So, corruption in football rears its ugly head again, will it reach down to our level? I don't think so, surely even the mad keen gamblers of Hong Kong and Shanghai wouldn't want to cast a spell over the honest endeavours of the doughty battlers around Durham and Northumberland? Surely there aren't many in the opium dens of Happy Valley studying the Northern League fixtures and offering the view that Aycliffe at Dunston looks like a good draw? Maybe there are, maybe there are. But, even if they did fancy a bit of an asian handicap, could our lads manage to follow instructions? I doubt it again, not their strong point by and large. Marking up at corners is tough enough, if they had to not mark up at corners, but look as if they were, I reckon most of their brains would explode. So I think we can go on trusting that it's cock up not conspiracy we are watching.
Back in the day of course matters, or so I am told, were very different, with regular suspicious results passing through across all levels, ending in the mid-sixties trial of assorted Sheffield Wednesday players for throwing a game, a trial and scandal which ended the fixed odds betting on football for many years, until the bookmakers got their way again, as they always do.
And it was clear this was only the tip of the proverbial as they say, with many a game looking dubious in retrospect. There is a famous, although I'm sure fictional, story of a local, very local, professional team of the fifties who needed a point in the last match of the season to stay up away from home, and such a result was agreed upon in advance. The dozy buggers of both sides then played out a dreary goalless fiasco for 89 minutes, before a hopeful aimless punt forward was met by a slipping goalkeeper, and an accidental and very much not desired goal ensued. Panic all round, particularly as the players of both sides had invested heavily in the draw. The home side then stood like statues at the following kick off, allowing their goalkeeper to punch the ball firmly into his own net, as the ref was raising the whistle to his lips. Relief followed, but only until the lads realised the bet was 0-0, not 1-1. Oh dear me, what a mistake to make...