But That Was Just A Dream, Just A Dream

I am accused of sulking. James writes:

This is a long sulk. It was only a meaningless piece of Victoriana with no relevance in modern soccer.

As many of you are aware, for almost 50 years, I have been a Crystal Palace fan. They were my local (league) club. They were the first club I ever saw (technically tied with Birmingham City I suppose). They have one of the, if not the, best names for a football club, and they had great colours. What they haven't had in that time is a huge amount of success. Our all-time major trophy haul is limited to the Zenith Data Systems Cup win at Wembley in 1991 (I was there), with other more modest successes consisting of promotions and since their introduction in the late eighties, play-off wins. We've had several of those, boasting the best record in the league for play-off wins (4) for promotion to the top level. We are also one of the few clubs to have won a championship in our first league season (Division Three 1920-21, I wasn't there). We used to have the outright record for most Premier League relegations, but we have to share that now with Norwich City. Four consecutive top division seasons is also a record we will be matching in 2016-17, and hopefully breaking after that.

So winning the FA Cup last weekend would have meant so much to the club but I'm honestly glad (all over) that I support my local club and can fully appreciate successes (usually modest) when they come along. United won the Cup for the eighth time. Great, but at some point along the way, when you become used to success, winning trophies becomes the standard - for most United fans, 2015-16 was a disappointing season. Liverpool fans might get excited about the Europa League, but qualifying for it is not a success for one of the elite teams these days.

Cup Final day will certainly live long in the memory. The train ride into London from Surrey was lively, and I met up with friends at Victoria for a couple of beers. Gaining access to a pub in the Wembley area proved mission impossible, but upon reaching the stadium, rather bizarrely, among a crowd of 89,000+ people, I ran into three people I knew within the space of five minutes. It's a small world.

"That's me in the corner, that's Pardew in the spotlight"

The atmosphere in the stadium (west end anyway) was fantastic, as anyone watching on TV would have seen. Taking the lead with 12 minutes to go was incredible, but when the big screen showed Pardew - "He's Alan Pardew, he shags who he wants" - gyrating on the touchline, I had a bad feeling. Seriously, your team has just taken the lead in a Cup Final, and rather than calm the players down, warn them of the pressure that now must come, make some adjustments etc., he's out there dancing "hey world, look at me". I thought he didn't want attention these days. Less than three minutes later, and the lead was gone. Only one club has played in more FA Cup Finals than Palace without winning it, and our wait to become the fourth south London club to have their names on the trophy (actually the latest trophy was only introduced in 2014, certainly not Victoriana) goes on. It was rather depressing to have an old school friend later suggest that if the next Palace final is another 26 years away, we won't be here to see it. I might be old, but I plan to still be here!

Thanks James for bringing me out of my mild depression.

On betting / investment related topics, I have received a couple of emails requesting more details of the Cassini Portfolio systems and bets that have been mentioned on here, so I will be putting these together in a single 'user guide' for anyone interested.

Included will be the Bundeslayga and BLUnders systems of course - the 2015-16 Bundeslayga system has wrapped up, with the lowest ROI% since records (i.e. Pinnacle Sorts) began, but profitable. The BLUnders is still technically active for this season, although it is hard to imagine any qualifiers coming out of the Finals Series which starts on Thursday.