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THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE is an extract from Gambling For Life by Harry Findlay.
No one knew what to say. Most couldn’t speak anyway.
The drinking had long since stopped. Half-empty glasses stacked up. Harry Findlay was too busy screaming for the All Blacks to go for a last-ditch drop goal to notice exactly what his pals in the corporate box at the Millennium Stadium were doing.
Nearing the bitter end of the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarterfinal in Cardiff between New Zealand (upon whom Harry doted) and France (not the opposition he had been expecting to see at that stage), it was clear that the £2.5 million he had wagered on the All Blacks had gone.
Paul Barber, a Somerset dairy farmer, co-owner with Harry of a very special horse called Denman and one of the invitees for the night, had seen a lot in his life but struggled to relate to the atmosphere in the glass-fronted area that isolated the Findlay party from the rest of the world.
“For months before the match, all we heard about was this great gamble of Harry’s. As the match wore on, you could just tell the French were going to beat them,” Barber said. “I’d never seen a sight like it – grown men so distraught. Some of them were crying! We dispersed very quickly at the end. I couldn’t take it any longer.”
The final shocking score was France 20, New Zealand 18.
Harry had done his bollocks and, as a consequence, had brought a lot of people down with him. “It was the sort of atmosphere you had to escape from,” he admitted.
“If I’d been an innocent bystander, I’d have wanted no part of it either.”
Harry, as usual, felt more for all those he had persuaded to part with their cash on the All Blacks than he did for himself.
Everyone in the company had sacrificed a lot of money – the shock was palpable. But Harry’s loss absolutely dwarfed anyone else’s.
His whole life had been shaped by the need to bet, and here he was, at 45 years of age, knowing that the largest sum he had placed on the outcome of a single sporting event was in someone else’s pocket rather than his. More than half of his entire worth had been obliterated.
Regardless of the manner by which the mighty New Zealanders had fallen foul of the flaky French (the conclusive try was shaped by an illegal forward pass), Harry was suffering.
How could anyone, even someone as unrelentingly positive as Harry Findlay, possibly recover from such a catastrophic blow?
“I was asked dozens of times in the aftermath what was it like to lose £2 million on a rugby match,” Harry said, “but it was difficult to explain. I remembered many times when defeat was harder from both a mental and personal finance point of view. This was a different kind of pain, and with it the general numbing realisation that I’d cost a lot of other people money as well.”
A gambler attracted polar opposite characters, with very little fudging in the margins. Harry knew them as ‘the funkers’ and ‘the begrudgers’.
“The funkers wanted you to win; the begrudgers hoped you’d lose. A or B, simple as that,” he said.
“Charlie, who helped look after our garden when we lived in Bath, was a funker.”
Charlie the gardener – Harry never did know his surname – tended the sprawling Rowas Lodge landscape a couple of times a month, trimming the lawn and shaping the trees before popping into Harry’s office for a cup of tea and the latest gambling gossip.
Invariably, talk would turn to the bets of the moment, and if the discussion centred on a horse, Charlie said he would follow it with interest, though mostly with support more moral than financial.
“Now and again I said: ‘Charlie, this is a nap, have £20 or £30 on,’ and he would, but in general he was happy enough just cheering them on for me,” Harry said. “Bath is one of
the few towns in England where a pub is more likely to show rugby union rather than football, and like most men in the area, Charlie knew his rugby union.
“When I kept harping on about what absolute moral certainties the All Blacks were to win the 2007 World Cup, he didn’t disagree, and, like me, he was a fully paid-up member
of the Dan Carter fan club. Carter was the best fly-half in the world — we all knew it.
“About a week before the tournament began, Charlie asked what were the best odds available on the All Blacks. I said that the Corals price of 4/7 was the way to go. I thought no more of it until I walked into my office the following morning and found a big frozen ice-cream tub on my desk.
“There was no mint choc chip inside, just £28,000 in ice-cold cash. After my missus, Kay, drove me into town as quick as shecould, I swapped it for a betting slip, which was Charlie’s voucher for his £28,000 to win £16,000 on the unbeatable All Blacks.”
Eamonn Willmott woke on the day of the match and was gripped by a sensation of nausea. “I was going to go to Cardiff but I had a weird feeling about the day – as if something not good was going to happen,” said the man who first introduced a 13-year- old Harry to the rudiments of gambling.
“I decided to pull out of the trip. All of Harry’s winnings over the past year had just been doubled up. He’d win 50 grand on a horse, then another, and it would go straight on the All Blacks.”
On the train from Bath to Cardiff, Harry was doing what he did every day, on his mobile betting the horses as the journey unfolded. There was nothing different in his demeanour, he was the usual upbeat, confident Harry.
New Zealand were rugby union’s unstoppable force in 2007. Every reliable signpost acknowledged the likelihood of a blackshirted romp through the World Cup. They possessed in Carter the world’s pre-eminent player, a fly-half of consummate handling skills who had radar in his boots, especially when it came to kicking goals.
Very few punters were backing against New Zealand taking the cup home, but when it came to supporting them with hard cash, no one was more convinced of their tournament-winning potential nor endorsing that judgment as extravagantly as Harry.
“In 2003, I had a hefty bet on them to win the tournament, but I was far from all-in,” he said. “I was a bit of a Carlos Spencer fan, the fly-half before Carter. He was brilliant, an
extrovert performer.
“I likened him to Titus Bramble, the old Newcastle United centre-half. He was a decent player was Titus, but whenever you watched him defend, you knew it was only a matter of time before he’d commit some reckless act. Spencer was the same, an improviser.
“It was 0-0 in the 2003 semi-final against Australia, he had the ball and wanted to do something clever, so he threw an arrow pass crossfield on his own 20-metre line. With New Zealand on top in the early stages, you couldn’t have had imagined a worse
time to take such a liberty.
“Stirling Mortlock made the easiest of interceptions and suddenly the Aussies were 7-0 up. It quite simply changed the tempo of the game, put the All Blacks on the back foot and the Aussies ran out winners, 22-10.”
The first time Harry set eyes on Dan Carter was when he made his debut against Wales in June 2003. The kid scored 20 points and was a real revelation.
“He played a bit in the 2003 World Cup, but by the time the 2007 event came around, he was like the rest of the team, just about unplayable,” Harry said. “The fly-half position seemed even more pivotal in those days. He was the kicker and hardly ever missed.
I watched a lovely documentary with his modest father, Neville, stood next to the goalposts he’d erected in the garden of the family home in Southbridge. He said that wherever he placed the ball, Dan would make the kick, and talked about just how much his son had practised over the years.
“In the two years leading up to the 2007 finals themselves, I thought the All Blacks were brilliant and timing their challenge to perfection. I also knew their coach Graham Henry wouldn’t leave a stone unturned in his quest for the Holy Grail.
“Over that period of time, I effectively used the All Blacks via Betfair as a high-profit bank account. They may have been 4/7 when the competition started, but I’d managed to have £2.5 million at the average price of 1.78 [just under 4/5]. It was the bet of a lifetime and, for sure, financially it would have put me in a very strong position. To be honest, as much as for the money, I was looking forward to the buzz of cheering them home.”
Gambling For Life by Harry Findlay is published by Trinity Mirror Sports Media. More info here.
The42 has just published its first book, Behind The Lines, a collection of some of the year’s best sports stories. Pick up your copy in Eason’s, or order it here today (€10):
This extract was originally posted on the42.ie
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Keegan is a nightmare, has his own agenda, tried to leave a legacy in Dun Laoighre / Rathdown in the shape of a unwanted new library building, he battered the local economy there, was a big party when he left for DCC. He is also trying to ruin ambulance service in Dublin, to save a few quid instead of life’s
Lets just hope that Dublin City Council have no hand, act or part to play in Irelands proposed bid to stage the rugby world in 2023…they’d make a complete balls of it and mess it up for everyone.
Exactly, he has an agenda. I’m not quite sure how the anti-country music agenda ties in with his cycling agenda, but it’s all an agenda.
Who does he think he is, building libraries (who uses them??), and enforcing the planning law. Doesn’t he know that laws are flexible things, to be bent as the crowd/money wants.
Yes. It is scandalous that a civic figure should not bend to pressure. Timmy Dooley is right. FF may have been put out of office but that doesn’t mean that their modus operandi has to be jettisoned too.
It looks like Keegan is going to be the scapegoat for this when he was only doing his job, and doing it correctly. Dodgy dealings have become the norm in Ireland today and refusal to conduct business in that way, as Keegan did, can result in you losing your job. It’s ironic when you think of the people who were taking backhanders being allowed to walk away with huge pay offs.
Was a perfectly good library there already, the money €37 million, could have been used for other local amenities.
DCC need to admit they bottled it at the last minute and decided to only give 3 instead of 5. The question is why!
They didn’t bottle it….they gave permission for 3….Brookes thought he was bigger when he demanded 5….promoter pushed ahead and sold for 5 because he thought he was bigger too….in the end the council was the biggest because they have the power
He didn’t demand 5. He was offered 5 by Aiken and he wanted to stick to that. DCC said they were supportive if it but the DCC had made up their mind that it was 3 instead of 5 in Feb. DCC said nothing for 6 months and have admitted in their first hearing that they didn’t think it would matter if they said it then or 6 months later. DCC are a bunch of clowns. You should pay more attention to what has actually happened.
I think we all know now whose fault this really is…………….One Direction!!!!
If they hadn’t had their 3 concerts we’ed have been sorted ;)
Down in Clare, when the hospital was been down sized and Shannon was losing its London flight , there was no sign or word from Dooley at all, he just disappeared. Now, he is awful worried about poor Mr Brookes in Dublin !
If it’s true he has family living in the area. The decision not to grant the license is a blatant conflict of interest. My guess is that Aiken didn’t throw enough of a backhander his way.
Maybe he wouldn’t accept a backhander.
Phil
He owns a house close to Croke which (I believe) his son rents from him. So yes he does have a vested interest, no matter how small.
Is that not libellous?
Ted, yes it is but I doubt if Phil will volunteer his isp address.
Keegan doesn’t own that house – it was his senior planner who did
May I enquire as to why these alleged “public representatives” are “grilling” the City Manager for a second time? I can think of a few folk who might benefit from a so called grilling, and they ain’t him. These people are transparent attention seekers and should be truly ashamed of themselves. With what is going on in the world, and this country, at the moment THIS is what they concern themselves with. KICK THEM OUT.
Notice that the journal and other publications now tend to use the expression “grilling” for those appearing in front of oireachtas committees. That use of language suggests a degree of guilt or wrongdoing and plays into the direction such committees have taken of late. Once again I breathe a sigh of relief that the referendum last year was voted down as I have doubt that those invited to appear will adopt a more defensive approach to the political grandstanding thereby rendering redundant the potential efficacy of the committees.
Didn’t notice Aiken or the GAA being subjected to a ‘grilling’ wonder why?
Possibly because they are not paid from the public purse. Their attendance was elective.
They were already given a “grilling”. the DCC are up for another one as it’s apparent that they are the ones who screwed up
Probably because like all TD’s they pander to the will of the mighty GAA… Sure didn’t they decide to push ahead with all this crap knowing full well that there would be objections from residents. Objections that the GAA assumed DCC would ignore…
Came back to bite McKEnna and Co squarely in the backside… Don’t see O’Mahony or Dimmy Tooley demanding those sleeveen FCUK’s back in…!!! God forbid they’d upset them for fear of not being able to hit them up for a few tickets to crap like in Croker
So now if we even think that there might be objections we just shouldn’t bother?
So now we allow less than one per cent dictate to everyone else?
By jaysus we’ll be going places then.
And they can’t ‘demand’ McKenna or Aiken in at all. They are private citizens who accepted an invitation.
Mr. Keegan, being paid from the public purse is someone who can be required to attend the committee and on both occasions he obfuscated before attending. In my opinion that says it all about his attitude towards those who pay his wages and those elected to represent them.
Enough already we’re all sick to the teeth of it now
Why are you taking the time to read the article and leave a stupid comment if your so sick of it???
I’m sick of people being sick of it
Martin phoned in this morning to say he wouldn’t be in ’cause he’s sick. I said how sick? He said I’m in bed here with me sister. Now that’s sick
Im sick of people who say they are sick of listening to people about been sick :)
I’m sick of people telling us all that they are sick of being sick of it. (Sic!!!)
every concert that is advertised in advance of actually taking place alwys includes the proviso of securing a licence…These concerts were not any different..So the process is a irish joke as you cannot gauge the market demands for tickets until they go on sale and you cannot look for a licence for more than one concert until the demand of fans is determined by the number of tickets sold.joke absolute joke and should not be surprised that it is public sector unelected city managers that set the rules
I wonder is he a very mean person? Cyclists generally are mean. Wouldn’t spend a cent on bus fare or petrol. He may even delight in the fact that taxes from petrol are paying his huge wage and pension. Does he get milage? I bet he claims the maximum. It is certainly mean spirited to cause so many people such heartache but a mean person wouldn’t mind. He might even be a right wing catholic who thinks people should suffer and not have too much pleasure.
All cyclists are mean,really,i cycle to keep fit and because i enjoy it so much,saving money is not a priority for me,in fact i travel a lot and quite enjoy spending lots of it,and comparing them to the Dublin city manager is just plain stupid.
Mr Keegan needs to cycle off and end his career in some primitive, backward kingdom that needs a city manager, who is a killjoy with little capacity for either lateral or creative thinking and the faster that he pedals in that direction, without looking over his shoulder, the better.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Alan Shatter wrote Owen Keegan’s opening statement.
Who really is telling the PORKIES ?.
He granted 3 concerts above what was planned for in that year exposing himself and DCC to legal problems to other applications for planning in the future that may have been turned down. Brooks et al threw their rattles out of their prams. No concerts, no money into the economy and the countries over reaction makes us look like idiots.
It’s over FFS.
When planning regulations weren’t followed tribunals resulted. Now when we have good honest public officials doing their jobs and following the law of the land people don’t like that !! Bizarre. Either we follow the rules or we don’t we can’t pick and choose that just wouldn’t work and would leave it open to corruption once again. The performer and promoter thought they could ride roughshod over the regulations and got the shock of their lives when the regulations were upheld. A compromise was offered remember and that compromise was rejected.
The problem is Mr. Keegan did not follow regulations. If he had done he would have rejected all five concerts wen the application was made in early April as the three concerts that are apparently all that are allowed per year had already been allowed.
Alan the planning attached to Croke Park allows for 3 without a licence any more than that a license has to be applied for, the GAA, Aiken and Brooks should have been cognisant of resident opposition and their right to object.Thats what happened they objected 5 concerts sold DCC weighed up the rights of residents and the need for the gigs 3 granted a licence. Brooks threw a hissy fit now no concerts.
@alan, damned if you do, damned if you don’t and screwed in the national media if you attempt the middle ground
Roughly 300 objections, some faked. There are 27000 houses inside the Croke Park cordon. So that’s about .1 per cent of residents who objected.
Democracy in action alright.
Keegan made a total mess of this. An it’s not the first time he’s ridden roughshod over the people he is supposed to serve.
once again…. As mike said there were no laws broken in the granting of licences. Unlike what mike said Aiken and the GAA had received reasonable assurances from DCC that the licences would be granted, as all promoters must do because of the cockamamie way we insist on doing concert licencing. DCC then went back on their word and only grand 3 at the behest of a vast minority of objectors and one pillock who lives in castleknock. They bowed to a minority of vested interests (including keegans own) and call it a victory for democracy. Someone tell me what more they GAA or Aiken could have done, there was demand for 5, no laws preventing 5, they asked for 5 licences were told they’d get them, they sold tickets on that basis. What could they have done differently?
Ciaran I suggest you listen to Mr Keegan’s answers to the Dail committee about assurances. He states he didn’t give any.
He’s splitting hairs, he admits telling them he would support 5 concerts, how is that not effectively an assurance. If they were required to sign some form of assurance form then that would be them basically granting the licence there and then.
Alan O’Connor….keegan serves the law….the law serves the people….if people exercise their right to access the law (by objection) then Keegan is duty bound to act upon the law….seems to me he did his best to compromise but he hit against a stonewall
Which residents are these mike ?? The real ones that objected or the 100 or so fake ones ????????? . Plus in my opinion Garth Brooks is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t . If he had played any 3 nights the people on the other 2 nights would have been disappointed so he is right , how was he expected to pick and choose who to disappoint . I for one was so looking forward to the concert on the Friday but would have felt guilty for the people missing it and the fun was taken out of it for me personally .
Mike Hunt must be Keegan’s right-hand man.
Lone just someone with a different opinion than the mob.
There’s NO law that says he is duty bound to act. Merely to take into account. Now what sane person would upend the plans of 160000 people because less than one tenth of one per cent of people living in the affected area objected (and it’s accepted that at least some of these objections are fake.
Thats one percent not .1 percent
Apologies.
Did anyone notice how many times Owen Keegan touched his nose, ear or head during his presentation? If you check out characteristics of “nonverbal behaviour on most sources, you will see something similar to the following from http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lies.php
Signs of Deception:Body Language of Lies:
• Physical expression will be limited and stiff, with few arm and hand movements. Hand, arm and leg movement are toward their own body the liar takes up less space.
• A person who is lying to you will avoid making eye contact.
• Hands touching their face, throat & mouth. Touching or scratching the nose or behind their ear. Not likely to touch his chest/heart with an open hand.
I counted 19 touches during his presentation.
Interesting!!!
Did you analyse the GAA and Aiken when they made their presentation also.
I did, and they didn’t!!!
And the way he never finished his tea.
So Metallica & seagulls are too loud, thank you Fianna Fail for this week’s contribtuion to the countries major issues.
Owen Keegan appears to have given contradictory evidence over the last few days. His version of events is becoming more shaky and dubious as the inquiries continue.
When dealing with public servants don’t forget the golden rule.
Always get it in writing.
Well someone is telling lies. My betting its the DCC manager.
Insufferable prat. Destroyed Dunlaoghaire
I watched the majority of this meeting today as DCC would be attending. The concensus of the majority in attendance was that this fiasco could have been avoided. DCC in February were aware but hadn’t agreed to 5 only 3 as that is the agreement in their procedures.
I do not know why they didn’t get it all resolved in February when the tickets were sold and not an the eleventh hour when the 400k had made the necessary travel & accomodation arrangements.
There was a TD in attendance that I didnot see his name. He is from Tipperary South. The chairman kept interupting him. The TD has a document from 1993 when there was a planning fiasco by DCC and our friend Owen that cost the city €1M.
We will be talking about this for the next 20 years but will the country’s international reputation be repaired by then?
The Garda are investigating the fraudulent signatures.Will we see the outcome of this. I think not.
I hope that the planning, license & procedures are reviewed and altered for the future.
A huge lesson learned for all. Eh Owen?
Yawn….
Massive yawn!
Jeez, I previously thought Timmy Dooley was merely a fool. It now transpires he is an absolute cretin.
leave poor Dimmy Tooley alone.
Well it has to be said that Timmy Dooley is 100% correct here, I don’t know what party he’s with , what kind of nonsense is it to say I said it would be ok but I didn’t give any assurance ?
How out of touch are our TD’s, “You weren’t talking about Metallica here. It wasn’t going to be a massive rave.It could have been fairly assumed that it wasn’t going to be a drunken bash for five nights” –
(1) Metallica don’t play the type of music you would hear at a rave
(2) Most people are not drunk at a rave
(3) I’ve a very funny feeling, if the concerts went ahead, it would have been a very drunken bash.
Pointless.
Keegan followed protocol and didn’t use his head so typical of bosses these days
Yea enough of this, someone give us a good joke (just for a change!!)
Wanted 400,000 people to buy a pig in a poke with refund guaranteed …isn’t that what this is all about really ..
this has all the signs of 5 gigs taking place………
Really, how?
Dimmy Tooley’s just browned off that he doesn’t get to be Gart’s BFF this time around.
I think one of the lessons from this whole fiasco is that any notions we had of representative government and citizens having any sort of say in how their city and country operates are out the window. Each of the major political parties seemingly supported the concerts, the elected councillors of Dublin City Council supported the concerts, it seems that the majority of Croke Park residents either supported the concerts or were reluctantly willing to endure them, and all of these opinions could be negated by one unelected man whose name most of us had probably never heard of before.
Play play to Keegan. We take powers away from politicians because based on past experience, they can’t be trusted. Now the politicians want to dump on the Council Official that has been entrusted with that power. I am glad that Keegan had the integrity to stand-up to the vested interests that wanted to railroad these concerts through with little regard to local residents.
No, Joe. You have drawn the short straw, and that is your problem. I have no wish at all to ‘join you in your journey’, and I resent efforts being made to force me so to do.
Oops, wrong thread – sorry :-D
The only looser here is Ireland an international laughing stock! He certainly left a legacy alright! Sure we really didn’t need any of the money that would have been made from the gigs, we’ve enough to go around, perfect balanced economy! No debts, everyone’s rich, isn’t that right ted
Meh…..
Meh
With hundreds of family members mourning their loss from the plane crash in Ukraine and the mounting death toll in Gaza, millions going without food, is the cancellation of a concert really that important!
So you won’t get to go to the concert, I think we should all start to get our priorities right here folks.
Hey I like Metallica !
190000 a year. For this pr!ck
There will be millions paid out in compo . Over this and it’s me and you who will end up paying for it. Not keegan and Co with his 200k per year
How many of these Fianna Fáil boyos are also members of the GAA? Still rotten to the core
Its all been legal mess from start to finish.
Even if Keegan had followed correct procedures, he knew that at this late stage the consequences for thousands of people around the world were unacceptable. He
was given a chance to put things right in light of policefinding of fraudulent
signatures by not contesting. He woud have maintained his respect for considering the city businesses interests and people who were about to lose a lot of hard earned income from non refundable expenses. His response was that he wouldnt do that because he thought he would have to resign and lose his job. His priorities were obviously not for the people he is supposed to represent..I hope he gets sacked for that alone!!
Who give a flying FCUK
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Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
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