thurnscoethunder

The December forumite of the month is thurnscoethunder …

1. Tell us a little about yourself, how did you get into betting and what are your other interests?

I am 34 and live with my wife and daughter in Doncaster, although we plan be relocate to Scotland once we can find a suitably quiet area.

I was pretty lucky and managed to build up a betting bank from basically nothing which culminated in finishing work in July2001 to try my hand full time punting

I have gambled since about the age of 7,when my Dad used to put me on a 5p each way double out of my pocket money.

My interests outside of gambling are spending time with my family, watching Huddersfield Town and watching/visiting my greyhound Poppy (who is the offspring of our syndicate greyhound Betfair Dot Com). Although she is currently in season after a lengthy injury.

2. When and why did you join Betfair and if you could improve one aspect of the site what would it be?

I joined Betfair on the 25th November 2000 after stumbling across the site by accident.

Betfair opened up a new avenue for my betting, I now had a chance to take on a horse I didn’t fancy without having to pin point the winner.

I couldn’t really improve the site, I have seen it adapt in many forms since its inception, and the designers are well in front of my thinking.

3. You’re something of a forum “name” in more ways than one! Why do you think people respect your opinions and why “thurnscoethunder”?

The last part is pretty simple but plain to be honest.

I come from a small Yorkshire village 'Thurnscoe', and at the time of joining Betfair we were in the middle of a storm.

I just put the two together.

I must admit, I wish I had pulled one of the more witty ones out of the bag which appeared in the early days.

I‘ve used the forum since day one. Initially I used it to direct people to bets I wished to have matched when the liquidity was a fraction of what it is now.

Also I had many great debates on serious matters.

Over the years it seems to have got a lot more light hearted, and being at home trying to make a living on here is pretty stressful, so I now use it to have a laugh but still use it for more serious matters when and if the occasion arises.

I would say a lot of people may have respected my opinions in the past, maybe because I have been around for a long time frequently posting and running various forum competitions. However in my mind my opinion is only as valid as the next man, and I know there are a lot more knowledgeable users out there than myself.

4. Following England’s dramatic win against the Argentineans the press have been touting Sven’s boys as possible World Cup winners. Do you think we’ll all be dancing in the fountains at Trafalgar Square come July?

No. A chance obviously but I would be amazed if we didn’t come unstuck at some point.

For long periods we were outplayed by Argentina, as we will be by teams whose players simply are more technically gifted than ours. We just can’t retain the ball as well as our counterparts.

I do think however that where the majority of these more technically gifted teams fail is their lack of goal prowess. They hold the ball for 60% of the game but create limited shots on target.

I was really impressed with England’s midfield and forward play when we broke out of our own half and no one will want to face us, however I think our defence is a weak link, and I just don’t see us holding out a top class team. Therefore the onus is always going to be on England to score at least 2 if we are not to be in for the dreaded penalties.

5. Apparently the Premiership is over, do you believe Chelsea can be caught?

No in my mind it’s over. Chelsea are too strong at the moment.

We all know there are only two teams in Arsenal and Man Utd who could currently beat them over the course of a season but they had to get off to fast starts, and that just hasn’t happened. 

The defence is amazing at this level, although I still believe they should strengthen upfront to succeed in Europe, Drogba is good and seems to work for them, but a team who are trying to be the best in the World should have a better line up than Drogba and Crespo. 

6. Last month we published stats showing that if you consistently backed Bolton and Charlton home and away over the past 3 seasons you would’ve made a considerable profit. Conversely, if you’d used the same strategy backing Newcastle or Liverpool you’d have made heavy losses over the same period. Why do you think that is?

It’s all down to reputation and expectation for me. Bookmakers in my mind know the average punter will always underestimate the smaller clubs, and overestimate the bigger ones, simply down to the fact that we haven’t grown up with these teams as household names.

Look back at the seventies and eighties and Liverpool ruled not only England but Europe. Newcastle were Premiership challengers in the nineties, and both teams are expected with their squads to be top 5 material and challengers for European places. They always seem to be priced up more on reputation than ability and form. I think that when it comes to the crunch punters in general find it harder to take a big team on, the bookies know this and their odds are shorter than they should be, because they don’t need to suck us in.

The smaller clubs are always expected to fall at some point, and punters are just waiting for the bubble to burst.

At the end of the day when their league records end up similar, its pretty obvious the level stake profit is going to be with the underrated and higher priced outfits.

7. Do you ever get involved with betting in-play? And do you have any stories of getting out of jail or a win you’d like to share?

I have mainly been an in-play punter since Betfair incorporated it into their horse racing markets back in Oct/Nov 2001, and would estimate around 95% of my business is done that way.

In five years on Betfair I obviously have loads of getting out of jail stories as well as horror ones.

I remember I had just had an horrendous afternoon a few years ago on the horses and was thinking about how to try and recover when I noticed Ronnie O' Sullivan was leading 4-2 and at the table in a best of 9 match near to closing out the game. I laid him for a large sum at very small odds, thinking it was almost inevitable I would lose the money but on top of what I had done already it would hardly be noticeable. He just went off the boil and lost 5-4. The recovery was complete, not a proud moment as I hate chasing in any form although I do it from time to time as we nearly all do.

Horror ones are the best though.

Anyone who bets in-play will know how manic its gets looking from monitor to TV and I remember laying what I thought to be J R Stevenson at Newmarket in-play for a large liability at combined odds of over 40/1 believing it to be the horse on the outside of the field, only to watch in horror as fifty yards from the line a horse appeared on the rails which had been totally obscured in very similar colours to the one I thought I had laid. J R shot me down.