Roker Riches: New start 2020/21 - RR Readers, do you fancy taking on the panel?!

New season, new format...

Yeah we know, it was another “Jack Ross” special against Bristol Rovers last weekend, and yes we know we are a week late kicking this off...but now and again, everything needs to change. A change is as good as a rest, and we can’t rest up our SAFC loyalty, so here goes.

In the spirit of the winds of change we really want to see in the team performances this season, we thought we would mix the Roker Riches game up a bit too.

Ian Horrocks/Getty Images

How will it work this season?

Starting from Saturday 18th September, the following format will be our routine every weekend.

• Every week, each member of the “Roker Riches” team will be asked for their bets for the upcoming weekend. There will be a standard of 2 bets per weekend:

a) A £5 bet on the Sunderland game, forecasting the outcome of their choice, and citing the odds quoted on the main commercial betting website of their choice.

b) A second fiver wager on any bet the RR team member fancies, from Saturday or Sunday fixtures in any league.

• In parallel, Roker Riches Twitter liaison officer (Paul Fletcher, AKA “PJ”) will each week invite RR readers to propose a couple of weekend fiver bets to our Twitter account, on behalf of the RR readers and our followers.
• The Riches team will accept and publish a selected pair of bets from Twitter every week (with Twitter handles) alongside the bets of the Riches guys, and with the odds that apply for all.
• When results roll in, the Roker Riches admin bloke (Malc Dugdale) will work out how rubbish we all are at forecasting outcomes of football games rather than commenting on them.
• Oh, and we also see how good we are against a random selection of reader/follower bets.

So what is at stake?

Like the tactics of a certain Mr Parkinson, this isn’t totally clear right now, other than bragging rights and banter of course. Proposal is the RR team will come up with a penalty for the worst RR team member... we are not sure what that is yet, but if we ever get to a live game together, a real round of ales for the rest of the team may be the best option.

Penalties for the biggest loser to be confirmed around Xmas...

The Rolling Table

Results will be published each week with the bets for the following week, in a new shiny red and white table, as follows:

Results table Week #0: Season 2020-2021

Banker’s Bonus...

On occasions, Bankers Bonus options will be awarded to all punters, which will simply convert the weekly bets from 2 to 3.

Don’t worry, PJ will ask for these in the Tweet when this applies.

So what happens if people forget?

Any Roker Riches player who forgets to get their bets to the page owners in time (Malc D/PJ) will be deducted £20 from their total, namely double what they would have placed (and likely lost). Much like on the pitch, a lack of commitment to the cause will not be tolerated.

What happens next?

Look out for the Tweet with the hashtag #RokerRiches2021, and get your bets in by no later than 5pm on Thursday each week, and you may well become part of the “Riches Readers” team.

Good luck to all participants, to the Roker Riches team, and to SAFC for the rest of the season.