Lazyboy payday…..

September 2, 2006

Recent living beyond my means has come to a head and with the flat in

getting finished some time around November, I’ve got stamp duty and solicitors bills to pay and not a lot in the bank.

I suppose if I hadn’t gone to the world cup, bought a big fucking TV, a new computer, football season ticket, flew back for friends wedding last weekend and gone to the V festival: I would be breaking even right now - a lot richer financially, but a lot less enriched in terms of damn fine memories and experience - which is a nay too bad sound-bite for what life is all about.

The bank in UK and I are currently arguing over the overdraft fee’s but it’s hard to argue such matters with someone who takes your money before you actually see any of it and this also means it’s fairly tough to get them to give it back. Burying their heads under blankets of bureaucracy and hiding from me across the English channel - financial fuckwits of doom, merchants of misery..... .

Things all got a bit fecked when I moved countries and took time setting up new accounts etc etc - when life is literally all over the place, outgoings aren’t stable and structured for a while and you can get caught out - especially if, like me, you have a habit of on saying “yes” a bit too quickly when a moments thought would be better advised:

Example:

Barnes: Come to Germany, see England at the world cup and go drinking in Frankfurt all night.

Me: Yes.

Cest La Vie, I’ll fight the financial powers that be once I’m back in the UK for two weeks in October - face to face indignation and getting my facts straight on paper works a lot better than bitter international phone calls.

So what does one do when one has a weekend and not too much cash to fill it out?

Gambling of course!

England vs Andorra is one of those golden opportunities to take the bookies to the cleaners - a game where the result is a foregone conclusion and the finer details of victory are also a lot easier to predict - observe:

Andorra is a very small Principality located on the border of France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains - around 71’000 people live there and that is less than the capacity of the stadium they were playing in today - Old Trafford (76’000). Not that many people means not that many footballers and not many footballers means slim chances of actually finding 11 that are good enough to play against the larger nations of Europe (England population around 60 million).

They are ranked 132 in the world have only ever won 3 games in their 10 year history and are the perennial whipping boys of European Championship qualification along with Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Faeroe Islands, San Marino and Scotland.

They try to keep the score down and play with all men behind the ball in their own half, hoping that sheer volume of bodies in the way will prevent too many goals going in. This doesn’t often work (biggest loss 9-1) but it does help to keep the scores down and embarrassment on an international scale to a moderate level.

They are one of the most penalised teams in European Qualification history, collecting a fairly large quota of red and yellow cards each game - the mantra being that if you aren’t skilful enough to stop your opponent scoring against you then you may as well kick him off the ball. They also spend a lot of time rolling around on the floor feigning injury - the tactic being that if you are wasting time on the clock then that is time in which your opponents are not firing shot after shot at your goalkeeper (predictably, their star player).

So, Andorra - not very good, not likely to score or even to attempt to for that matter - but quite good at breaking up play and time wasting.

Just a question of how many England would be allowed to score in 90 minutes.

Here you take a few factors:

* Their keeper Koldo is a decent shotstopper (he gets enough practice)

* Andorra will disrupt the play enough to stop it being a real routing,

* England will have a relaxed state of mind once a few early goals are in and take their foot off the gas a bit.

* The game takes place mid-season and club players (and their managers) won’t want injuries or tiredness so will be under orders to take it easy

* A few strikers on the field with something to prove but effectively it’s a high profile training game with a all three substitutes getting on the field disrupting play further.

* Then there’s the miserable weather making the ball that little bit more difficult to control and tackles a little harder to time.

So I’m thinking England score every 15 minutes or so and this gets broken up by contributing factors here and there making it 5-0 - sounds good - time to throw money at it and make the game interesting.

I registered for Blue Square who give free 25 pound bets to anyone signing a new account as long as you place a bet of 25 pounds yourself - 5 pounds on Gerrad first scorer and 20 pounds on England winning 5-0 - put the free bet on the same result at 11/2 - odds are shitty as the Bookies know it will be a white wash.

Things started very well - two early goals and then a bit of a turgid twenty minutes or so before the next one - 3-0 at half time - early goal in the second half and Andorra looked up for a routing - sure enough England were peaking too early for me and the 5^th went in sometime around 60mins - Andorra where lying down too easy and the score looked like it was going to get up towards 7 or 8. Then Andorra did what they do best - started to kick people and roll around on the floor - their Keeper suddenly started pulling amazing saves out the bag - England missed a few sure things and Hargreaves smacked the post - every minute the clock gave up was a minute closer to pay day - but I had quite a few to go before I was home and dry.

At first I figured it was too much - that England would surely get another one or two and there was no point getting excited - but when the clock hit 75 minutes gone I started to believe it was possible - suddenly I was on the edge of my seat cheering every decision that went in Andorra’s favour - every off-side England got caught with, every attack that broke down, every stray pass, every failed corner.

Andorra were helping as much as they could but they rarely managed to keep the ball for more than a few seconds before giving it back to England - it was all very tense stuff as the time trickled down and I started getting superstitious about everything - like don’t hold your hands together as you shouldn’t pray for money - and don’t send out gloating text messages to friends before the final whistle as karma is a bitch and loves opportunities to smack you down like that.

The referee wasn’t on my side as he played around 5 minutes of injury time due to all the Andorran play acting - luckily England didn’t seem bothered by then and their minds where on the upcoming game in Macedonia on Wednesday - the whistle blew and the money was mine - got my 20 quid back plus another 247.50 on top - not bad for a days loafing in a lazyboy.

Spo | September 2, 2006

Comments on Lazyboy payday…..

I have to admit that I’m a big gambling fan as well even if some people might not agree with this. Like my wife for example. But this the best way to feel relaxed for me cause I don’t gamble only for win but for the way I feel doing that.

Posted by online casino blog on 02/06 at 12:19 PM

This chair is awesome. I have a friend who has something like this too and I had the occasion to try it too. It’s so comfortable, you can’t imagine. If I had the money, I would buy one too.

Posted by online casino reviews on 02/28 at 01:10 PM

One my friend work for writing term papers company! Thence, he states that it should be reasonable to buy academic papers at academic academic papers writing company.

Posted by Jeanine29Bowen on 04/10 at 06:21 PM