On Sunday, just passed, I sat down to watch the CIS Cup Final between Celtic and Rangers, in the hope of witnessing an exciting, bruising encounter for which the Old Firm has become synonymous down through the years. Instead, I was served up a pretty average game disguising itself as an Old Firm Cup Final. There may be many factors as to why the players laboured so hard without much in the way of entertainment … the pitch being the main culprit (it was laid a week previously to the cup final) but in all harshness, it seems that these two warring rivals are simply just bored with playing each other too many times over a season.

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Jose Mourinho, will have slept little last night, he will have tossed and turned under his expensive Italian bedsheets wondering where did he falter down the wrong path. Now, I’m not saying, that choosing to boss Inter Milan is a wrong choice, nothing could be farther from the truth. But you do wonder what type of offer it would take, for Jose to be on the first plane out of Milan.

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You don’t really need to look far to see the detrimental effects the credit crunch is having on sport within this country and beyond. The latest victim of the financial constraints is Olympic Hurdler, Andy Turner, who was amongst a 20% cut in the number of funded athletes by the UK Athletics. Turner is obviously dissapointed by the UK Athletics decision but truth of the matter is there is less money to go around and the UK Athletics were under pressure to cull under-performing athletes from the list.

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The debacle of the ‘resignation’ of England cricket captain Kevin Pietersen and the ‘removal’ of Peter Moores as coach of the England side is yet another revelation of the amazing incompetence of the governing bodies of English sport – as if one were needed. The apparent inability of these bodies to organise a heavy drinking session in a building dedicated to the making of beer has long been apparent to your average sports betting fan. Football leads the way with the Football Associations past appointment of Steve McLaren as the England football manager, when even those citizens with the most limited knowledge of footballing matters could see that he was the least worthy option at the time.

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It has to be said that I jumped through no hoops when George Burley was appointed manager of Scotland. Now, some months after the event, I am even less ecstatic about Burley. Not once has he ever lighted the heather on fire, nor will he ever. Not as boss of Scotland anyway. A nation knows when a relationship is working. Scotland have had it previously with Walter Smith, look at Jack Charlton and The Republic, also England with Cappello. But Burley and Scotland – just feels like a shotgun marriage.

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Why can’t football fans and alcohol mix well? For over 2 generations we have witnessed images beamed from all over Europe as supporters of various football clubs and countries clash in City squares. Lives have been lost! And as always the diagnosis is too much alcohol consumed by fans. Recently, Motherwell chairman, John Boyle, has rallied for the alcohol ban at football matches, in Scotland, to be lifted calling it ‘Absurd!’

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Satellite giants BSkyB have been warned that they have to let go of their stranglehold on the Premiership TV rights and share with their rivals if they don’t want an expensive battle with the regulators. BSkyB is initially accused of keeping down competition by limiting distribution to Premiership games.

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The summer is upon us as last week we celebrated summer solstice. But what are the chances that we will also be celebrating British success this summer. We passed up on having any British representation at the Euro 2008 finals – already. Who will our hopes of British Gold rely on? Our summer online betting guide shows you potential betting events to get immersed within this summertime. But the British public need something to cheer about this summer and at free online betting we have featured our best chance of picking up some summer gold.

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It’s not really a subject for a sports betting and free bets site but I was heartened last week to listen to Gordon Brown in his speach to his fellow party members saying that he wants at least 5 hours sports per week for children in schools.

 It’s refreshing to hear somebody championing the need for sport in our schools again after moves in the 90′s to sell off school playing fields and then in the new millenium came the reduction in competition in sport. During my own school days I was was always a passionate sportsman and have experienced the highs and lows of playing in team games : football, rugby, cricket as well as the non-team game such as golf, tennis and so on. I therefore firmly believe, as do most of the country’s parents I think, that the profile of sport should increase again to a higher level.

The competitive side of sport is a contentious issue for me because while I have generally been successful in sport, there are some people who have not and have been devastated as youngsters when they have not been able to compete or even take part. But competiton is part of life and the sooner kids start to learn that, the better. It’s how they are taught to accept defeat sometimes in life, and then how they are taught to respond to it that makes them more confident and learn how to cope with it and move on.

I’m hopeful that Gordon Brown will take our sport forward in schools now. I ‘ve been worried about the pattern over the last decade and if we are to remain competitive in the major world sporting events, we need to get back more to where we were.

Some punters have the misunderstanding that betting with free bets is only for sports betting. Not so at all – don’t forget that the free bet is the customer gathering tool of the online bookmaker. These free bets can then be used on basically any market that a bookie offers.

So, if you want to join a bookmaker with a £20 free bet offer, you sign up, make your £20 deposit which is then matched. You receive your £20 free bet to add to the deposit and so you’ve got £40 worth of free bets to play with.

Now you choose a market, for example the financial betting market. You can use this £40 budget as a one-off bet in this market, or you can split this pot to divide into other markets, i.e. £10 on financials betting, £10 on something in the music betting world and a final, larger flutter on the Big Brother BettingMarket.

This way, you use your free bet to give you a larger budget for your campaign to spread your bets into different markets to give variety and perhaps even “Hedge” your bets.

Don’t let the sports betting fans have all the fun and look around our list of online betting bookies that offer these great free money bonuses for new customers when they join – and use them wisely!