Stanley Matthuselah

Overall up, but a mixed weekend for the XX Draws. The Classic selections were 0 from 4, but the Extended selections were 4 of 13 (five losers from five on Sunday was disappointing) and two Bundesliga selections finished 0-0 and 0-1. The one Bundelayga selection also won, a lay of Freiburg (v Wolfsburg). I have also started throwing in a bonus value selection in the XX Draws email, and with the selection of Newcastle United to beat Stoke City and the Overs, you can imagine the excitement in Cassini Castle when the Magpies hit that late winner. Late goals aren't always bad news.

Looking at the other entries, and Neil made a small profit (he would have made more had he followed his heart and Aston Villa) to take the lead in the non-XX division ahead of Premier Edge who also had a small profit, and Drawmaster who had no winners from three. Premier Betting also showed a loss, as did backing the Lay The Draw selection.

Of the entries in the red, Football Elite found three winners from seven picks for a profit for the third week in a row, and Jon (Talkie) Talkbet also finished the weekend ahead. Nothing this weekend from Al, the Free O/U picks went 1-1 for a small loss, and Football Formbook dropped to the foot of the table dropping 4.71 points.

As many of you will know, Betfair refunded commission on winning UK Saturday football bets as a result of their outage, although the logic of helping winners escapes me. Surely some special arrangement for those who LOST as a result of the outage might have made more sense. And did the outage only apply in the UK? Why only UK football? If they really want to help winners, perhaps a moratorium on the PC for a few months might have been a better idea?

One of the best blogs I read is Mark Taylor's The Power Of Goals. As used as I am to finding interesting facts there, I must admit that I was very surprised to read about the extent of Sir Stanley Matthews' longevity in his latest piece:

Quite incredible. 500 years old! Some of us are unlikely to even reach our fiftieth decade, never mind be playing top class football. I am beginning to think I may have hung my boots up about 460 years too early.

Even playing past 400 is rare, as Mark writes:

but we can really begin to appreciate just how unusual it is for a player to play into his fortieth decade if we produced a team average weighted by playing time.

Unusual indeed. Matthews famously played for Stoke City and Blackpool, but not many know that he also played (wartime) matches for Airdrieonians, Morton, Rangers and Arsenal. You can win a beer with that piece of trivia. 

Matthews did play a game at the age of 70 - for an England Veterans XI against a Brazil Veterans XI in Brazil. He injured his cartilage during the game, and rather amusingly wrote in his autobiography that it resulted in "a promising career cut tragically short".