FA Cup / Gary Boswell / 04 January 2008 /

Non-League scholar Gary Boswell talks us through the betting as the ultimate minnows Chasetown take on Cardiff City in the FA Cup

Are You A Gentleman Or A Scholar?

Chasetown versus Cardiff City. If the sight and thought of that fixture doesn't set the red stuff fizzing through your arteries then you're probably not a living human being after all. A Mars Bar maybe or one of those inexplicably collapsed bits in a dry stone wall.

Furthermore, if you haven't yet worked out your betting position on the fixture, you probably shouldn't be involved in the wagering business at all.

This is one of those classics that sorts out not only what type of punter you are. It goes deeper than that. This sorts out what kind of person you are.

A total mis-match on paper. Chasetown have already re-written the history books to get this far (and already played more games than Arsenal will need to win to get to the final!) and with five leagues of the English footballing pyramid between the two sides, there can theoretically only be one winner. David and Goliath don't come into it, if Chasetown beat Cardiff City, it will be the equivalent of that drunk bloke down the pub. You know the one that squats in the corner and moans about the price of fish. It will be like him putting Floyd Mayweather on the floor.

Cardiff City would therefore seem to be the bet of the century A hoover job for the 1.3 merchants to add to their super rich status by fleecing any gullible mug who might just be seduced into thinking that Chasetown can win. It is after all Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink,Robbie Fowler and Caspar Schmeichel against the apprentice electrician and the man who mends fridge freezers!

Historically such fixtures often end in a cricket score. And you can't rule that out here if Cardiff get an early goal, puff out their peacock chests and exert their far superior class. It could end up 10-0.
On the other hand, Port Vale clearly outclassed Chasetown on paper. So for that matter did Nuneaton Borough and Team Bath. Charlie Blakemore's heroes take no note of what is written on paper and even by non-league standards are a law unto themselves. At Vale, they were the genuinely better team for 90 minutes and were unlucky not to win without needing the replay. The replay was a different game and Vale had by then pulled up their socks and went out to exert their class, chivvied no doubt by a manager in Lee Sinnot who was fresh from grooming non-league underdogs.Only to find Chasetown doing an incredible impression of a pack of wolves. They hunted in sixes that night and it worked. When Luke Rodgers went down softly for the second Vale penalty there was a question mark over which of the six defenders around him had actually brought him down!

Against the run of play, Chasetown stayed in it which is the other way these fixtures can go. It only takes one moment of brilliance near the end to win it then. Nuneaton Borough nearly did it against Premiership Middlesborough three seasons ago. They drew 0-0.

I'm prepared to be one of the 'mugs' laying Cardiff City at 1.3 tomorrow. I can afford to lose a couple of quid in pursuit of what will be another historic moment in what has already been an extraordinary cup run for the Scholars. The Gentleman who play at Betfair might be sniggering and hoovering my two quid up but my claim is that they have no imagination. I belong to that 18th century movement that championed Romanticism and we have little difficulty envisioning Lee Evans having another blinder in the Chasetown goal, Charlie Blakemore once more organising his six pack of wolves and Danny Smith leaping from the bench, charged with the sort of electricity only students can conjure, to send another bullet header past the prostrate Schmeichel in injury time. The Gentlemen are left to weep into their beer.....

RECOMMENDATION:

1pt LAY on Cardiff City at 1.3 to act as a lifelong subscription to the Romantic Movement!

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