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Opinion

Newcastle United ten pound bet hits the woodwork

2 years ago
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Here we are three games in and Newcastle United are sat in sixth position!

Unfortunately, Arsenal have started with three straight wins and are comfortably top.

I had a ten pound bet with my eleven year old son Chuks (no moralising here please, he’s already been on two pub crawls with me at Notts Forest and Brighton so far this season).

The bet was, that Newcastle United would be top of the table after the first four games.

We had looked at the opening fixtures, agreed that it would be tricky…but who would have had Man U bottom of the league and pointless after two games?

It is, in my opinion, one of the greatest features of football that it is so unpredictable.

My good mate Mark Carroll used to get my son to randomly predict the first scorer and put a bet on it. Each Saturday morning for the last few years, me and my son have done Sky Super Six. Six games where you have to predict the score (When Newcastle United were involved, we always both agreed on a Newcastle win, even though we know deep down that the likelihood was defeat). That however, was in the Ashley era.

I read an article on The Mag where the writer would go to every Newcastle United game in the belief that NUFC would win. Only to be disappointed ten minutes into a particular game, when we had conceded, and that all enveloping sinking feeling and football despair sets in. The writer could have been writing about me.

Back to the new season and my optimism is sky high. We have studied the fixtures.

I knew we would beat Notts Forest, even though a big big, game for them. I felt confident we could nick a win at Brighton and fancied at least a draw against Man City, which would leave us Wolves away and in my prediction, Newcastle United then top of the Premier League.

As I write this, I look back on that Man City game and at three one up, Schar was flattened in the box, we should have had a penalty. And there lies the great unpredictability of football. Another “what if” moment.

I have encouraged my son to write a couple of articles for The Mag as Covid has had a huge effect on the reading and writing of youngsters across the country, due to the missed schooling of the last couple of years.

He doesn’t share my romantic optimism where Newcastle United are concerned but studies the numbers / stats and can regurgitate facts about players. His Maths is pretty good though, as he worked out he now didn’t even have to wait until after the Wolves game to collect his ten pound winnings.

Ten pound paid out to him in 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins and a couple of pound coins. You should have seen his face when he had to count it up.

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