Four leagues, four champions, four juicy odds winners.
The new football season is an exciting time for fans of the beautiful game, with the machinations of the summer transfer window followed by bullish optimism or downtrodden gloom on the part of club supporters… there’s rarely any middle-ground between those two standpoints.
For punters, the outright markets can also be a treasure trove of value… even if things don’t always go according to plan. How many would have had Manchester City to win the Premier League title in their accas?
One William Hill punter got straight to the point in their pre-season predictions. They placed a £30 four-fold on a quartet of teams to win their respective divisions… and then had to wait until the 91st minute of the final game, some nine months after the bet was struck, to find out if they were a winner or not.
Spoiler alert: Leeds’ late goal at Plymouth on the final day of the Championship campaign would have pleased them just as much as it did fans of the Yorkshire outfit…
Fantastic Four
After a summer of transfer activity back in 2024, our punter’s mind was made up: they picked out four teams that they expected to be crowned champions come May 2025.
- Leeds United to Win the Championship – 11/4
- Birmingham City to Win League One – 13/8
- Doncaster Rovers to Win League Two – 8/1
- Barnet to Win the National League – 7/2
- £30 at 398/1 to win £11,960
When Barnet lost their first game of the campaign back in August, it wouldn’t have filled the William Hill customer with optimism of the season ahead.
In fact, the Bees lost two of their opening five games, which put an early dent in their title aspirations, although a 7-0 trouncing of Tamworth to round out August got the show back on the road.
After a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Gateshead, the London club then went on a superb run, winning six league games on the spin – four of them by a margin of two goals or more.
A blip in October was followed by a run of solidity that saw Barnet go unbeaten in the league in November and December; slowly but surely, they were grinding their way into the title picture.
Form in February and March would prove to be the difference-maker. The Bees won nine games in a row, scoring 24 goals and keeping six clean sheets, and while York City were keeping close order at the top of the National League, it was Barnet that forged ahead and confirmed their title win with a game to spare.
As for Birmingham City, well, you probably know what happened there. Acquired by a consortium of wealthy American entrepreneurs, the Blues forked out £30 million on new players – unheard of at League One level, before unsurprisingly romping to the title with a mammoth 111 points… an all-time record for the division.
Leaving It Late
While the league wins of Birmingham City and Barnet were straight forward enough, our outright punter was made to sweat on their other two selections.
League Two’s denouement was as chaotic as you might expect from a division that, at one time or another, has had half-a-dozen or more leaders at various times this term.
Heading into the final round of action, two teams could still mathematically lift the trophy: Doncaster Rovers and Port Vale. Arguably, the Valiants were the favourites despite trailing Donny by a single point – they were at home against Gillingham on the final day of the season, whereas the league leaders had a tough trip to Notts County to navigate.
But logic went out the window as Port Vale froze on home soil, going down 0-1 to the Gills, while Donny rose to the occasion in their local-ish derby in Nottingham – Robert Street’s double putting Grant McCann’s side 2-0 up after half-an-hour; supremacy they would not relinquish despite Alassana Jatta pulling one back late on for Notts County.
As for Leeds, they were locked in an almighty battle with Burnley for the Championship trophy. Both were on 97 points heading into the final day, but both would go a goal down to Millwall and Plymouth.
Burnley rallied, equalising just two minutes later through Josh Brownhill, before pulling away with goals from Jaidon Anthony and Brownhill’s second of the day.
And so the Clarets were champions, with Leeds drawing 1-1 against Plymouth, and our punter’s nine-month long wait for a win was in vain.
Or was it?
As Leeds poured forward looking for the winner, the ball found its way to Manor Solomon, who jinked and weaved his way into the Plymouth box before curling home a 91st minute pearler.
Cue pandemonium in the away end – limbs, as they say – and no doubt too in the home of our punter, who only had a few more minutes to hope and pray that Plymouth wouldn’t find an equaliser.
They did not… and the William Hill customer trousered nearly £12,000 for the privilege.