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It could pay to have faith in Bishops Stortford

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Boswell's Betfair Blog - Gary Boswell looks at the midweek betting in the Blue Square North and South

Four midweek games in the Blue Square North and South and on the face of it, four straightforward match prediction calls. Garry Wilson's Eastbourne Borough continue to carry all before them and can be fancied to atone for an Eastleigh side that are also acquitting themselves well but aren't so solid away from home and couldn't win against basement boys Sutton on Saturday. Eastbourne clearly have the greater class on the principle that league positions do not lie.

Likewise Bishops Stortford away at St Albans. The Saints have still won only once at home all season whilst Bishops have a real chance of play-offs and a vastly superior current form. It's a brave man who punts on a St Albans win.

The Northern games offer more of a puzzle. Steve Waywell's Tameside Tigers would normally be expected to munch the Vauxhall Motors but there's been a bit of a blip in East Manchester since Hyde United hit the league's summit. They've won just once in the last six and slipped out of the play-off places so that clearly inferior Motors have the better current form figure. The Merseysiders might be considered a bet for some at [3.25] with home advantage but those of us who know this standard will still be sceptical. The class lies clearly with Hyde as the league position demonstrates. The question is just whether it's wise to be taking odds on a side that has only collected four points from its last eighteen.

Then there's the Workington-Burscough fixture. The Reds might normally be given the green light here but their current form is poor whereas the Linnets - who have been a run of results side all season - have suddenly struck the winning thread again.

It seems to be heavily personnel related at Burscough. When they were decimated with injuries through November and December, they lost to everyone. With a full squad to call on, Liam Watson has got them back where they belong and on the trail of a play-off place. Although Workington are traditionally a tough team to beat at Borough Park, you'd fancy the current trend could be relied on here and a Burscough win would be the call.

And so, it's then all about the prices. Eastbourne [1.6], Bishops Stortford [1.9] and Hyde [1.9] are straightforward odds on chances whereas there's some [2.3] odds against the Burscough win courtesy of that difficult trip to the borders that they are being asked to undertake.

If you are the punter who seeks just one bet and the best value one, it remains an easy selection. I've been down this route a lot in the last few weeks and been plagued by value calls that have lost. Whenever this occurs I'm reminded of a professional gambler friend who refuses to accept the value call approach to gambling. He is adamant that the only people ever to show long term profit are those who have immaculate judgement on outcomes. In other words, for him, it's not about the price you take, it's simply whether or not you are good enough to successfully predict whether or not they will win.

In football match betting, because of the cramped odds that only three outcomes always presents, he asserts that you need to be consistently achieving a 75% strike rate in order to succeed.

I work as a football pools panel predictor and know from long experience that most professional predictors work to 50% strike rates. I know enough about myself therefore to know that I can confidently expect two of the above four predictions to win. Which of course is why they are priced as they are. Clearly to succeed as a profit-making match betting punter I have to up that percentage, become a layer or continue to be selective.

How confident am I that Eastleigh won't nick something off Eastbourne, that Vauxhall won't take advantage of Hyde's poor form. That St Albans won't go and do what they did to Torquay in the Setanta Shield? In non-league football, match by match consistency of form isn't the most reliable of virtues. My current form with value bets is also poor. There is only one conclusion.

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