Euro 2012 / Jack Houghton / 24 March 2011 /

Jack Houghton thought he had an edge on the market when first with the news of John Terry's return to captaincy - but Betfair customers were unmoved and it seems they were entirely right...

Betfair punters always have the capacity to surprise. And to disappoint.

When the news broke that John Terry would be reinstated as England captain, I just happened to be sat staring at the Match Odds market for Saturday's game. It was a rare moment of opportunity. Here I was with a 20 second lead over every punter in the land, with a chance to take advantage of this new information as hundreds of others scrabbled for their laptops in a desperate attempt to adjust their positions.

I laid England at [1.49]. Heavily. The rationale was straightforward enough. In my mind at least. John Terry is a divisive player. For all his undoubted talent and commitment, a captain is useless unless they can take their players with them. And who in the squad would want to follow Terry, after all that has been said, all that has been written? In a few seconds, the market would catch up with me. I just needed to wait.

So I waited. After a few minutes, England's price as inactive as a spliff-smoking sloth, I began to wonder what had happened to everyone. Was there some other major news commanding punters' attention? Had we just declared war?

Two days' later I closed out my bet. I backed England at [1.49]. I stand to win absolutely nothing no matter what happens on Saturday. Now that's what you call canny trading.
So why the total disinterest from punters in Terry's reinstatement?

One obvious answer is that there was a reaction, but the news split punters so perfectly the price wasn't affected. Half thought the return of an alleged philanderer a negative; the other half thought it a recall of reliable leadership; so the price remained poised between those conflicting opinions.

Was the market right not to shift though? Was there some way of establishing whether captaincy instability affected England performance? I've spent the last few days trying to find out.

There is obviously something unique about the Terry situation - and perhaps it can't really be compared to previous captaincy changes - but I assumed that, every time the England arm-band was passed on, there would be some players who would be happy with the appointment, and others who were less happy. In other words, there would be instability.

Next, I looked at every time since 1900 that there had been a new captain, recording the result of that captain's first match in charge. In those matches, England won 62 per cent of the time, drew 23 per cent, and lost 15 per cent.

I then compared this to England's overall record during the same period. In those 892 matches, England won 57 per cent of the time, drew 24 per cent, and lost 19 per cent.
There's nothing quite like spending hours toiling over a spreadsheet and finding out absolutely nothing of significance, but there you have it: a new captain seems to have little bearing at all on England's performance.

And perhaps we can go even further and say that the captaincy in general has little effect on England at all. Because whether you look at periods where England had the same captain for many years, or periods of frequent change, England's win record remains remarkably constant.

That'll explain the punting inaction then. Did someone say there was a war going on?

* Newsflash! The prices have finally moved and it's good news that Jack got out of his bet - Gareth Bale will miss the game and that has caused England to shorten to [1.44]. More news here.

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