A rant about one of the dirtiest players in football history: Kevin Muscat

Another guest blog from me this week. The chaps at Magic Spongers have been publishing an interesting series of rants about the unlovable protagonists of the football world in recent weeks. When they asked me if I'd be interested in taking part, there was only one man I wanted to write about.

Kevin Muscat was a solid full-back who has enjoyed a long career in football. Sadly, he is cursed by his tendency to be overcome with angst and fury, and has made some absolutely appalling challenges on opponents during his career - even curtailing one Premier League player's career.

Here's the piece over at the Magic Spongers site. Do leave a comment if it provokes a response, and please share it with anyone else who may find it interesting. You should follow Magic Spongers on Twitter too: @magicspongers.

The disappointment hedge

Here follows an attempt at explaining the logic behind a type of football betting that few of us admit publicly to doing - betting against your own team. I'm taking the plunge and admitting that I've been experimenting with it during the football season just past. So is it cowardly or just common sense?

I feel slightly mucky. I was in the bookie’s earlier and now I’ve won £50. Fifty lovely pounds that I didn’t have before. Yet I am wallowing in a state I might melodramatically describe as self-loathing. I feel dissatisfied, glum. 

“But you’ve won £50 – presumably on the outcome of a football match that you correctly predicted the outcome of?” I hear you cry. Well, not quite. I didn’t call anything correctly. I didn't see anything coming. I didn't spot a value bet. I just bet on one team winning – the team that I actually wanted to lose. Welcome to the concept of The Disappointment Hedge.

Sometimes when I tell people about The Disappointment Hedge they look at me with a mixture of bewilderment and something close to malice. I wonder if they might be about to knock me to the ground and present me with their interpretation of how my ribs ought to be assembled. My crime? Betting against my own team – or any team I have an emotional attachment to. Profiting from your own team’s misfortune is, in some people’s eyes, not really on. It’s seen as weasely, sneaky, a grotty thing to do. 

Still, fifty quid, though. Fifty quid in my pocket. A free night out. What a git.

Other people – more rational people, such as women for example – ask me to explain why I do this. When I’ve told them about The Disappointment Hedge they nod, shrug and say something like “Well, I can see why you do this, but it doesn’t seem like a lot of fun. It's not really in the spirit of things.”

I began to experiment with The Disappointment Hedge last season and found it definitely did take the edge off a defeat to some extent - enough for it to be worth doing. But that’s exactly why it feels dirty. It’s not good for the soul. My fellow fans (be it club, country or some continental side that I’ve inexplicably developed a penchant for) are hurting. Our team needed to win today really. It wasn’t desperate, but three points wouldn’t half have been useful. The rest of your team's fans have had their evening ruined, possibly their weekend or even their whole month. Meanwhile, I’m just as peeved but I’ve got £50 as well. Which position would I rather be in?

You have to be careful with this kind of hedging. You don’t want to mess with your head. I like £50 as much as the next man (unless the next man is Bill Drummond), but give me a belting victory for my team over the cash every single time. Getting your hedge just right is a balancing act, and one that is dependent on your own personal circumstances. Bet too much and it’ll sting a bit when your beloved team win - and you don't want it to interfere with the joy of victory. But if you don't wager enough then your trifling profits will almost seem to mock you as you try to sulk off another defeat.

Some people have said to me that they wish they cared enough about their own side that they needed to have this kind of financial crash mat to ease the pain. But they tend to be people who don’t go to games regularly. If you’re spending money on your match ticket, your travel, beer, a burger, a programme - that's a fair bit of money. Given your initial outlay, then, I present you with three pre-match possibilities:

Possibility 1: All that money you're spending - I'm going to double it I'm afraid. But don't be gloomy; I'm guaranteeing that your team will win.

Possibility 2: You're going to have a wasted day watching your team capitulate, but you will make a fat profit in the process. 

Possibility 3: Your team huffs and puffs its way to a mildly frustrating draw - but today hasn't cost you a penny. Your winnings cover your costs. 

Therein lies the secret to perfectly balanced disappointment hedging. If I was a much wealthier man than I am, I think that's how I'd weight my bets every time. We win - it costs me double. We lose - I make a large profit. We draw - I'm breaking even. 

Here's an example using a fixture listed on Betfair from (in the interests of search engine optimisation) the Úrvalsdeild, that's the Icelandic top flight to you and me. It's the big one: Breidablik v Fram. Give it a click so that you can actually read it.

An example of The Disappointment Hedge in action.

Let's imagine a mad-keen Breidablik fan. His team are at home today to lowly Fram. Let's suppose his match ticket, travel, beer, food and all other matchday expenses have cost him £40. In the example you can see the punter is about to bet £8.50 on Fram to win. Fram are pretty rubbish so he's getting a fairly long price of 6.2 on Betfair (which is roughly 5/1 in fractional odds). This bet would net him £44.20 profit if it came off. At the same time, he risks £31.78 that Breidablik will NOT win, ie. he "lays" them. [When you place a "lay" bet on a betting exchange like Betfair, you say how much you want to win, not how much you want to bet. Betfair then does the maths and tells you how much you are liable to lose if you're wrong. This liability amount temporarily leaves your account while the bet is pending.] And so in this example either a draw or a Fram win will see him collect £48.90 on this individual bet. 

So the upshot of his two bets can be seen by looking at the numbers in red (potential loss) and green (potential profit) in the example. If Breidablik win, then he's lost £40. He's doubled the cost of his day from £40 to £80, but he doesn't care too much because his team won. If they draw then he's won his £40 back and had a free day out. And if those pesky Fram blighters go and ruin his day, he will at least have the cushion of £93.10 winnings (or £53.10 pure profit if you allow for the £40 cost of the day out).

However, that's a fictional example. Now back to reality. Due to not being wealthy enough to just throw money around like it doesn't matter, the prospect of a win costing me double isn't usually a viable option. It's then when the hedge gets awkward, the crash mat noticeably thinner. You have to hedge it so that the joy of your team winning is always much greater than any profit you stand to make. I'm not suggesting you try to reach some kind of equilibrium between your wealth and the emotions football generates in us - that would be psychologically a lot more messed up. Hedging is about breaking your fall to some extent. And yet it remains a taboo among football bettors - even when you know that betting against your team is the smart move, we certainly wouldn't go around on match day telling everyone that we'd done it.

Ultimately, it's just as well that I'm not a wealthy man, because I’m a bit out of pocket from this season’s hedges. And that’s because the two teams I care most about had good seasons. So do I care about the money? Not really, no. It’s been a joy to watch my teams this season, and they’ve brought me pleasure infinitely greater than the amount of money I’ve lost. 

How much money would it take to make defeat for your team hurt less?

Will I do the same next year, now one of my teams has been promoted and perhaps won’t win as many games? I haven’t decided yet. If I do decide to stop, it’ll have to be cold turkey. No point doing it some weeks and not others – it'll only add to the annoyance when my team gets a royal spanking from some bunch of relegation-threatened no-hopers. 

One thing is for sure though: if I do keep hedging then I'll get a separate betting account for it. I'm proud of the modest profits I've generated in recent years through non-hedging bets - the wagers for which I didn't have a vested interest in the outcome. It's a shame to fritter away your hard-earned betting profits just because the team you support is doing well. I'd keep the two things separate, and (obviously) only hedge with money I could afford to lose. 

As a relative newcomer to disappointment hedging, I haven't fully explored the range of its possibilities. I imagine the world of in-play betting can push your hedges to a level of sickness that I half hope I'll never get involved with. One-nil up on your biggest rivals with less than two minutes of stoppage time to play? Worried how you'll feel if they muck it up? Risk a tiny amount of money on the draw then. You don't care if you lose the money, you just want the ref to blow his whistle. But if that dreaded equaliser comes - your impressive financial haul will soften the blow. And that's all it's there to do - soften the blow. After all, it's only money, it's not as important as football. You all know what Bill Shankly famously said about football, but something Einstein once said about money and possessions fits quite nicely with my attitude to the disappointment hedge.  

“Many of the things you can count, don't count. 

Many of the things you can't count, really count.

- Albert Einstein

Maybe applying this to betting is not a responsible attitude during a recession, but I've no particular regrets from the reasonably modest sum of money I've lost dabbling with The Disappointment Hedge this season. Despite my simplified illustration earlier, I'm not trying to cover my costs when I hedge, I'm simply giving myself a crash-mat that is just thick enough to numb the pain. 

*** 

So there we are - The Disappointment Hedge. You’re welcome to try it out yourself. But if your team wins 15 games on the spin and you bankrupt yourself, don’t come crying to me. And if they lose 15 on the bounce then you can drink yourself silly on the profits. Just don’t expect to like yourself much in the process as you stuff your pockets full of money. Like Einstein hints at, money doesn't matter anything like as much as the important things in life - like football. But if football's going to kick you square in the goolies, you might as well get a few beer tokens out of it.

_______________________

Ever dabbled with hedging? Do leave a comment below if you'd care to share how you felt afterwards. Ever surprised yourself by realising in the process of a hedged bet that the money meant more to you than you thought it did? Or the exact opposite - that it meant nothing to you in the face of success on the pitch. I'm closer to the latter than the former, but not to the extent I'd want to encounter any sort of financial difficulties as a result. What about you?

An imagined meeting of Chuck Blazer and his informant on Jack Warner's pirate ship

Blazer was stunned by what his informant told him

Down in the bowels of his ship, the Concacaf Cutlass, Cap'n Jack Warner smiled as he plotted and schemed what he was going to do with all these bags of money. Little did he know, however, up on the poop deck and disguised as a rum merchant, a former accomplice of Cap'n Jack's was deep in conversation with the ship's mandatory parrot.

Parrot informant (whispering): So what do you want to know?
Chuck Blazer: What have you got for me? It's taken ages to grow this disguise, so it'd better be worth it. I used to look just like Michael Douglas, you know?
Parrot: Well, he's down there now, counting the money.
CB: What money? This sounds juicy.
Parrot: The money that was meant for the children.
CB: Which children?
Parrot: The Children of FIFA™.
CB: *gasps*
Parrot: Oh yes.
CB: Not the ones that FIFA pledged to help? But I thought all the money was put into brown bags and loaded onto the Good Ship FIFA™ to set sail for FIFA's Worthy Oil-Rich Partner Countries™ where it would be invested in developing football for poor and needy kids?
Parrot: It was.
CB: So how's Cap'n Jack got his hands on it?
Parrot: The Concacaf Cutlass intercepted the ship.
CB: No!
Parrot: It was swift and bloodless. Those manning the Good Ship FIFA™ got their cut, and all parties agreed to say that it was the Somalians. But it wasn't. It was Cap'n Jack.
CB: This is incredible. With this knowledge I can finally report back to Uncle Sepp and we can nail this rotter.
Parrot: I'll be expecting to get Jérôme Valcke's job in return for this information, you know, as well as $5 million in a lump-sum payment.
CB: That won't be a problem, I'll sort it with Sepp. That's not double standards, right?
Parrot: No, no it isn't. Great. Transfer it to my Mastercard account please.
CB: I'm afraid we only deal with Visa. They're a Special Friends Forever Key Partner™ you see?
Parrot: Was that a veiled dig at Valcke? I'm not sure all the readers will get it.
CB: Mmm. I'm increasingly doubting whether they're finding the Warner/pirate comparison amusing too.
Parrot: So what's the point of this blog then?
CB: Good question.
Parrot: I might go now. I think the problem with this post is that most people are more interested in Sepp trying to nail his rival Bin Hammam for corruption. It looks a bit silly on Sepp's part really doesn't it. I mean, come on! Meanwhile Warner's something of a side story.
CB: Yes, but it's not as easy to peg a visual gag on Bin Hammam as this was. Plus I only had a lunch break and I still need to buy a sandwich.
Parrot: Nobody's reading this now anyway. Just go.
CB: Yeah, I should probably go and sit looking brilliant in the front row of a major football summit or something...

PRESS RELEASE: Narrow The Angle retires from international football

Narrow The Angle delivered his news to a gathering of
England fans in Trafalgar Square this lunchtime.

--------------------------------------

10 May 2011 (London, UK) – An open letter from Narrow The Angle to the FA and Fabio Capello

Dear The FA,

After much soul-searching, I have decided to retire from international football.

After being consistently overlooked by a succession of England managers – despite some average-to-patchy form for my local pub side, for whom I have contributed a less-than-dazzling 11 goals in 60 games – I have decided to focus on my club game and withdraw my availability for international selection in the future. I hope that in time you will accept and understand my decision.

I realise this may come as a surprise, given that I am currently uncapped, but since another footballing no-mark like Ben Foster has retired from international football today, I feel it's the right moment to join this trendy bandwagon and free up extra time to concentrate on other commitments, including online poker and drinking. I also wanted to get there before Shaun Wright-Phillips.

You may remember that I wrote to you in 2008 stating that I was considering my international future then. This was in response to the devastating events of 8 September 2008, when the football world was left reeling after the twin international retirements of both Paul Parry (Wales) and Lee McCulloch (Scotland) on the same day – two gargantuan blows to future World Cups and European Championships in anyone's book. Tempted as I was to make it a hat-trick that day, I reconsidered after scoring a goal for the pub team the same evening that the opposition captain described not only as "alright", but also "quite good".

However, the best part of three more years has elapsed and still no call-up has been forthcoming. It's time to go out with my head held high.

I would request that the media respect my privacy at this time, and that the press do not launch any kneejerk campaigns calling for my immediate selection to the squad. I have made my decision and will stand by it.

Warmly,
Narrow The Angle

PS - Carlton Cole, you might want to join me? Anyone else?

ENDS

Bournemouth in the League One playoffs.

Without really courting it, I seem to have become one of the go-to guys in the blogosphere for comments about AFC Bournemouth. I've done a couple of interviews this week, firstly with The Seventy Two, an excellent site that covers all 72 Football League clubs, and secondly with the Peterborough United Football Blog, who wanted to hear from fans of the other three clubs in the playoffs.

Do have a look. Whatever happens in the playoffs, it's been an incredible two years to be a Bournemouth fan.

My Favourite XI

The chaps at Two Footed Tackle have been running a popular 'My Favourite XI' series in recent months. I've been thoroughly enjoying them, but couldn't resist lowering the tone slightly with my own crackpot effort. If you fancy a read, here's a link: My Favourite XI.

And when you've finished, perhaps take a look in the archive at some of the efforts from people who approached the exercise more seriously than I did.

This is football: Hackney Marshes

The slight fuzziness of this image may or may not be caused by
all the Deep Heat in the atmosphere. (Photo: Paul Flannery)

A damp squib of a Sunday. That fine rain – the kind that slowly saturates – is coming down like it can't quite be bothered. The famous Hackney Marshes football fields can be heard well before they are seen. A shrill blast of a referee's whistle; the distant noise of men versus boys blends into constant hubbub. 

Over the River Lee and suddenly there is football everywhere. Everywhere. Clusters of players chase balls in packs. The noises become more distinct from each other. A call for a pass, supportive applause and a variety of moans, grumbles and yelps of pain. "Come on! What's happened to our shape?" shouts a captain with a rip in his sock. 

Every garish team strip imaginable graces the dozens of pitches here, from a speedy bunch of lads in neon green to a lardy, angry mob kitted out in black and mauve. "Set me!" bellows a striker who's just given his marker the slip. He is not set. There are gestures.

Such wholesome recreation relieves the gloom of the surrounding area. Grim, grey towerblocks pepper the horizon. Huge pylons and cables criss-cross the perimeter of the marsh. Jumbo jets pass silently overhead, occasionally concealed by the swirling charcoal-coloured clouds. An imposing gas works in the middle distance looms over the trees, adding yet another eyesore. A murder of crows lurk in a radical, lop-sided 2-1-6 formation on an empty pitch. Their opponents (presumably seagulls) do not appear to have turned up and one solitary magpie won't do. For a start there's the clash of kits. The Olympics may be coming to town but still, this ain't exactly Disneyland.

It is, however, just like the Premier League in a lot of ways. We still see the flashy white boots, the outrageous hairstyles and the pre-rehearsed goal celebrations, but it's much more real. What these games lack in pristine playing surfaces and roaring crowds they more than make up for in determination, entertainment value and good old-fashioned muddy chaos. 

Mud, a strong breeze, scenic pylons: what more do you want?
(Photo: BBC World Service)

The tradition of 40-year-old men with beer guts working off their hangovers here is starting to die out. Most present are reasonably fit and take their football pretty seriously. The minority of portly pint-guzzlers stand out markedly as their shirts stretch over flabby bellies. This seems to apply to goalkeepers in particular. Some of the cuddly custodians on show can barely squeeze into their Spall jerseys.

Back to the action and the neon greens break swiftly into attack. Their red-and-white-striped opponents chase back gamely but to no avail as the onrushing striker finishes with aplomb. [Always wanted to use that word in a piece.] His jubilant team-mates yelp with delight and punch the air. The scorer is mobbed and soon there's big bundle of them atop him. E9's WAG equivalents grimace at the prospect of washing out all that mud as their high heels sink into the quagmire. The stripes conduct a brief but sweary post-mortem and roll up their sleeves ready for the kick-off. Revenge is swift. They go straight down the other end and score. This time we are treated to a brief jig around the corner flag as number 11 wiggles his hips in the direction of, well, nobody, before he too disappears under a swarm of stripes.

On the adjoining pitch, a slim winger with a flamboyant French accent stands – hands on hips – demanding a pass. A team-mate duly obliges but where is the Gallic flair we have come to expect from the French? Where is the va va voom? His legs get tangled in a mess and he runs the ball out of play. His colleagues exchange glances in a manner that suggests this happens often.

No, I don't know what's happening here either, though the
game, enjoyably, is between FC Bertoli and Kings Hell Cats.
(Photo: 'phatboysim', Flickr)

Walking a little further down, a very combative game is taking place. Challenges are flying in, tempers are fraying and nobody has any time on the ball. A man in red who seems to be made entirely out of mud attempts a sideways pass to a foppish blond team-mate. The pass is woefully underhit and the team-mate gets clattered by an opponent. Mud-man’s shoulders slump as his peers offer some choice words. “That was a hospital pass,” says one. “He’s just killed himself going for that ball,” yells another. Thankfully, the blond is not dead and gingerly extracts himself from the sodden turf. 

Some games are finishing. Whistles sound, teams shake hands and winners dash off to the adulation of an imagined crowd. Losers adopt a familiar trudge as they gather up their kit and head for the pub. One unlucky soul has to go and retrieve the goal nets which have been stuck up with masking tape. Many a strip of coloured tape decorates most of the posts, a memento of games gone by. Half-time orange segments lie strewn about the pitchside, every drop of sustenance sucked out. An empty packet of Marlboro Lights lies inches behind a goalmouth. Clearly one particular stopper had an easy time of it today.

From the changing rooms wafts the scent of Deep Heat and the clank of studs on concrete. They’ll all be back next week too. The particularly keen might even have cleaned their boots.

Pre-match meal or half-time energy boost? (Photo: Ben Dylan)

While I'm loathe to give major sports apparel manufacturers any more advertising than they need, this mid-1990s advert features famous Premier League players turning out for pub teams on Hackney Marshes, which gives you a glimpse, albeit heavily stylised, into what it's like down 'Ackney Marshes. It also features one of the greatest intro moments you'll see... "Shuut oop!"