Let me start this weeks column with good news and that is that I had a really enjoyable camping weekend at Buffelspoort with the family and despite only watching a single game I managed to claw back most of the previous weeks losses.

I was in pretty good spirits then when I opened my laptop for the first time in over 48 hours on Sunday night and started to browse the Goodforthegame front page and other sports websites.

In his preview of the Chelsea v Blackpool encounter Chris Sturdy labeled Chelsea -1 goal at just better than 1/1 with World of Sport (Chelsea needed to win by at least 2 clear goals). A quick sniff around other sites confirmed this was a cracking price as Chelsea were back on the fringes of the title race and I decided to have my first big football bet since I lumped on Man City v Arsenal earlier in the season only for the former to be down to 10 men after 5 minutes.

As mentioned before I am on something of a fitness drive and I settled onto the exercise bike as the match kicked off. It was a pretty sedate start but when Chelsea took the lead through a Terry header my cadence picked up albeit momentarily.

I continued to ride tempo for the remainder of the 1^st half and after surviving a couple of close shaves I began to relax as Chelsea went 3-0 in front meaning I had a 1 goal insurance buffer. Entering the final 10 minutes Chelsea were dominating and I considered hopping off the bike with the job seemingly done. I should have known better though and my pedaling style (and heartbeat) quickened furiously as Blackpool pulled one back with 5 minutes to go. My phone buzzed and I knew it was Chris who himself had thought the bet done and dusted.

“Pedal faster” his message urged and I obliged climbing out of the saddle and wiping away the sweat as Blackpool narrowly missed finding the net on two occasions. When the final whistle went I dropped through the gears and slumped in the saddle, satisfied that I had guided my bet home.

Mark that one down as winner but true to form there is no such thing as an easy win for me when it comes to football betting.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 11th of March 2011.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and presents a sports betting radio show every Thursday night from 22h00 – 22h30 on 1485AM Radio Today or Channel 169 of the DSTV Audio Bouquet and to get on his free weekly e-mail list just send a message to brent@goodforthegame.co.za titled “Best Bets”.

You can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/brentgraham or get on his mailing list by dropping him a line at brent@goodforthegame.co.za