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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’s victory over Fleetwood Town means the Magpies have now, at some point, beaten all of the other ninety-one teams currently making up the top four divisions of English football.  The only other team to have done this is Port Vale. There really is only one team in Nottingham. It's Forest. But Notts are a close second.




Amazingly last week’s inaugural double of the 2025/2026 season was a winner, although Huddersfield made hard work of it against Peterborough (3-2) whilst Rochdale’s victory over Braintree (2-0) was never in doubt.  The blog is now £22 up and we are betting with the bookmaker’s money. 


For this week’s “hypothetical” £20 win double, I was going to include Rochdale again but on Saturday they make the 690 mile round trip to Truro, which is a bit off-putting.  I bet the players can’t wait to board that bus.  You would hope they are travelling down the night before, but it’s the National League so they are probably hitchhiking on the day.  No doubt I’ll live to regret not putting them in the double, but Rochdale at home to Truro, whenever that is, is looking like a max bet currently.  Instead, I am trusting West Bromwich Albion (3/4) to make Derby County's visit to The Hawthorns a losing one (for the Rams, not me).  West Brom are currently second in the Championship with three wins and a draw from their first four games, whilst Derby have two losses and two draws to their name.  The visitors will give it a go, but the Baggies should prevail.  Another team that is currently second in their respective league is Swindon Town (4/6), who currently sit fourteen places above Harrogate Town in the fourth tier of English football.  Harrogate visit Swindon on a run of three losses, but I am hopeful home advantage will get the Robins over the line in what may prove a tight game.  Both matches kick off at the traditional time of 3 pm and the £20 win double on West Brom and Swindon currently returns £58.33 with Sky Bet at combined odds of 1.92/1 for a profit of £38.33 after deduction of stake.  You never know.


I hope to see you next time.

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