188Bet’s Play on the Pitch

There are sometimes when the life of a freelance sports writer isn’t as glamorous as it sounds, other times it is every bit as much, and more…

Team 3 in all its glory.

When the phone rang at The Betting Blog towers and we saw it was from a 188Bet representative we though about ignoring it, presuming they were calling to ask that we stop tipping so many winners in our ‘Bet of the Day’ section. When they persisted we decided to answer the call and were pleasantly surprised to find that they were in fact calling to invite us down to Stamford Bridge to join some competition winners for 188Bet’s Play on the Pitch morning.

With the promise of Terry Venables being in attendance we, of course, accepted the invitation and went straight to the Easyjet website (other low cost airlines are available) to book flights from Edinburgh to London.

So, as a Sunderland fan, I set off to Stamford Bridge in an attempt to repeat Nedum Onuoha’s mazy run that set us on our way to a memorable 3-0 win over Chelsea earlier this season. Needless to say, things didn’t quite work out that way.

Paired with a random selection of 188Bet competition winners and fellow media representatives, and spurred on by El Tel’s original and inspiring “let the ball do the work” team talk, the famous Team 3 certainly played the better football over the course of the morning. However, three consecutive draws meant that we had everything to do in our final game. We got things together just in the nick of time and recorded a 3-0 win to go joint top (on points and goal difference) with the effective, but uneasy on the eye, Team 2.

And so a penalty shootout would separate these two giants of 188Bet’s Play on the Pitch event. It looked as though we would cruise to the victory that our expansive and attractive style of football deserved when our keeper saved the first two penalties. But it wasn’t to be. The referee deemed that our keeper had moved off his line and asked for the second penalty to be retaken, needless to say, the FA’s Respect campaign was pushed to its limits amongst the Team 3 ranks.

Replays appeared to vindicate Team 3's sense of injustice.

That decision proved to be the turning point and Team 2 went on to win in sudden death and seal the glory of a medal presentation from El Tel.

A swift pint and a Frankie’s Cheeseburger helped lift spirits and its fair to say that, despite the gut-wrenching result, a good day was had by all. I may not have recreated Onuoha’s wonder-goal that essentially derailed Chelsea’s title challenge this season but I did become the fourth person to put the ball in the back of the Stamford Bridge net wearing a Sunderland shirt this season. For that, thanks go to 188Bet.

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