McCrushkin: Degenerate Gambler!

He does this every Saturday. He picks three home teams to win and bets with a combination of three doubles and one treble, twenty quid in total. This weekend, he decided to go for Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Gillingham - he told me that it took him one and a half hours to come to the above conclusion (although it wasn't exactly conclusive as he was uhm-ing and ah-ing about Gillingham). My gut instinct went with the Villa prediction but laughed at Palace and Gillingham's chances. Let's look at this closer.
*
O'Niell has the suss to win against Spurs' current form.
*
However, with Cardiff at the top of the league and on a great run, it wouldn't have mattered one iota wether they'd have to travel far to a ground that has recently been united with it's club (thereby giving the home supporters extra reason to cheer on Palace's players triumphantly). Recent rumours of dissent amongst certain players with their manager have shown that all is not well at Selhurst Park. Prior to the game, I thought that it would be a draw, or worse still, a defeat for Peter Taylor's men.
*
Gillingham were at home to Nottingham Forest (current league One leaders) and I did not see much hope for a team that had a shop window manequin masquerading as their goal keeper. It would be a definate win for Forest.
*
I bid McCrushkin farewell and all the best for his chances and then I proceeded towards the nearest greasy spoon. I greedily took in all the information that the betting pages in a well known tabloid newspaper had to offer, and I read that Cardiff City's Micheal Chopra was doing rather well as their new striker. I knew Gillingham's goalie was shit, as Palace had off-loaded him to get some more experience in the lower league (after all, his near-motionless moves against Boavista in a recent pre-season friendly made him a laughing stock around the terraces).
*
But then I started thinking...what if this was the end of a winning streak for Cardiff and Forest? Taylor had come out to say that recent 'troubles' had been sorted, and even though Gillingham had conceded a few goals of late, the bookies prices were tempting to the eye. In fact, McCrushkin stood to pocket a hundred and forty-five knicker if things went his way. Even I thought it was a possibility when I looked at the financial potential. After all, anything can happen in football.
*
I threw down the last mouthfulls of tea down the back of my throat and walked the twenty paces to a conveniently placed book keeper located nearby.
*
A few hours later, I found myself in confident mood in block V of the Arthur Waite stand. Perhaps I was just kidding myself, but I put my real gut feelings to one side and focussed on the more positive whimsy that overcame me earlier when I placed the bet.
*
Listening to BBC London on the way home, I discovered the over all results were;
Aston Villa 1, Spurs 1
Palace 1, Cardiff 2
Gillingham 0, Forest 1.
*
Billy Hill drank our scores. He never even thanked us for the pleasure. As Dudley Moore once truthfully said; "They're all cunts out there!".