The Alex Buchanan Diary – 28/03/09

The Longest Minute

Occasionally it’s the 45th, but it’s almost always the 90th minute which is comfortably, or uncomfortably, the longest minute in football. On average, it lasts for about 3 minutes more than any normal minute should, so 4 in total, and sometimes in the event of a long stoppage, it can be a good few more than that.
So, it’s not surprising that the fateful 90th minute can often have such an impact on your gambling success on any given day. Last gasp equalisers or winning goals can cause your potential winnings to vanish from before your very eyes, or indeed turn a hopeless case into a gold mine.

When you place as many trades as I do, it is unusual for “The Longest Minute” not to provide some late drama to affect my weekly P&L. Thankfully, I’m long enough in the tooth now, not to have to watch the late scores coming in while peering through my fingers, or worse still, hiding behind the sofa, but there is generally enough at stake to keep the adrenalin pumping swiftly enough! To use a well-worn football cliché, “these things tend to even themselves out over the season!”

Any Bury supporters reading this, (well, anything’s possible!), will know exactly what I mean, as each of their last two matches have produced last minute equalisers, one for and one against. And, in keeping with tradition, I had a financial interest in both games, and in these instances, both fell the right way – not always the case!

Saturdays Chester equaliser in the last minute of normal time at Gigg Lane, didn’t make me rich, but it was just pipped as my best priced football lay of the week at 1.49, by the 1.45 lays or Rangers v Hearts (oh, what joy!), and Torquay against Grays. These would have been joined by Forfar Athletic being held by Elgin City on Tuesday, at around 1.48, but schoolboy error time, I must have forgot to click the “confirm” button on Betdaq. More than a little annoying, but along came Annan Athletic on Wednesday, at 1.78, who duly conceded a late equaliser against Albion Rovers to give me the £125 lay result I had missed out on just the night before.

Back to Bury though, and on Tuesday night it was their turn to enjoy the fruits of the 90th minute, when they grabbed an equaliser at Rotherham, 1 minute into stoppage time. “Get in!” I thought, no offence to Rotherham fans! That was worth quite a bit more than the £40 I bagged from the weekend game, and it capped a cracking night, with all of my large liability lays landing. Happy days!

I’ll probably make “The Longest Minute” a weekly feature, as never a week goes by without last gasp squeaky bum moments!

Just before I move on, here’s one from earlier in the month. As I updated my live score webpage hoping for a late goal in a French Ligue 2 match between Angers (no, I hadn’t heard of them either until recently), and Lens with Angers leading 1-0, I was pleased to see that there was one, except it had gone the wrong way, and it was now 2-0. With my lay seemingly sunk, I powered down and headed via the fridge to join the missus for some primetime crime drama on the telly.

Imagine my surprise when I checked my account in the morning to discover a positive figure next to Angers v Lens, and on further investigation it transpired that Lens had scored not once, but twice in the longest minute to salvage an unlikely draw! The words sings, lady and fat sprung to mind, as well as another “get in!”

On the horsey front, my main odds-on strategy has passed another stress-test this week, adding to my confidence in the system long term. Not counting anything yet though, apart from rising profits, which hopefully will continue.

Shortest priced lay this week came on Thursday, when Nordwind failed at 1.29 (SP 1/4), in the first race at Hereford, and closely followed about 20 minutes later by 1.82 shot (SP 8/11), Jeremiah finishing completely out of the frame at Southwell. Happy days again!

On the downside, I’ve missed out on 3 more odds-on losers on Thursday, as I was not around to place the trades – you can’t realistically catch every single race, and I’ve learnt to my cost that it’s best to forget about it if you are otherwise engaged. I’ll probably tell you more about that some other time.

I’ll leave you again with my Handy Household hint of the week – make sure that you “confirm” your bets!! (Note to self)

Speak to you again soon.