BigTips Betting News
Ben Herd on his week at Aldershot, canine capers and a near-death experience!
Hello and once again, welcome to this week’s column. It's been a pretty up and down week as far as results go, we managed to beat an inform Northampton team, at their place 3-0. It was a pretty full on game with plenty of tackles flying in, Northampton lost Kevin Thornton in the first ten minutes, which completely put a spanner in their works. There were a few flash points in the game and some really bad tackles flying in and just how Northampton stayed the rest of the match with ten men I'll never know! The referee, in my opinion, lost the game and there were a few "flash points" in which a 15 man "brawl" ensued! Good to see so many of our lads getting stuck in! It would appear that Northampton and ourselves have been charged with "failing to control its players", this is the second time in a month we have been punished for the same charge by the FA, cheers! Hereford was our next away game and our inconsistency in away games reared its ugly head again, as we lost 2-0. Funnily enough, the game was held up by 6 or 7 minutes by a stray dog! That is definitely the first time I have had a game delayed for that reason and was probably a bad omen!
Things have gone from bad to worse for me this week, as I was travelling to the hotel to meet the coach on Tuesday, some big old lorry decided to flex his muscle by giving me a dent, nice one idiot! Then we lose Tuesday’s game. Then, and this is a bad one, my dog Trigger, somehow gets his "old boy" caught on barbed wire and comes within inches of a complete amputation - talk about painful for the poor dog, I just hope he doesn't get bullied down the park by the other dogs! All this talk of mutts brings me onto a story of how Trigger nearly cost me my life when I lived up in Shrewsbury. Let me begin, it was 31st of March 2006, the reason why I remember the date will become apparent, I was walking Trig down by the river Severn, only for Trig to jump in and pursue a bunch of ducks. Trig then seemed to get into difficulty and was being swept downstream by a very strong current, needless to say I was a little concerned at this stage and was starting to get into a bit of a panic. Then he was swept down the Weir and the last bit I saw of him was his puppy like eyes staring at me as he went into the abyss! I didn't really have too much time to think about it, so I stripped down to my pants and plunged into the very cold water - I didn't really think to be honest with you and just acted on instinct. As I made my way down the Weir, it soon dawned upon me that I was in trouble.....big time. I battled against the currents, for what seemed like an age, and I did actually resign myself to thinking that this was it, and simply didn't have anything left in me to give. Just as I was preparing to meet my maker, so to speak, the river Gods decided to spare me. Luckily Trig came through unscathed, somehow. Next thing I know, I was pinned up against a fence by the local "Old Bill" and was almost sectioned under the mental health act for trying to top myself! All this before training! The next day, Gary Peters pulled me into his office before a home game with Cheltenham. I explained to him what had happened and he seemed a little bemused, as a reporter had called him in the morning telling him one of his players had been in the river, only for him to cut her short because he thought one of the lads was winding him up as an April fools!!!
Maybe the police should have sectioned Arsene Wenger for his near mental breakdown out in Porto this week. It has been muted in the past week that, perhaps, the fourth place in The Premier League should be an end of season play-off. Let's not kid ourselves here; the reason is down purely to money. Look at how big the play-offs are in American Football, not to be confused with Soccer; it is a pure "cash cow" for the Premier League to flog. Obviously if my team, Spurs, were to be a beneficiary of the play-off's then I would be more than happy, I suppose we are all just fickle football fans at the end of the day!
PS - I'm still in the Last Man Standing competition by the way and this week have gone for Charlton!
Posted: Saturday, February 20th, 2010 @ 09:02 am by Ben Herd
Other recent news
-
Bigtips.co.uk European Championships Preview - Group A - Part 1
Welcome to the bigtips.co.uk preview of the European Championships, which start in three weeks on Friday 8th June. We’ll be giving you a rundown of the teams, group by group, starting... read more
-
Bigtips.co.uk Football Review – Mon 14th May
Man City 3 QPR 2Sunderland 0 Man Utd 1One of the greatest weekend’s of football ever saw Man City clinch the Premier League in the most dramatic fashion possible. It was Man Utd who dealt the first... read more
-
Bigtips.co.uk Football Preview – Friday 11th May
Man City v QPRThe final afternoon of Premier League football on Sunday and the title is still at stake and there are relegation and Champions League issues also on the table. The biggest game of... read more