Roker Riches End Of Season Roundup

Season Summary

As the curtain fell on an all too forgettable Premier League season, here at Roker Report we crowned the first winner in our Roker Riches competition, Luke Bowley, with the final table looking something like this:

As you can see Luke wiped the floor with the rest of us despite joining the competition at a late stage of the season, finishing ahead of his nearest rival, my good self, by just shy of almost a whole one-hundred quid - a fantastic effort really.

Despite some ballsy bets and huge odds from the lads on the final day of the season in a desperate bid to leapfrog Luke there were to be no ridiculous winners to announce from the final series of fixtures. However there was a twist in the tale in the battle for second spot, the wooden spoon if you will. The victor in this "battle" was indeed yours truly as my punt on Spurs to win to nil clawed back enough winnings from my £10.00 stake to overtake both Craig and Karl into the runners up spot with a final total of £35.00.

An honorary mention has to go to the gaffer Simon Walsh who managed, somehow, to finish up a whole £240.54 behind our Champion - a truly sterling effort in offering our readers a great service in who to avoid from their weekend's coupon.

Discounting Simon's piss-poor performance there were some great bets over the course of the season. Dan Williams, before moving on the pastures new, gave us our first big win of the season in November when he returned a massive £93 profit from an 18/1 accumulator made up of Championship fixtures.

Karl Jones also had a nice win to compliment Sunderland's fantastic win at St. James' Park in April having had the foresight to back a Sunderland victory over their arch rivals and bring home £40.00 profit for that week. A win which gave our plucky Welshman a glimmer of hope of catching Luke at that stage, with the gap between the two down to twenty-quid.

Even Simon Walsh brought home a decent return early in the season when he predicted a draw between Sunderland and Liverpool and a return of £24.00 profit that week, a result that actually saw Walsh move into joint first place... how things changed over the course of the season!

Although the story of the season was Luke's consistent returns since his introduction to the competition, avoiding the temptation to pile his money onto quads, trebles or even doubles and remaining loyal to backing singles more often than not.

So what can we take from this year's competition...

• Backing a Sunderland game to feature under 2.5 goals is more often than not a winning bet - this was certainly my tactic on numerous occasions and brought in steady profit.
• Unsurprisingly backing Steven Fletcher to score either first or anytime was a solid, if predictable tactic, especially during his hot streak at the beginning of the season.
• Avoid multiples! Luke proved this year that the secret to prolonged success and profit is to back singles and back them well for small yet consistent returns.
• Much like Mark Lawrenson on a Friday, whatever Simon Walsh predicts back the opposite.

See you all next season for more betting picks from our hapless tipsters