/ Gary Boswell / 17 September 2007 / 1

Boswell's Betfair Blog - a bi-weekly round up of the best plays in the world of non-
league football

Boswell's Betfair Blog - a bi-weekly round up of the best plays in the world of non-
league football (Gary Boswell has been a non-league football betting specialist since 1999 and was the betting correspondent for the Non-League paper-2001-2006. He was a close season transfer coup for the new international publication NonLeague Today and also signed to write for Betfair at the end of the 06/07 season).

My two main pre-season fancies for the Blue Square Premier were featured live on television last midweek with one pointing its finger firmly at continued support in the shape of Burton Albion and the other curling up and dying in the shape of Forest Green.

Rovers were a longshot and boy did they play like one against Salisbury! My diagnosis is actually that they froze in front of the television cameras - a phenomenon that used to affect Jim Harvey's Morecambe teams - and were never able to get over the psychological blow of conceding in front of the cameras within a minute. Disappointing also that goalkeeper Ryan Robinson - who showed such promise as a youngster - would seem to have regressed.

Never one to shirk admitting a mistake and certainly not one to throw good money after bad, I have crossed FGR off my Championship shortlist and am concentrating instead on the Albion who are, in any case, much further down the road of being a club ready to embrace the challenge of entry to the Football League.

Nigel Clough is playing it cute and deflecting attention to bookmakers' favourites Stevenage who he says are " the team playing the best football in the league at the moment" but make no mistake about the seriousness of his intentions and the indisputable fact that the Burton board has been building for a long time toward this season. Interesting that old manager Neil Warnock was there for the televised game on Monday night raving about the standard of facilities at the new Pirelli and comparing its pitch to that of the New Wembley. Most telling for me though was how he was impressed by the fact that the lady who served his cup of tea was the same one who served him in 1980 when he was managing. That rings true to me with the sort of club that Burton are. You see that same spirit in the way they have pulled back games from the brink of defeat this season (the 4-3 against York being the most spectacular) and the way that Clough junior has followed Clough senior by constructing a team ethic with no obvious star players - just a solid bunch of decent players who bring out the best in each other. For me, the dilemma he has to solve now as he pushes on from getting his team into the top five on merit, is whether he drops a fully fit Daryl Clare from his first choice line-up.

Clare is that stalwart Conference star who is still scoring goals but deflects a little from the team ethic. Burton do tend to play too much to him when he's on the pitch. They have ample young talent on the wings in Aiston & Gilroy whilst the duo of Goodfellow and Goodings promise to give the headline writers loads to pun on! Harrad and Edwards also seem to me to have sufficient to keep Clare as a bench fixture in future. We shall see.

Whatever you do, make sure you have them in your Championship portfolio at 13.0 or more.You might need to post this if you are not already on as I see canny Betfairians are cottoning on but the bookies are still offering the pre-season price of 12/1 so the post is the thing to do.

They are now Boswell's official tip for the title. I've got five of the last six right in the press from the middle of September and the key reason for securing them as my tip now is that they have Ebbsfleet,Woking,Droylsden, Halifax,Salisbury and Altrincham as their next six opponents.
All six they can beat on current showing which should put them top going into middle of October. They then play Aldershot,Stevenage and Kidderminster consecutively who could prove their three dangers. We can decide before those three games whether it will be prudent to hedge!

RECOMMENDATIONS:

10 points Burton Albion at 13.0 or greater to win the Blue Square Premier
1 point Burton Albion to beat Ebbsfleet on Tuesday night

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1. KEVIN | 27 September 2007

   I have followed Boz's selctions as well as those of his pools panel over reent seasons and I have to say that they are certainly worth looking into as I estimate that over that time I have made a tidy profit.

   Well done for signing him up - I know a good deal of people who are now following their advice and reading their columns with interest.

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