the above are available on the Premiership football betting page at Laddies.

Here are some of the selected odds in each of those categories from Ladbrokes. To see the complete list of odds for each section yourself, click here and select Football Betting from the dropdown menu.

Outright Winner Of The Premiership

Manchester Utd  5/4  
Chelsea  13/8  
Liverpool  9/2  
Arsenal  9/1   (more…)

The new fixture lists for the 2007/2008 season for the Premiership and the lower leagues were released at 10am on Thursday 14th June 2007. Please visit the BBC Team By Team guide for fixtures (see note below).

Unfortunately I was served with the following email after posting the fixtures here which means I can no longer provide them. There you go.

 —————————————————–

We write on behalf of the Football Data Co Limited which is the appointed licensee of the FA Premier League, the Football League, the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League (”the Leagues”) in respect of the licensing of certain intellectual property rights of the Leagues, including those in the fixture lists for this season August 2007 - May 2008 (”the Fixture Lists”), for use by third parties.

We have noticed that your website [URL chopped] is displaying Football Fixtures. In order to display the Fixture Lists you must obtain the necessary licence from the Press Association.

We wish to make you aware that we have a good faith belief that your present use is an infringement of the Leagues’ legal rights and that all such unauthorised use must cease immediately. Please confirm by return your agreement to this and give your undertaking to cease all such infringements on any and all of your web sites. Pending your response the Leagues’ rights are fully reserved.

——————————————————-

Ok, here’s an interesting slant on betting for the 2007/2008 Barclays UK Premiership. As it’s pretty bloody obvious one of the “Big 4″ (yawn!) will win it, or buy it depending on your view, Blue Square (part of the Rank Interactive Group if you didn’t already know) are offering odds on the also-rans in the Premiership without Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester Utd and Liverpool getting in the way, for those who want to pretend the other 4 all ran off to a European Super League.

So finally, Spurs fans can dream of winning the title, although they will get a fairly harsh 11/8 odds on that, and of course will have to endure the childish sniggering and pointing from the Red half on North London. Up norf, the blue side of Merseyside (”we’re NOT a small team”) might feel that 7/1 is actually a half-decent bet although (more…)

Not a headline as yet, but if you fancy one or two more unusual flutters on next seaon (2007/08) in the Premiership, Paddy Power are offering odds of 200/1 on Roy Keane having a sideline punch-up with Sir Red Face (select “Football Specials” from the Paddy Power menu). Quite whether those are good odds or not are questionable, but it would make a good story down the pub when you’re waving your wad about! And gives you a good reason to take a prawn sandwich down to the dug-out area (more…)

Corals has come up with the goods on next season’s Championship betting. Okay - let’s be fair, the line-up wasn’t finalised ’til Monday when the resurgent Blackpool hit a club-record 10th win on the bounce to take the playoff and join both Bristol City and Div1 Champs Scunthorpe in the Championship. Not surprsingly, these teams represent some of the best odds at Corals to win it: you can grab Scunthorpe at 100/1 while both Bristol City and Blackpool are 40/1. Actually, that’s a bit surprising seeing as Scunthorpe won Div 1…but anyway…there you go…

The teams that went the other way, Watford, Sheffield United and Charlton are among the favourites (more…)