Barry from The Blog : Euro 2012 Diary

Jul 6th, 2012 - Posted by BarrySnidetats in Football, Euro 2012

Punting, procrastinating and pontificating. Also known as 'The Templeton One'. The Smiths, spread betting, scooping and socialism #justiceforsnidetats

With Euro 2012 now fading in our collective memories, today on the blog Barry Snidetats shares with his highs and his lows from the European championships.

MichaelDehli

I live in Dulwich. It’s nice, but it's full of wankers. You know the kind. Yummy mummies in their Chelsea tractors queuing outside the organic baby food shop. Wankers really. So it came as no surprise when I was out in a local restaurant recently and a middle-aged member of the Women’s Institute asked me for my favourite local deli.

The first tip you’ll get from me is this: treat wankers with contempt. Stick to that in life and you won’t go far wrong. Bombard them with shock and awe, my friends, shock and awe. And so I answered to some bemusement, ‘Michael Krohn-Dehli… the Danish specialist’.

And Dehli, without a shadow of doubt, was bloody awesome. I had the diminutive Dane to be his country’s top scorer at the Euros and he duly obliged, bagging twice to share top spot with Paddy Power’s Knickerless Bendtner. The 16/1 about Krohn-Dehli certainly extricated my pants from a fankle as my ante-post punting had been far from fantastic at that stage.

I guess the problem is that when you put most of your eggs in one big basket, and that big basket breaks, you get left with a big shitty chicken foetus. And nobody likes a big shitty chicken foetus. My ‘chicken Kiev horribilis’, if you like, was Dick Advocaat’s Russia.

I thought wee Dick would at least get a semi under his belt, with the throbbing talent of Alan Dzagoev and Roman Shirokov in midfield, but they could not make it out of the weakest section in the competition. How could they fail to beat Poland and lose to a Greece side containing Freddie Mercury up front? Neil Lennon once described Georgios Samaras as ‘unplayable’ and I concur with that entirely… he should never, ever be allowed to play the game again.

On a brighter note, I had maximum man-love for Spurs target Dzagoev, who provided my biggest win thanks to the generous 150/1 from Bet Victor on the tournament top scorer market. Dzagoev had netted four in eight in the run-up to the tournament so I gobbled up the ante-post price like a docker’s delight. And the little chap obliged with two goals in the rout of Czech Republic and another against the Poles. The winnings may have been split between the 356 other players who topped the Euro 2012 scoring chart but at that price I wasn’t complaining. I was quids-in for the tournament.

Bet Victor also deserves further mention for their refund on the outright winners if Spain won the tournament. I’ve had a few run-ins with the firm in the past over the dreaded ‘palpable error’ rule but I have to give them credit for this one. Or rather, they gave me the credit for once…

Outside of the ante-post punting I had a fair amount of success on the match markets, in particular Team Possession (available with Unibet) and Time of First Goal. A particularly profitable vein of income came from England as Roy’s boys were happy to sit deep and let the opposition keep the ball. The over 54.5% possession punt on France was bet of the tournament for me at 12/5.

I think both of these markets are well worth monitoring in the upcoming Premier League season and I’m working on a spreadsheet that I think could throw up a bit of value.

Admittedly, Time of First Goal is a nervy beast, as I’m generally looking at the over 27 minutes mark. It seems counter-intuitive to cheer on time-wasting, diving and missed chances but the benefit to the bottom line has been clear. It merits further investigation.

So where else will my money be going for the rest of the summer? Well, apart from the delis in Dulwich and the pantries of Peckham, I’ll be looking to reinvest some of my Euro winnings on the ante-post league handicap markets. It’s proved profitable in the past with Exeter two years ago and St Johnstone last year making a mockery of the early quotes.

The study now begins in earnest… just let me grab my organic super-food salad and frappuccino and I’ll be right back.

Barry Snidetats is the founder and author of WagonBetting.com

You can follow him on Twitter: @BarrySnidetats