It was a fair bet I'd lose - but it was fun trying...

I bet on a football match.
Now I realise I'm behind the times here, but I was genuinely surprised to read recently about the huge percentage of off-course bookmakers' profits that come not from horse racing but from football.
As regular readers will know, I'm a horse-racing man. When I walk up the road most Saturday mornings to see Mr William Hill, I do so to study the racecards on the wall and take a view on how to fund the Chinese takeaway which myself and Mrs W enjoy most Saturday nights.
Most of the customers are similarly inclined but there is always a group of lads in one corner huddled around the football coupons. A few years ago, I was one of them, until I realised that betting on the correct result of anything up to ten matches was a mug's game.
I prefer to pick two or three horses, preferably from that afternoon's televised cards, taking my chances that way. But what the newspapers dubbed 'Premiership Survival Sunday' sparked my interest - and when I bumped into four burly men in Newcastle United shirts and an Aston Villa fan on my way into town, I thought I'd have a punt on Villa v the Toon.
Correct result, first goalscorer, score at half-time, Villa with a one-goal start, last goalscorer - which was it to be? In the end, I settled on odds on 8-1 for Villa to win 2-0, which seemed a reasonable bet against a side surely destined for doom.
It did, of course, assume that Villa would rouse themselves after two months of staggering towards the finishing line but it surely wouldn't be that difficult, with Newcastle falling apart.
And I must say it made Sunday afternoon at work far more interesting. Three big-screen televisions and Final Score live on my computer (don't tell the boss...) and once Villa scored at the end of the first half (OK, Damien Duff did it for them), I thought I was on to something.
There wasn't a lot of work done in the next hour as I gazed anxiously up at the screens and down at Ray Stubbs and Garth Crooks (who is always far better with the sound turned off, don't you think?).
A Villa-supporting friend had circulated an email on Friday afternoon pointing out that it was the duty of us all to support them against Newcastle 'just so we can see thousands of fat Geordies in tears' and I was right with him now.
Newcastle were disinterested, surely Villa could walk one in and pay for a couple of Mrs W's birthday presents.
On a couple of occasions, I thought they'd done it as Stubbs took us over to Villa Park.
In the end, of course, it wasn't to be. Martin O'Neill was happy to finish sixth in the Premier League and I tore up my ticket and went back to work.
But it certainly made the afternoon more interesting and as I will be enjoying tomorrow's FA Cup final in what passes for my local these days, I'm going to have another shot.
I've explained here before (http://blogs.birminghampost.net/sport/2009/04/a-story-to-restore-my-faith-in.html)
why I'll be supporting Everton and I see from Peter Sharkey's betting column in The Post that I can get 10-1 on David Moyes' men to beat Chelsea.
That'll do for me and a win would be the perfect start to our summer holiday. I'll let you know how I handle it - but only if I win, of course.