Charity Begins At Home

SoccerDude opens the creaky cupboard door, squints unenthusiastically towards the light and then, after yawning and idly scratching his balls, he tentatively climbs out the cupboard and into the daylight.

No, this is not me "coming out of the closet", but with the Charity Shield on tomorrow (whoops, it's late. I mean today), it's time for me to brush myself down and get back to some football trading after locking myself away from any real betting for a couple of months now. Afterall, that's what this blog is supposed to be about.

I have to say, I've thoroughly enjoyed my time off from trading. Yesterday, I took my wife and kids up to London and we spent a great day up there soaking-up the Olympic atmosphere and generally having a lovely time. We were all completely exhausted when we finally got home, but it was superb.

Everyone is so happy and positive with the Olympics on, and it's a great vibe all over London. I also like it compared to the World Cup, because not every last company is a "the official sponsor of the Olympics". With the World Cup, we had the official chocolate bar of the World Cup, the official breakfast cereal of the World Cup and the official deep pan fryer of the World Cup. With the Olympics having much stricter rules and controls we have happily escaped all that nonsense.

          "Anusol, the offical hemorrhoid cream of the Olympic Games."

Hmm, presumably for those Olympic-sized hemorrhoids.

Okay, I'm wandering away from my remit again. Apologies. Yes, it's the Charity Shield tomorrow and I will be trading it. As I feel somewhat rusty after my self-imposed betting layoff, I will be taking it steady, but I fully expect some kind of profit. I will report how I get on after the match.

Most people seem to expect the Charity Shield will be a draw, but since 1990, only eight matches have ended full-time as a draw, with the remaining 14 matches seeing a positive result inside 90 minutes. The last three years have seen a surfeit of goals too, so perhaps it's a chance for the top teams to spread their wings, unencumbered by any real expectations or any real dangers (a loss in the Charity Shield doesn't really "matter", so to speak). In that time, there have also only been two 0-0 scorelines, the most recent when Man Utd played Portsmouth, who may have played more defensively than most teams tend to do.

Anyway, I have no real clue about scores, but I wouldn't be surprised if a goal or two was banged in later today, and I will be trading with that in mind. The beauty of trading, of course, is that it doesn't really matter whether the goals go in or not. Trading is not guessing. It's simply taking a position for a defined period of time.

For all those football traders out there, I wish you all good luck for the forthcoming season.