2015/16 Hound football predictions/punt...

I understand from recent communications that I'm to organise this year's collective football predictions/punt - therefore...

My thoughts;

• last year's was a shambles!
• the odds were ludicrous and we were almost all out after the first two 'hurdles'
• this year's should be more realistic and structured so as to maximise the chances of some sort of return

 

Accordingly I suggest;

• five predictions
• each prediction to be the winner of a top domestic European league of your choice (see below for the list of all 'premier' leagues covered by Bet365)
• entirely up to the individual which league/winner they choose
• bet to be placed as a 'Super Yankee', i.e. overall bet broken down into 26 individual, smaller, bets covering each of the possible combinations of 'win'
• stake to be decided by each individual according to their means/confidence
• people can choose straightforward 'five-fold' bet if they prefer

The 'Super Yankee' option should maintain interest in our respective punts for pretty much the entire season.  Keep it as straightforward as you want - England, Scotland, Spain, Germany and France - or go as diverse as you want - Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey, Wales and Denmark. 

 

For example;

1 England - Man Utd @ 5/1

2 Spain - Real Madrid @ 13/8

3 German - Bayern Munich @ 1/10

4 Holland - Ajax @ 6/4

5 Wales - TNS @ 4/9

 

As a five fold that returns at 58.43/1 but you get one prediction wrong and you get nothing.

 

As a 'Super Yankee' at £0.10 per stake (£2.60 total outlay) it returns as follows;

Wins         Odds          £££s

1/2           14.75/1       1.57
1/3           5.60/1         0.66
1/4           13.25/1       1.42
1/5           7.66/1         0.86
2/3           1.88/1         0.28
2/4           5.23/1         0.62
2/5           2.79/1         0.37
3/4           1.61/1         0.26
3/5           0.58/1         0.15
4/5           2.43/1         0.34
1/2/3        16.32/1       1.73
1/2/4        36.40/1       3.74
1/2/5        21.75/1       2.27
1/3/4        14.67/1       1.56
1/3/5        8.53/1         0.95
1/4/5        19.58/1       2.05
2/3/4        5.85/1         0.68
2/3/5        3.17/1         0.41
2/4/5        8/1              0.90
3/4/5        2.77/1         0.37
1/2/3/4     40.14/1       4.11
1/2/3/5     24.02/1       2.50
1/2/4/5     53.03/1       5.40
1/3/4/5     21.64/1       2.26
2/3/4/5     8.90/1         0.99
1/2/3/4/5  58.43/1       5.94

 

By way of another example;

Austria - Rapid Vienna @ 7/4, Denmark - FC Copenhagen @ 7/10, Ireland -  Dundalk @ 1/6, Portugal - Benfica @ 6/4 and Turkey - Galatasaray @ 7/4 comes in at 36.49/1

 

List of 'premier' domestic leagues covered on Bet365;

England, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Russian, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey & Wales

Those who were interested could possibly choose to add a sixth variable into the mix - I would suggest the winner of Euro 2016 - but to cover all the options as per the 'Super Yankee' idea above means 57 smaller, constituent bets - giving rise to the name the 'Heinz' - meaning the minimum stake would be £0.10 x 57 = £5.70

Any questions/suggestions then comment below for a response...

 

Gone Big Hound!

4 hounds present, exhaustion of weekly of carousing budget having forced Kevster to a night of confinement chez lui waiting for the results to come in. Not sure if he was more anxious about the quiz result or West Ham's latest 'let's make it as difficult for ourselves as we possibly can' Europa League exploits.

Food/drink dingbats were a welcome change to the usual celebrity mug-shots, especially as I have to confess that all 10 were included in a much larger list that I encountered a few weeks ago in a quiz at the Village Hall. The best/corniest ones that work here were...

h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o = h to o = water
Key & T = Chianti
007 Baltic = Spy Sea = Spicy
Mother may = Ma might = Marmite

I think that you get the picture. All correct.

Full marks for the current affairs round as well, including the bombshell for me that Tesco will no longer stock Capri Suns and Ribena due to their excessive sugar content. I set out on a mission on Saturday morning to clear Purley Tesco of the last few dozen boxes that they have, who doesn't love a bit of panic buying. As Robson sagely pointed out that it seems that they will continue to stock sugar though.

A fairly routine Film & TV round followed, we failed to get the year of launch for Channel 4, and who played Stella Bridger in the remake of 'The Italian Job'. 1982 and Charlize Theron respectively.

An even more routine weather based connections round followed, although we did do well to get full points with a couple of fairly obscure answers. However, we only managed 2 of the 3 10 pointers, being unable to connect the ancient roman festival of 'Hiliario' with the modern day 'April Fool's Day'.

Second half kicked off with 10 H-commencing answers. Great shout by Steve for 'Hamish Macbeth', only setback was not getting Havering as the mostly easterly London borough. I thought that this was something that the Proclaimers did whilst yomping great distances to prove their love.

After an initial Jeopardy round period  of walking the fine line that we usually create between over-prudence and throwing caution to the wind, it gradually became clear that we were indeed 'Going Big' this week. Worth saying that no other teams even contemplated it, quite a few quite difficult questions. We took an age to establish conclusively that Prince Andrew was the royal baby dropped in 1960. It seemed that only Daren knew that the word Vinegar is derived from the French for sour wine, and I solely identified Hansen's disease as leprosy. Not to mention the round the houses way that we got to a Pony is slang for £25. 660 feet in a furlong, Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov, 4 players in a polo team, 'My Lovely Horse' as the Father Ted irish Eurovision entry, and a recognition of the real names of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, along with one other answer that is frankly scribble gave us one of our better Full Houses.

All except for a Rita Ora song were then correctly identified in the music round. Siobhan then broke one of the golden rules of announcing the scores in reverse order by stating first that one team had aced the jeopardy round. 172 scored for a 42 point winning margin, i.e. we would have won even if we had blown the jpdy round.

Good business was also discussed in the aim of getting the Hound social calendar agreed, see separate communication for details.

   

Hound Sharks Attack Quiz

Back to our spiritual home this week and only missing Daren of the regulars. Pre quizzing activities best summed up by "Bugsy Malone", "on the razz up by London Bridge", "32*" and "Birkirkara". Match the Hound to the activity, usual rules apply.

Round 1 was pictures and topically with the Open on in the background they were all golfers. Let's see if the picture thing works.

Nope so I'll talk it through. They were easy enough but all of a certain vintage, Faldo, Sevvy, Woosnam etc. Where were the players of today, the Spieths, the Watsons and the Roses? In fact, in this era of equality in sport, where was Inbee Park, Park Ji Sung, Se Ri Pak? Definitely wouldn't have got 10 there.

Next up and in place of current affairs we had two mini "pointless" style rounds. Name a 5 letter word ending in ICY or a country with a J in it, that sort of thing. Fun but probably more Moeen Ali than Mitchell Johnson so not much of a differentiator.

Third round was geograpghy, mountains, deserts, cities, oceans, lakes and rivers. Right up the alley of those Quiz Up regulars, I think we debated which continent had most tornadoes before settling on North America.

Connections and which is the main breed of Welsh corgi after Pembroke had already exhausted our knowledge stores on Welsh corgis but a few other answers gave us the connection of "Bays", 314, 309, pig, that sort of thing, and we backsolved to Cardigan. Can't beat a bit of backsolving. Still didn't get the oatmeal and treacle cake made in Yorkshire.

10 pointers and what was Louis Washansky famous for in 1967? The year was the clue but dashed if we knew it. We went for an unconvincing murder of a Kennedy. Turns out, having googled him he was the first heart transplant recipient. Didn't do the fella much good though, other than his place in history, it only bought him a few more weeks. We did speculate, given the location, whether there had been a few less documented experimental procedures. Other answers were the writers of the scouse anthem, Rogers and Hammerstein and another answer I've only got written down as "rabbit".

Refreshed by wotsits and twiglets the round after the break was G-Force with a g style connection. Haven't made a lot of notes here but Givenchy, Gandhi and Galaxy featured. Probably.

Jeopardy and the pre round note and guiding principle would be "straight bat". Where is the Serengeti, we thought more Tanzania than Kenya, who was on a £50 note, we thought Wren and what is the middle part of an insect's body, some really quite intricate diagrams led us to thorax.

Now, which ground in London other than Wembley was used in the 1966 World Cup? Without hesitation Graham plumped for White City and the only blank on our card was the number of pips in the Greenwich time signal. I thought 6 but without confidence and remembering our watchword, it stayed blank. Had we done enough?

Last two rounds, very much a blur and onto the scores. Hound 149! Sadly trumped by Lady and the Tramp 153, Busters 176 and Anoraks 178. Even a complete jeopardy wouldn't have been enough without Louis. Ah well, always next week.

Hound and Away

In an unusual turn of events, the majority of Hounds, for various reasons, could not make the usual Thursday night slot and so it was decided to revisit one of the 5 in 5 venues. Tuesday, the popular option, settled us all on the Windsor Castle in Carshalton.

Daren and myself were to get the bus from Purley station, however in this current weather of unusual clemency, the wait at the bus stop was subjected to a deluge, which can only be described as "localised" and "severe". Once onboard, like the children we are, top deck and front seats for the trip to the venue.

A pre-cursory drink at one of the finest pubs in the south east prevailed and we met with Robson at The Hope. Daren, feeling frisky, ordered a light starter of Bee Sting and Moonshine ciders for both him and Robson respectively. When I say light, that was just the colour, the ABV hitting a potentially volatile 7.5%!

Moving on to the Windsor, sense prevailed and the usual tipples went forth.

So on to the quiz itself:

A sheet of "Celebrity" pictures was thrust under our collective hooters. Much deliberation over the various obviously and vaguely familiar faces ensued. A personal regret was not to have the courage of my convictions and insist we put Heather Watson for the final picture. Which it was, by the way! As always though majority rules.

In true Wimbledon fashion, without the aid of Hawkeye, a challenge of the photo, for which the answer was given as Kelly Clarkson, ensued as G-Force shouted no fair. After a bit of Googling, everyone's best friend (hopefully post answers being revealed) ratified the quiz setters. Mumbled apologies for the challenge were barely heard.

9 from 15 - not a bad start.

First round - General Trivia

An eclectic mix of questions we knew the answer to and those we needed to give our best guess. Examples of those being "distance of Greyhound Derby", "Which country produces the largest Harvest of strawberries" and "The nearest tube stop to the British Museum".   (1)

A reasonable 9 from 15 (again) and onto:

Second round - Crackpot round which  consists of Missing links, Box clever and Guess the year

The missing links was made up of former PMs, Eurovision winners, Chinese years of.., Batman actors and French PMs. Only one missed was the year of the Ox sandwiched between Rat and Tiger.
Box Clever was to cross out 4 boxes from 9 of countries which had not hosted the Eurovision. G-Force on typical song, an ace on that.

Guess the year and I decided, given the two life references I had from the clues (year XBox introduced to US and Gladiator Best Picture) to take the lead. Toying between 2000 and 2001 and with persuasion of the rest of the team, plumped for 2001. The other clues seemed to fit that time frame so 2001 it was. Nailed the year.
14 from 15 a great round.

3rd and final round - Music

Usually a strong round from the Hound with Graham's gaps in knowledge usually being filled by the remainder of the team. An absolutely shocking lack of recognition of the "intros" played by the quiz master meaning a score of 8.5 from a possible 15.

There was a guess the exact number round based on three questions, but we were dismally short of coming close.

1st place had a good score of 61 (Last Resort) and the Hound a fairly mediocre 46.5 and 5th.

I know the scores above don't add up to that but then I'm not overly concerned.

Back to the Arms on Thursday.

(1) 480m, USA and Russell Square

Dreddy Hound

Purley Arms, Croydon
Thursday 2nd July 2015

After two successive wins with a reduced strength team a more or less fully complemented Hound gathered once again seeking the hat-trick.  Against a backdrop of some sensational tennis from the dread-locked Dustin Brown we made small talk and plotted to do to our opposition what dear old dreddy Dustin was doing to Rafael Nadal, i.e. administer a humiliating defeat.

 

@dreddytennis pictured earlier

Round 1 - Pictures - 'the eyes have it' - the ocular visages of ten famous folk ranging from Emma Bunton to Madonna via, amongst others, Bobby Robson, Tom Selleck, Phil Collins, Dolly Parton and, somewhat bizarrely, Fred West.  8/10

Round 2 - Current Affairs - included a question about the winner of the dreddy Dustin and raffish Rafa match and you can't get much more current than that...  It's traditional here to get 7/10 and the Hound is nothing if not a strict observer of tradition.  7/10

Round 3 - themed on America - fairly safe ground for the Hound but nonetheless one major blooper on America's longest river - we said the Mississippi, it isn't...*   9/10

Round 4 - connections - 10/10 here with the connection being identified after the first answer...  Gregory Peck, Lady Godiva, Barney Rubble, Vera Lynn, Hank Marvin, Ayrton Senna, Eartha Kitt, Nelson Mandela and Bob Hope - the connection is...? **

Round 5 - 3 x 10 pointers - 3/3 here - usually a good staging point in a romp to victory...

Half time - glasses recharged and cautious optimism abounding

Round 6 - the letter 'E' - 8/10 here - can't remember precisely the question but we put HME Endeavour when we should've put HMS Enterprise and we failed to guess what 'E' was measured on the Mercali Scale...***

Round 7 - Jeopardy - can't remember whether we went for this or not - I think we did but we absolutely shouldn't have done 'cos we weren't even close...  What did British roads first acquire in 1914?  How many Community Chests on a Monopoly board?  And, the name of which 1977 formed British pop group refers to a financial status?  ****

Round 8 - music - the nine answers we wrote down were correct - we didn't have a clue about one of them and, helpfully, I haven't written down what it was...  9/10

In all eight teams took part and scores ranged from 94 to 141 with the Hound bombing out to fourth place on 132 points.

Oh, and the box of chocolates question (a box of Heroes this week!) - which part of an ambulance is named after a mythical sea creature? *****

One for the road, buses, trains, epic chicken kebabs, etc...




* Missouri
** examples of rhyming slang
*** Earthquakes
**** White lines, 2 and Dire Straits (we put UB40!)
***** Siren