Betting.Betfair

It's normally good to listen to the [b]experts[/b]. When you're weighing up a bet, getting the views of the men who've been there and done it themselves, or seen decades of similar contests, can help you crystallise your thoughts. So with the [b]Haye v Harrison[/b] world title fight now just three days away it seemed a good morning to check out the opinions in the papers. Surprise, surprise - four out of five experts quoted this morning give big Audley a puncher's chance or more of winning. Betfair's punters have hardened their view in the opposite direction, with [b]Haye's[/b] price trimming a fraction to 1.16, and a first round stoppage in his favour the most popular outcome at 9.5. And on their side is that the most logical assessment comes today from the last bloke who did get...

We all love a rumour. It's human nature. Ask us and we'll tell you that facts are sacred, and spreading [b]gossip[/b] without any foundation is all wrong. But then tell us something in the strictest confidence and we'll soon whisper it to the next man along the line. Back when I was at journalism college the lecturers told you never to repeat claims without first checking the facts behind them. And believe it or not newspapers still do try hard to follow those principles. But in the [b]online[/b] world there are terabytes full of wild suggestions and stories, and whole chunks of the Web that are specifically designed to pass them on. That's something which [b]Audley Harrison's[/b] people know only too well, and he's given a masterclass this week in how to turn what might be fiction...

Eamon Dumphy, ghost writer for Roy Keane's notorious autobiography, produced one of the best sporting books of all time. Called [b]Only a Game[/b], it was a diary of the 1973-4 season when he was playing for Millwall, and was the first ever honest account by a player of life inside a football club. I remember it for exposing the selfishness of the average sportsman (don't let anybody kid you that the cyncial manoeuvring by the likes of [b]Wayne Rooney[/b] is a new phenomenon). It also showed how the professionals will take whatever rules are introduced for the good of the sport, and adapt them to their own ends. There was one great tale of a training session where the coach, concerned at the lack of [b]dribbling[/b] skills, put on a game with a rule that somebody had to go past a...