James Hipwell

	If I saw Mr. T in a car park I’d be unable to quell the urge to give him a good kick…

During this summer’s Test series, two words filled me with dread when I heard them mentioned on sports broadcasts or read them in newspapers.

They were the words ‘Trescothick’ and ‘Marcus’, and any mention normally heralded a report of some sparkling piece of batting from the hitherto leaden-footed, overweight West Countryman.

Okay, so he fluffed his lines at Lord’s and I could’ve closed out my £5 sell of his series runs at 351 for a modest profit. But then 111 at Edgbaston, 104 at Old Trafford and 92 at Trent Bridge shunted me into the intolerable position of already being £20 down before umpire Billy Bowden had filled his hip flask for the final Test at The Oval. As Fatso had already averaged 89 in each of the previous matches I was looking at a loss of £450 if I wanted to close out before Kennington.

Being a gambler I decided to run with the bet in the hope that Tresco racked up a pair of ducks in the final Test. Alas, that was not to be, and he made another 76. This meant his final series run tally came in at 431, so I had to send £400 to whichever lucky punter on Cantor Spreadfair had matched my bet. I’m not a violent man, but if I saw Mr T in a car park I’d be unable to quell an urge to give him a good kick in the nuts.

Who dares wins

In this game you have to stand firm, hold the line and all those other military cliches that mean don’t crap yourself in the face of adversity (which is itself a cliche). You must never let yourself be intimidated by creepy bookmakers asking for money or dratted spread firms making a margin call. The key to it is boldness – you have to make big calls sometimes and it helps if you can say with absolute certainty that you’re going to win next time.

This I did the other day when I was telling my riskaverse girlfriend (born of strict Ulster Presbyterian stock, you understand) about the great value you can get betting on European football. Normally, if I mention there’s a great wheeze betting on Bastia at home and laying them on the exchanges when away, her eyes will glaze over or she will politely tell me – as she did last week – to shut my ‘blowhole’. This time she said she‘d place £1,000 in my bank account on condition I could guarantee her an annual return of 4%. Sweet Jesus!

So now I’m poring over La Gazzetta and Tutti Frutti Sporto every week trying to work out who holds the aces in places such as Lecce and Parma. Luckily, my colleague James Eastham is on hand to advise (which he does every Friday from 11am on 0906 403 3300) not just me but the girlfriend, too. Did you ask for 4% sweetheart? I’ll tell you what, let’s call it 5%, and if there’s anything left in the pot after that we’ll go on holiday to Treviso to celebrate.