Saturday 18 November 2023 - Safer Gambling Week

It’s Safer Gambling Week, but the best way to stay safe gambling is to follow this blog. Last weekend’s recommended double was another banger, with Wrexham (2-0) and Juventus (2-1) brushing aside weaker opposition and both teams climbing to second in their respective leagues. I have now tipped seven winning bets out of fourteen for a strike rate of fifty per cent. That’s not bad for an amateur, and had my reader placed that “hypothetical” £20 on each recommended double they would now be sitting on a profit of £65.17. That’s the kind of return on investment (23.275%) that Donald Trump would sell his soul for (again).
This weekend is yet another international break, thankfully the last of the year. I’m not a fan of international football and I suspect I am not alone in this. So, having parked the majority of this weekend’s football, and regardless of my humble bragging above, please note that the following advice comes with a national wealth warning.
       This Saturday I am banking on two home sides that are borderline unplayable at the moment in League Two: Stockport County (2/5) and Mansfield Town (4/9).
       Stockport have won their last ELEVEN league games including victories over fellow high-flyers Wrexham (5-0) and Crewe Alexandra (0-2). On Saturday at three pm they welcome Colchester United to Edgeley Park who are currently sixteenth but nevertheless on a good run of form with three wins and a draw from their last four league games. However, with the exception of Accrington Stanley, these results have all been to sides in the wrong half of the table whereas Stockport top the right half of the table and will be confident of making it three points closer to promotion.
       Mansfield have already beaten Stockport this season which should be recommendation enough. On Saturday at three pm they entertain Newport County who have only won one game in their last six league fixtures, a 2-0 victory over tenth-placed Gillingham. It would be a massive shock if the Stags got turned over on Saturday, especially as they have the added incentive of knowing that local rivals Notts County may soon be managerless (news which scuppered my original double on Notts and Wrexham). My “hypothetical” £20 double on Stockport and Mansfield currently returns £40.44 with Sky Bet at combined odds of 1.02/1 for a profit of £20.44 after deduction of stake. You never know.
I hope to see you next week.

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Saturday 13 September 2025 - Off The Wall

At times this week, it has felt like I’ve been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. In desperation, I reached out on my socials for a bit of love and the late American singer, songwriter and dancer Michael Jackson got in touch. He suggested that I should straighten up my act and boogie down. I was in Tesco the next time things began to get on top of me, halfway through the weekly shop, but people just thought I was mental when I pushed my trolley to one side and started doing the Moonwalk down the biscuit aisle. With advice like that, no wonder they called him Wacko Jacko. It makes me wonder what other crazy stuff he got up to. Before I turn to matters of financial speculation, for this week’s AI slop I asked ChatGPT to give the moonwalking man a Notts County shirt and it found an unintentionally funny way of doing this, presumably for reasons of copyright. In addition to being "The Oldest (professional) Team" in the world, last Saturday’...

Saturday 20 September 2025 - More AI Slop

As part of the day job, I had to scan a photo that included Nottingham Castle into ChatGPT. Don't ask. If you are familiar with Nottingham Castle, you will agree it looks nothing like a castle. It's almost a case for Trading Standards. There was a proper castle on the site, with turrets and everything, but this was razed to the ground in 1651. The current building is a Stuart Restoration-era ducal mansion which has been disappointing visitors to the city since 1679. However, ChatGPT knows what a castle looks like, and, without prompting, did this to the photo. Amusing as this was, I just wanted the original photo, so I asked ChatGPT not to alter it in any way. I asked ChatGPT why it was doing this. "I am genuinely mortified," was the touching response. You know the world is screwed when you want to put your arm around an AI and tell it everything's going to be okay. *** On Tuesday, an e-mail informed me that a work colleague had died....

Saturday 27 September 2025 - Tomorrow's World

In last week's blog I made two mistakes. The first was saying that the Barnsley game kicked off at 3 pm. The second was thinking that Barnsley would actually win the Barnsley game. The Tykes’ trip to Blackpool was a lunchtime kick off and, unaware of this, I checked Sky Bet at 3.15 pm to see how they were winning by, only to discover my betting fate had already been sealed. The game was effectively a repeat of the West Brom dabacle from the weekend before, with Barnsley monopolising the game to no avail and Blackpool sneaking a goal late on. My other selection Gillingham won like the good team they are. It’s early days. The last two losing weekends could just be down to variance, but going forward it may pay to avoid betting on top versus bottom clashes where the bottom side is playing at home. Terrible teams seldom become great teams over the course of a season, but they do get better at defending and are more likely to park the bus in the hope of ...

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