Gateshead

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Gateshead, the first club to fail to win re-election to the Football League in my lifetime and the first to be kicked out despite not finishing in last place since Grimsby Town in 1910. 

They were replaced by Peterborough United, and that original Gateshead AFC folded in 1973. There was a Gateshead United for a while, and interestingly both these "Gateshead" clubs started in South Shields before relocating, and the current club is Gateshead which narrowly missed out on correcting the 1960 injustice by losing to Cambridge United in the 2014 National League Playoff Final.

Yesterday was their second visit to Wembley, this time for the FA Trophy Final, but in this match, laying the favourite has an ROI of 40% and unfortunately for Gateshead, they were favourites:

The last favourite to win the FA Trophy Final at evens or greater was York City in 2012 at 2.09.

Next weekend sees the playoff finals, huge for the six clubs involved and quite exciting for the casual observer too. 

The 60 previous matches show an edge when backing the favourite, an edge which almost doubles to 25% when the Draw is the second favourite outcome. Only three of the sixty matches had an odds-on favourite at fair odds, and all were in the Championship game).