Football

Well what a night. Aside from the two tasy wins we had, the darts was just tremendous. Phil Taylor set a new record 3-dart average, but the whole event is just awesome. I hope there were snooker people watching as the contrast between these titans of the tungsten and the bores of the baize could not be more pronounced with the World Championships starting in Sheffield tomorrow. 20 years ago, people could name half a dozen snooker players without a problem, and a quick survey in the office here showed they can still real those names off now. But that is because there were characters then - Higgins, White, Thorburn, Reardon, Werbenuik, Taylor, Thorne, even Steve Davis looked interesting compared to some of today's players. Then Stephen Hendry came along, swept all before him, and since then all bar one player have copied his dour, dull, practice focussed character and snooker has lost its appeal to the general public. The irony being that the one character left, Ronnie O'Sullivan, is the most talented player by a long way, but snooker needs more characters if it is to regain its public interest. Meanwhile, the characters of Wayne Mardle, Peter Manley, Ady Lewis, and others, allied to the party atmosphere in the crowd means darts goes from strength to strength playing bigger and bigger arenas. We'll be back again next year.

I didn't blog it here, but I did have the winner of the Craven stakes yesterday. How the second placed Raven's Pass was second favourite for the Derby I don't know, as I cant see him staying much more than this trip, and hence why I opposed him yesterday, with his three previous wins coming at 7f. A rarity for racing fans tonight - evening jumps at Cheltenham.

6.45 Cheltenham Ballyfitz 3/1 (LOST +7.82 - looked like the winner until Mobaasher came from nowhere on the run-in)
Ballyfitz has been improving all season under Nigel Twiston-Davies and showed he handled Cheltenham with his win in the Pertemps Final, staying on strongly up the hill. He then wasn't disgraced stepping up to the Grade 2 Liverpool Hurdle, finishing a 12 lengths 5th behind such luminaries as Blazing Bailey, Inglis Drever and Lough Derg. Those last two runs look to be good enough to hold anything, despite a 9lb turnaround with Mobaasher who he beat by 5.5 lengths in the Pertemps.

7.45 Burton to beat Stevenage 5/4 (WON +9.07 - tough going into the wind in the first half, but finished the job in style in the second half running out 3-0 victors)
A win tonight for either of these two teams will see them go a long way to securing a playoff place at the expense of the other team. And its Burton I expect to move 4 points clear of Stevenage with 2 games to play. Only the top 2 sides have won more home games than the Brewers this season and they have won 8 of their last 10 matches at the Pirelli Stadium. Those top tow sides, Aldershot and Torquay, have both been turned over at Burton too. A month ago Stevenage looked playoff certainties but they have since lost 4 of their last 6 games, tellingly including home defeats to other playoff hopefuls Exeter and Torquay, and are yet to take any points home from trips to other top 6 sides. Tonight is their last chance to do so, but Burton's home record means I don't see that happening.