Firetop

It’s that time of year again where Grand National fever grips the UK population and everybody goes flutter crazy. With a four year winning streak behind me I’ll be looking to make this my 5th year of success with my spread betting technique. Last year I won £145, putting me up £115 after taking off the £30 outlay, a shame that I only ‘bet to win’ using my strategy and not ‘each way’ because I also managed to bet on McKelvey which came in second. I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the analysis again this year as usual and thanks to a Wikipedia Grand National winners chart decided to lower my maximum handicap threshold from 11-5 to 11-1. I may live to regret that as it rules out the yet to fall over ‘Vodka Bleu’ but fingers crossed it’ll be a wise move. (more…)

On Saturday afternoon we took Maria to see some real farm animals, taking full advantage of the lovely blue skies we’ve been having of late . It seemed only fair that we let her experience the sights and smells of a farm - having subjected her to numerous children’s books full of pigs, goats, cows and sheep… and our own attempts at animal noises are nowhere near as good as the real thing. Bocketts farm, on the outskirts of Leatherhead was heaving with children and buggies, indeed we had to park in the overflow field and couldn’t even find a seat in their tea rooms, forced instead to feed Maria outside. Once over that hurdle we ventured into the barn to get up close with the livestock. (more…)

This week I, like many thousands of others, have almost become the part-owner of a non-league football club residing in the Blue Square Premier… it’s name ‘Ebbsfleet United’. I would rather the members of ‘MyFootballClub’ bought Stevenage Borough instead, but I’ll settle for the club formerly known as Gravesend and Northfleet. However, before everybody gets carried away with talk of fan-owners voting on team selections and tactics, I’d like to cast people’s minds back to January 2002. This was a time when Stevenage Borough announced that they were taking part in a Channel Four TV reality show called ‘You’re The Manager’ with viewers set to vote on team selections by text and email… and guess what? The Football Conference board didn’t ratify the deal so it didn’t happen. (more…)

I got quite a shock tonight when I found out that the Football Conference will be sponsored by Blue Square for three years and rebranded as Blue Square Premier. It’s an unusual choice, back in 2001 when I ran the website ‘Conference League’ I struggled to get any affiliate revenue from Conference betting online, but I suppose it’s not about that - just having the football results read out with a Blue Square name drop will suffice come Saturday tea time. I wonder how long it will take the TV and radio commentators to stop calling it the ‘Nationwide Conference’… they only just stopped calling it the ‘Vauxhall Conference’! I suspect plenty of people will question the validity of the word ‘Premier’, we’re often talking ‘big boot and run’ football, even my beloved Stevenage Borough FC don’t really merit the description ‘premier’ and I’ll be the first to admit that. (more…)

As if bringing my new daughter home from hospital wasn’t exciting enough, on Friday evening I discovered that the Premier League’s free ‘Budweiser sponsored’ fantasy football competition was back for a new season, a whole week earlier than last year! I’m not sure that I’ll have time to run my usual pay-to-play competition with friends, especially as last year I didn’t even manage to chase up the £10 fees from over half the entrants. However, if anybody does fancy a bit of fun and want to join the free-to-play Firetop league, just create a fantasy football team and then enter the following code to play against me: 27088-14649 (more…)

One for the pub quiz specialists - the first team to win a cup at the new Wembley stadium was… Stevenage Borough FC in the FA Trophy 2007! The cup raised aloft in celebration yesterday by Stevenage defender Ronnie Henry. My ‘red army’ came back from being two goals down, to win 3-2 after ninety minutes against Kidderminster. This was a match I desperately wanted to watch either at Wembley or on television but missed by attending a wedding. The good news being that this time my home town won (unlike the last time I watched in 2002 when they lost then 2-0 to Yeovil). A shame I don’t still run my Nationwide Conference website ConferenceLeague.com, this blog will have to do for a celebratory report instead (more…)

The Grand National at Aintree tends to symbolise the start of the online betting year for me. For the past three years my efforts to spread bet across five of the forty race runners have paid off with a win each year. The technique may only double or triple your total outlay but it doesn’t take away the satisfaction of knowing you backed the winner! There are some basic tips to follow when choosing your five horses (have a sixth in reserve for a free bet offer which usually exists online these days). After the time consuming job of eliminating non qualifying horses the choices are usually much simpler. (more…)

Thursday evening saw an office outing to ’Funland’ at the Trocadero in Piccadilly - eight lanes hired for a multiple team and individual play-off. We were due to start bowling at about 8pm, but the lanes weren’t actually available until 8:45pm, so the management placated us with some free tokens for the dodgems in the basement. Didn’t engage in that activity myself so watched instead, used to love the dodgems when I was a kid but like so many similar theme-park style rides, being 6ft 5″ usually leads to whip-lash or bruised legs. Somebody needs to build comfortable rides for tall people. (more…)

It’s strange how life goes, one week you’re watching greyhound racing and debating whether it’s a cruel sport, the next week somebody you know wants to visit a dog rehoming open-day. On Sunday afternoon, whilst recovering from the Global Gathering hangover, Suzie_Q and I went with some of my relatives to the Evesham Dogs Trust centre (which is also home to Cat Protection). Here they have cats and dogs that need homes; having been brought in by owners no longer able to cope, on behalf of owners who have passed away, or animals found roaming free / abandoned. At first I did wonder whether some of the Global Gathering ‘massif’ had been posting stickers around the place, but maybe I have my ‘Charlies’ confused again… (more…)

It might be a bit rough around the edges compared to the mainstream Hollywood Bowl chain that lives in our main cities and new towns, but the Horsham Superbowl, situated in Horsham park, is certainly value for money. Last night ‘Suzie Q’ and I went with some visiting Antipodean family and discovered the ‘three games for £6 per person’ Thursday night deal. That’s more than 50% cheaper than the Hollywood Bowl in Crawley (would cost £12.60). There were a few downsides however, the main one being the lack of air conditioning - so it was almost as hot as the tube, which meant the ball would slip out of your hand and go down the lane the wrong way (or at least that was my excuse!).

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