I've never been much of a gambling man. I enjoy the occasional night at the casino, but will never spend more than a pre-decided (low) figure which I'm happy enough to see disappear. I do stick the odd pound/dollar down on football matches and rarely get anything back besides a correct first goalscorer here or there, and when the Grand National or Melbourne Cup roll around, there is absolutely no science to my chosen horse. You'll be able to spot my pick by the way, he's the one who fails to emerge from the gate thing. Every time.
I know some people who have become borderline addicts, including a bloke who had to ask a loyal friend to reset his online password so that he could no longer access his betting account. Also I had some mates back in the first going out to pub's days who would waste an absolute fortune on fruit machines, when the rest of us were having a laugh, trying and failing with girls and generally enjoying the night out. I've seen the desperation in casino's from Southampton to Cape Town to Vegas - far from the James Bond Monte Carlo glamour, too often you see people spending money you can't help but think they really should be putting to better use.
The thing is, my aversion to betting is not to do with either of the above. I don't think I am particularly lucky, but that's fine - you pays your money, you takes your chances. I do think gambling can destroy lives, but so can alcohol and I drink more than enough to put me firmly in the hypocrite box for taking any kind of moral high ground there. My major beef with gambling, and I'm talking specifically on football here, is the way it changes your true feelings.
When Southampton were in the Premier League (ahh, the glory years, soon may they return) I had a vested interest in practically every game. You want teams around you to drop points, take points off rivals or do you a favour. By April it was frequently the case that other results around the league could be just as important as the final score from the Dell. This is of course true for any fan of any club - never does a team go through a campaign winning every game, so you will always have one eye on the results around you. Indeed only last week, Southampton's excellent 4-0 win was made all the better with the fact that the teams below us all seemed to drop points. Since August 2005 however, I've had no real reason to care in that sense about the results from the Premier League. They were of no consequence to my team and so I was able to watch truly as a neutral.
'Neutral' is something of a misnomer in my opinion, as in any game you will always have one team that you favour - sometimes at the outset of a match I don't know who that will be, but events take their course and I find myself rooting for one over the other. Other times I know full well who I'd rather see win a game, maybe because they have a player I like or are just a club that I would rather see do well than struggle, or vice versa. It's always pure though.
At the moment I'm involved in a competition called Last Man Standing - I'm sure you know the format but for those wondering: since the start of the season, each week you pick a Premier League team to win their match. If they win, you go through - but can't pick them again. If they draw or lose, home time douche bag. I've been lucky/inspired enough to correctly pick winners right the way through and am now towards the business end of the competition; most of us have played the big teams and are now reduced to hoping the right version of Norwich or Stoke or QPR turns up and does their job. What I have found - and hence this post - is that it has begun to interfere with my true, pure feelings about results across the league. Best case scenario for a competition like this is you pick a team that few others do, they win, and the other games all end in draws or shock unlikely wins. Last time out I knew no-one would have fallen due to the predictable and expected nature of the results, with nary a draw among them. I was annoyed, but then should I have been? I like Fulham so good on them for getting a 6-0 win, but I couldn't help think...hmm, a draw there would have knocked off a few.
It's the same with accumulators, countless times I've been in the pub watching Jeff and the boys regale us with the haps around the country, and witnessed the fury/despair of mates when a late equaliser ruins a scorecast and snatches back all the money and glory you almost had. Even, and this is probably where I need to lighten up and get real with it, I feel the same about Fantasy Football. I don't play fantasy football, I'm an abstainer almost like a conshie from World War One although far less politically motivated and probably far more cowardly and pathetic. (I can hardly move for white feathers). When a hated player pops up with a goal against a plucky underdog - say for example John Terry nodding in a late winner to give Chelsea a win over Swansea to use a purely hypothetical example, then as neutrals we should all feel disappointed, annoyed, even murderous with rage and hate. Then someone cheers... because 'JT's in my Dream Team'.
That is just wrong. It's not pure. It doesn't matter if the Rock wants to go get diamond rings or not, you're letting some ulterior motive cloud your true feelings.
I of course want to win the Last Man Standing competition - having got this far then the money starts to become almost tangible and the glory even more so. But there will be a big part of me relieved when, one way or the other, it's over and I can go back to just watching the games without any evil external factors whispering in my ear.
What do you reckon? You may think I'm alone here, way off the mark, missing the point and getting too righteous about it all. I know most of you reading this will probably have a Dream Team going and probably an accumulator from time to time to. So, are you pure...?
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