Non-league / Gary Boswell / 30 April 2009 / 1 Comments

The Boz gets under the skin of the value in the Blue Square play-off promotion picture...Best Bet: Lay Torquay at [3.4] or less in the BSP Promotion market.

I hold two strong opinions about the Blue Square Premier play-offs.

The first is that Histon are still, for me, the BSP team of the year. They have quite simply played the best football most consistently and it is of decided interest that they are available on the Betfair promotion market at [5.0] - the outsider of four.

As you know, I specialise in this league and had Burton Albion as a pre-season pick for the title and the way I read their experience in the last six games is that they won the title and are just about to be considered worthy winners because they beat Histon 3-1 when they needed to. Without that win, and arguably Cambridge's failure to win at home to Altrincham on Sunday, Burton would have gone down as the greatest wobblers of all time. Fact of immense significance to me that leads to fancying Histon for the play-offs at the price and being extremely concerned about Cambridge's credentials to pick up what they failed to last season.

The second strong opinion is that Torquay are a lay for me in the play-off outrights again this year, just as they were last year. There's a bit more mettle at Plainmoor now and Chris Hargreaves does lead by example but I still feel that we've seen the signs of how Torquay wilt under the pressure in recent weeks with their 0-2 at home to Crawley and their 1-1 at Barrow. Yes, the final day win against Burton slightly disproves the theory but man for man, I can't have Torquay as the best footballing team of these four - who are extremely closely matched - as the bookmakers and the Betfair market seem to. [3.35] for the Gulls to go up is incredibly short based on what they achieved this season, especially when you look at their home form and the five defeats they suffered there.

Aswell as Crawley, they lost at home to Ebbsfleet, Kidderminster, Salisbury and Weymouth. It bodes ill to me for their first leg on Friday night for which they are even money favourite. Even if they get past my favourites Histon, I see Torquay struggling to assert in the final be it against Cambridge or Stevenage. And I find it tough to split those two but just marginally come down on Stevenage with Cambridge's final day 0-0 being my raison d'etre. I can't have Cambridge after the way they flopped in the play-off final last year and failed to score against Stuart Coburn when the remit was to bag a hatful on Sunday!

It's a Histon-Stevenage final for me with Histon great betting value in the outrights. The only negative I can find about Steve Fallon's troops - who are fantastically managed - is that Histon as a club may still feel that it is too early for them to be entering the big time of the Football League. It's a minor niggle that I don't expect to be a factor in the Torquay games but may cause me to hedge them once they get to the Wembley final. The [5.0] price allows room for that.

The Blue Square South semi-final first leg play-offs were emphatic away wins for Hampton and Eastleigh who should now fight out the final for which the Beavers are [1.94] favourites to atone for their narrowly missing out in same event last year against Eastbourne. Given the way that Garry Wilson's Sports acquitted themselves in the Premier this year, having looked slightly fortunate to squeak past Hampton in the play-offs last year, I think things bode well for Beavers fans for whom Lawrence Yaku is in fine goalscoring form. I make them a confident tip to be playing Blue Square Premier football next season.

The BSN play-offs could easily stand for Blue Square Nightmare for betting purposes as a case can be made for any one of the four to prevail ahead of tonight's first leg games. The betting forecast reflects it and you never saw a market where the true mathematical odds of [4.0] the field were more apt. Impossible to narrow down to a cogent tip but The Boz is taking AFC Telford purely because its fan base is so impressive and worth a goal or two in every game. Their Setanta Shield and FA Trophy semi-final achievements this year were no fluke and I'm hopeful that their nerve will hold and allow them to atone for last season's disappointing play-off performance against Barrow. This is, after all, the age of the supporter owned football club and AFC Telford are continuing as one of the bright beacons that pioneered, and act as flagship, for that cause.