99reds

My professional career was spent as a Chartered Surveyor, for 20 years, during which time I built up quite a portfolio of property. They have all been sold now, well the money just isn't in the market any more. I then spent 5 years as a Maths teacher at the local College before moving onto become Royal Mail Manager at Bradford, before retiring at 50. Certainly a varied career but the one thing that has been constant through all that time is my love of football.

I spent my early teens playing for various teams before being turned down for a professional contract at 16. I thought at that time that the world had ended but of course it hadn't.

I continued playing at an Amateur level until almost 40 and then spent 10 years as a Manager of a couple of clubs before retiring from the game at 50. So I had retired from my professional career and my football career at the same time, 50. That was 7 years ago and a lot has happened since then.

I had a lot of time on my hands and now was able to do what I had wanted to do for a long time. Could I make a living from what had become my hobby-----betting on football. Only time would tell.

I had already built up my own football ratings and stats over a number of years and now I could test them out properly. My first year of stand alone just didn't work out at all well, losing half my bank. The close season was spent assessing what had gone wrong and how could I turn it round. The next 2 years were profitable but I had only re-couped what I lost in the very first season.

The eureka moment came in season 4 when I combined my original ratings with other parameters I had built up over the previous 3 years. The combination worked and is now into its' 5th season and still going strong. I feel confident about the edge it has got and I may even market the product and/or tips next season.

I am really going to enjoy my time on LTO because what I have been doing over the last couple of years is really getting into the horse racing, where I have been blogging on another site. I have also developed a number of back and lay systems for the horses, which on the completion of 12 months live testing will be brought to market.

When I retired 7 years ago I thought this is going to be brilliant, not having to work for a living, how wrong I was. I work more now than I ever did before, spending 10 hours a day / 7 days a week in my office. OK my office is right next to my bedroom and I keep my own hours but there is nothing easy about it, the bookmakers make sure of that.