Thank you everyone for sticking with me!

It's been a while since my last post - I've been on holiday, returned really chilled out and full of good intentions! Holidays are a time for relaxation and reflection, for re-charging the batteries and re-focusing the mind. I came back fully intending to give up smoking, start a proper exercise regime and keep my blog bang up to date. You can probably deduce how successful the other two 'resolutions' were by the fact that this is my first blog post since before I went away - and I've been back for 9 days!

Quite a few people have asked me whether I had quit the blog and I must admit to being quite surprised by how many people were asking me to carry on, saying they enjoyed reading it! My attack of 'couldn't-be-bothered-itis' suddenly made me feel a bit...guilty! So, a big thanks to all who've stuck with the old blog - hopefully I'll keep it more up to date now I've recovered from writer's cramp!

The picture below shows where I am to date - helped massively by last night's trades - detailed below:

On the back of my most profitable single trading session (bar the fortuitous Man U lay a few weeks ago)  last night when I made £248 I was cajoled and bullied into posting again! So, Razor, Lamb, Dak and co - you know who you are - I've brought the blog up to date!

Last night was sensational in all respects - I couldn't have planned it any better! My old favourite the 1-1, 1-2 and 2-1 has now been dubbed the 'Scatter Gun' and was employed to devastating effect in the AC v Real tie - a perfect game for that strategy - enhanced significantly by a back of 2-2 at 18.5 pre-match! How valuable was that last minute goal for the Special One? Quite a lot, I suspect, but for me it turned a £25 green across all scores into a £80 odd green! The stakes? The princely sum of £15!

I had looked at laying Arsenal, but to my mind laying a quality side like them at 3.4 pre-match, even with a weakened team, seemed a tad.... dangerous! I was, however, more than happy to lay them after Walcott scored that great breakaway goal! Green by half time, although I did re-invest some of that by laying Shaktar at 1.17 in the dying minutes as Arsenal sought the elusive equaliser, thus diminishing my profit a bit.

A similar story in France, Auxerre going 1-0 up at home to Ajax. Razor (trading football chat stalwart) suggested the game was all Ajax so I laid Auxerre and was able to green up when the Dutch team equalised. I was being greedy, waiting for the draw odds to slip below 1.4 when Auxerre re-took the lead, so the sensible lay of the draw eluded me in that game but still a healthy profit!

Then we come to Chelsea - my team! I've a Blue since the 1970 FA Cup final - which I watched with my late uncle - a lifelong Blue - the heady times of Peter Bonnetti, Ron 'Chopper' Harris and Peter Osgood - those were the days! Any way, after a dire goalless first half, during which Spartak threatened more than Chelsea I laid 0-0 at 7.2 for £10 and put 2 quid on Any Unquoted at 8.9. I also laid Any Unquoted on the Correct Score 2 market at 1.07 for £100 - a liability of £7! I don't know what Mr Ancelotti said, or in which language he said it, but after the half-time team talk Chelsea ran out 4-1 winners ... paydirt!

I'll do a little write-up with my thoughts on the trading possibilities offered by Any Unquoted if people are interested? It's a score I dabble with quite frequently in lots of different ways and is an interesting phenomenon.