End of season recap – Long term positions
ByEvening all.
Long, long time no speak.
How are we all?
Sorry for being so quite over the last month or two. I have been manically busy. I might even have been maniacally busy thinking about it.
However, two heavy drinking holidays, topped off with a quick dose of stag do later, I am back and looking forward to the summer.
I was going to pop up my first baseball piece for the summer, along with a little update on the open baseball positions, but then I realised I hadn’t put up a debrief of the season long football positions which matured over the course of April and May.
So I thought I best tie up those loose ends first…
Healthy returns
Overall, my long term football selections were a great success. Throughout the course of the year I placed 23 bets, consisting 19 selections and 4 hedges.
Of the 19 selections I had 10 winners and 9 losers, generating a 19.5% increase in the BOTW coffers.
Nice headline numbers I guess. I did notice a couple of other things when carrying out my internal audit. My pre season antepost selections were absolutely red hot…
Red hot antepost selections
Of my 8 early season positions, 6 ended up being winners which is better than I would ever have dared hope for!
I took a reasonably chunky loss on the Birmingham debacle, which has been well documented. There are exceptions to every rule.
My only other loss was Andy Carroll not being Newcastle’s top goalscorer… If ever there was an example of why, irrespective of price and edge you need to protect against the unknown then this is it!
Even when you have AA in the hole, you are going to get beat 20% of the time. This was very much one of those 20% rather than a poor selection.
Of the winners, Bolton brought home a healthy return over 41 points – assisted by John Elmander’s early season goals – which was also a nice winner for BOTW at 7/2.
Johan’s now off to Turkey – while we are feasting on it!
Everton just about got their act together in time to take their usual “Best of the Rest” position, and Blackburn “coasted” home in their tete-a-tete with West Ham.
The long term winners were closed out with Alex McLeish staying in charge at Birmingham until week 38 and down in League One the combined Southampton/Brighton split stakes position really was never in doubt.
A cracking set of results all around really.
Staggering, kebab in hand
Sadly, I didn’t manage to finish off the year as I began – with my late season positions faltering to a 7.5% loss.
Solid wins on my FA Cup and Top Goalscorer medleys were more than offset by my misreading of the relegation battle.
West Ham’s diabolical attempts at staying up cost me on numerous fronts – as I had backed them to stay up and by getting relegated after game 37 I also lost my ever manager to see out the season bet.
Other wins on QPR and Aston Villa were again offset by losses on Roy Hodgson Albion’s remarkable turnaround and Brentford’s erratic form down in League One.
A 7.5% loss is not likely to see me nationalised, but given the track record here at BOTW it is not what I have come to expect. Hey, at the end of the day it happens to even the very best every now and then – just ask Antony Bolton!
If West Ham had secured a point at Wigan in game 37, we would have been looking at a huge swing and a 10% increase in funds which I would have been delighted with.
It’s a game of small margins. As many an Arsenal fan will no doubt agree.
Let’s play ball!
So there we have it. That is the end of what was a very successful 2010/11 football season here at BOTW.
Here’s to a successful 2011/12 campaign.
And what fantastic timing I have – with the fixture list for next season out today!
Some spicy early fixtures in there, with Man United in particular having an interesting fixture list. Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea in the first five games. The most interesting part of their fixture list however is how easy the run in is. From the end of March onwards they might just be able to coast home… The rest of the league need to raise their games.
However, thankfully for the neutral I expect a lot of the Premier League teams to come on leaps and bounds this season. I expect Chelsea to be significantly more effective and City should develop further. And if the numerous of cash being spent at the Emirates are true, the Gooners should also improve.
However, I shall save all my thoughts on that for about six weeks time.
In the meantime, I plan to focus on the baseball season for a few weeks. So if you have any interest in learning a little bit more about boys’ rounders then keep checking in. I’m going to go through some of the rules, some of the nuances of the sport and where you can look for value in the betting markets.
Unfortunately for those with a lack of faith, you’ve already missed a fair chunk…
Cheers