Champions League 'You Bet' - The result

A belated update, now, on how well we did in our Champions League You Bet feature.

You'll remember we were having a weekly £1 bet to raise money for Little League Football, a charity that aims to help those less fortunate kids around Britain that can't find a local football team or pay for the required entry fees.

Back in September last year, we started off with £10 in our kitty, won £3.75 in Week 1, then promptly lost our £1 stake every week until the Champions League Final last Wednesday. At that point, and not without a huge sense of irony, we won again - this time the princely sum of £4.50 (thank you Cristiano Ronaldo).

All of which left us with a final not-so-grand total of £5.25. Not great, I think you'll all agree, but at least we didn't end the competition with no money at all.

With the competition now over, I have a couple of things to say. Firstly, given the fact that we started off with £10 sloshing around in our slush fund, it'd be only fair to not just give Little League Football the £5.25 they're due but to round it up to £10. That in itself isn't much in the overall scheme of things, but it's a bit better than £5.25.

Secondly, if you're feeling frustrated that we didn't win more, don't let that stop you. There's still an open opportunity for you to give a donation to Little League Football simply by clicking here and telling them you'd like to help.

Finally, I just want to say a huge 'thank you' to everyone that registered a vote or left a comment throughout this season's run of 'You Bet'. Given the amount of success we had in raising money through it, I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd have all given up and left in your droves. The fact that you maintained your interest in it right to the end means a lot, so thanks for taking part once again.

Having played 'You Bet' on an off over the last two years and not won a great deal of money through it, I doubt if you'll be seeing it again in the 2008/09 season, but let me know if you'd like it to return. If nothing else, we aim to please here at SPAOTP... :-)

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 12

Yet another long-running feature reaches its conclusion now at SPAOTP.com as we play our final round of Champions League You Bet.

Let's be honest - we've not done terribly well since we've started. Any hopes we had of making a fortune for our chosen charity have been sadly dashed, but before we try one last time to recoup a little cash for Little League Football, let's remind ourselves that one of the three options in Week 11 would have come up trumps if enough people had voted for it. That should give you enough incentive to think long and hard on this last occasion before selecting the bet you want us to choose this week.

And of course this Wednesday sees the Final of the 2007/2008 Champions League between Chelsea and Manchester United, so it's an extra-special occasion in more ways than one. To add a bit of spice to the proceedings, we've decided to give you not three but five bets to choose from and here they are in all their glory...

Bet A
Three goals scored in the match (not including Extra Time)
Potential winnings: £3.60

Bet B
Cristiano Ronaldo to score first
Potential winnings: £4.50

Bet C
Five minutes of injury time to be played (not including Extra Time)
Potential winnings: £8.00

Bet D
Manchester United to win in Extra Time
Potential winnings: £11.00

Bet E
Chelsea to win 2-0
Potential winnings: £15.00

The choice, as ever, is yours so tell us which one you think we should bet our final £1 stake on and if your opinion coincides with the majority of all those taking part, we will do...

VOTING ON THIS WEEK'S 'YOU BET' HAS NOW CLOSED.
For tonight's Final, the majority of you feel we should bet on Cristiano Ronaldo scoring first. That was Bet B which got 33% of your vote, so keep those fingers crossed, sit back and cheer on your most*/least* favourite Portuguese starlet. You never know - he might just win us some money...

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 11

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

We enter Week 11 of Champions League You Bet with just £3.75 in the kitty.

That's £3.75. Three hundred and seventy-five of your English pence.

We started off with £10 back in September, won £3.75 (ironically) in the first week and lost our £1 stake money every week since. The Champions League Final may yet arrive before we finally lose it all, but there's still time to win some money back for our chosen charity by taking part in this week's vote-off.

This Wednesday's main match (as far as we're concerned) is the semi-final second leg between Liverpool and Chelsea, so as usual, cast your eye over these three potential bets and ponder which one you'd bet £1 on if you had to...

Bet A
Liverpool to win
Potential winnings: £3.60

Bet B
Didier Drogba to score first
Potential winnings: £7.00

Bet C
Steven Gerrard to score first
Potential winnings: £11.00

THE VOTING PERIOD FOR WEEK 11 OF 'CHAMPIONS LEAGUE YOU BET' IS NOW OVER.
Thanks to everyone who voted this time around. The appeal of a simple 'who do you think will win' bet was obviously right up your street this week, as the winning option was Bet A with 60% of your votes.

That means we'll be hoping for Liverpool to beat Chelsea in today's match, and let's face it, with Liverpool's form in Europe you wouldn't bet against it. Well, 40% of you did, but that's beside the point.

Fingers crossed then, ladies and gentlemen, and let's hope we can prize £3.60 from the tight grip of our chosen bookmaker this week...

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 10

Apologies for the absence of 'Champions League You Bet' last time around. Circumstances beyond my control, I'm afraid ('being on holiday' being a more useful explanation), but it's back, back, back once again in time for the Champions League semi-finals, you lucky people...

As has been said during every week of this feature since the dawn of time, we're struggling to raise some money for our favourite football-related charity on account of the fact that our bets haven't been coming up trumps - a lesson in why not to gamble if ever there was one - but we remain determined to improve on our initial £10 stake until the very last kick of the 2008 Final.

This week, we're focussing solely on the first leg of the semi-final between Barcelona and Manchester United that's taking place this Wednesday. All you have to do is choose the bet you think is most likely to bring in some winnings and make your selection accordingly. Here's this week's three options for you to survey, and study them carefully as we don't want any more careless selections like we've had for the previous eight weeks (ahem...)

Bet A
Samuel Eto'o to score first
Potential winnings: £7.00

Bet B
Man United to win 2-1
Potential winnings: £10.00

Bet C
Rio Ferdinand to score at any time
Potential winnings: £17.00

VOTING FOR CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 'YOU BET' WEEK 10 HAS NOW CLOSED.
Thank you to everyone that took the time to vote on this week's You Bet. With a 53% share, Bet B was the winner, so keep your fingers crossed that Manchester United can beat Barcelona 2-1 in today's semi-final first leg!

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 9

So here we are in the Last Eight stage of the Champions League with four English teams remaining. We could talk 'til forever about the whys and wherefores of that particular situation, but we have other fish to fry - namely how we're going to salvage a nice little sum of money for our chosen charity, Little League Football.

In case you're joining us late, SPAOTP has a challenge running throughout this season's Champions League whereby a £1 bet is being put on an outcome of your choice. Any winnings we recover go back into the kitty and whatever we win at the end of the competition goes off to Little League Football as they attempt to develop football for children throughout the UK who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Anyway, the thing is our kitty is now running a little low having seen £1 stake after £1 stake leave our tight clutches, but all is not lost for this week we have another selection of bets for you to peruse. Take a look at these three options and as ever choose the one you think is most likely to happen...

Bet A
Arsenal v Liverpool
Fernando Torres to score first
Potential winnings: £6.00

Bet B
Fenerbahce v Chelsea
Frank Lampard to score first
Potential winnings: £9.00

Bet C
Fenerbahce v Chelsea
Fenerbahce to be leading at half-time and the match to end as a draw
Potential winnings: £15.00

VOTING FOR CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 'YOU BET' WEEK 9 HAS NOW CLOSED.
With 47% of your votes, this week's winning option was Bet A - Fernando Torres to score first in the match between Arsenal and Liverpool. Thanks very much for taking part in 'You Bet' this week - 'You Bet' will return in a fortnight...

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 8

It's You Bet time again and I'm sad to report we failed to win some money for Little League Football again a fortnight ago.

But as the old saying goes, where there's hope, there's life so let's redouble our efforts once again and try to pick a winner from this week's selection of potential bets.

Though we usually feature three Wednesday night games involving British sides, we can't this week as only Chelsea are playing, so we're casting our net a little wider across Europe this time. Perhaps it'll bring us a bit of luck, eh?

Anyway, here are the three choices for this week:

Bet A
Porto v Schalke 04
Both teams to draw
Potential winnings: £3.00

Bet B
Chelsea v Olympiakos
Chelsea to win 1-0
Potential winnings: £6.00

Bet C
Real Madrid v Roma
Robinho to score first
Potential winnings: £8.00

VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED FOR 'YOU BET' WEEK 8.
Thanks to all of you that took part in 'You Bet' this time around. With 64% of the votes, we'll be putting our £1 charity bet on Chelsea to beat Olympiakos 1-0, so keep those fingers crossed and hope that the Greek club make a reasonable fight of it...

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 7

Welcome back to Champions League 'You Bet' where, if you recall from a couple of months ago, we were desperately failing to generate some money for our chosen charity.

Yes, our only win since this fund-raising exercise began was in our very first week and since then our not-particularly-hard-earned winnings have been frittering away like Liverpool's chances of playing in Europe next season.

So now we're back again from our winter betting break and it's time to start making some money for Little League Football. To that end, we invite you to cast your peepers on the following three options, one of which we will be betting our £1 on come Wednesday...

Bet A
Celtic v Barcelona
Thierry Henry to score first
Potential winnings: £5.00

Bet B
Lyon v Manchester United
United to win 2-0
Potential winnings: £10.00

Bet C
Arsenal v Milan
Teams to draw 2-2
Potential winnings: £15.00

And now all you need to do is pick the option you think's most likely to happen and place your bet accordingly below. The one with the most votes at 7pm (GMT) on Wednesday night is the one we'll bet our £1 on. You need not part with any money of your own and your house is not at risk if you fail to keep up repayments on your mortgage.

VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED ON WEEK 7 OF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 'YOU BET'.

As we've mentioned all too often before, all winnings go back into the kitty and when the Champions League Final takes place in May, we'll see how much we've got and send it off to Little League Football. If we've got any by then, that is.

Keep those fingers crossed, folks, and let's hope for a win again this Wednesday!

UPDATE...
We've had a great response to this week's You Bet, so thanks to everyone that took part. After a close start, Bet B finally became our clear winner with 63% of the vote with Bet A coming in second with 29% and Bet C finishing last with just 8%.

All of which means we'll be keeping our fingers crossed for Man United to win 2-0 in Lyon, and if they don't, we'll be writing a strongly-worded letter to Sir Alex Ferguson. So there.

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 6

OK folks, here's the situation. We need to start winning some of these bets, and we need to start winning fast. Actually, come to think of it, we need to start providing you with some decent choices that could result in us winning money, and fast.

So to that end, here are this week's three options for you to choose from. Oh, and if you haven't the foggiest idea what the hell we're talking about, click on the 'Week 1' link to the right in the Champions League You Bet section. It's all explained there.

Bet A
Arsenal v Steaua Bucharest
Adebayor to score first
Potential winnings: £4.50

Bet B
Rangers v Lyon
Rangers to win 2-1
Potential winnings: £11.00

Bet C
Roma v Manchester United
Man U winning at Half Time, Roma winning at Full Time.
Potential winnings: £26.00

Quite a tempting selection, we think you'll agree. Just use the buttons below and tell us which one you think we should put our £1 bet on, and with any luck, we'll have our coffers overflowing with wealth once again. All for charity of course. Not a penny goes into our pockets. Honest.

UPDATE:

The public has spoken. The public has opted for Bet C - Man U winning at Half Time, Roma winning at Full Time, which could swell our coffers quite considerably.

Fingers crossed...

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 5

Apologies for the slight lateness in bringing you the latest round of Champions League You Bet, but here we are again hoping that you can help us raise lots of lovely lolly for charity.

The charity in question is Little League Football, a cause that hopes to make it easier for young children in the UK to play for a local team regardless of availability or cost. By engaging the community, Little League Football hopes to get kids into football much earlier so that their passion for the game and skills have longer to develop. The end result will hopefully be a whole new generation of star players that we don't even know exist yet, but that can only happen if you make a generous contribution to their charity or by taking part in our You Bet competition to help raise a decent-sized sum of money.

And so to the job in hand. This week, as with every other, we have £1 just waiting to be placed on a bet which ultimately you will dictate. We give you three to choose from and all you have to do is pick the one you like the sound of most. If the bet wins, the money goes straight back into our 'kitty' and when the Champions League Final has been played next year, all money accrued will go off to Little League Football. Simple as... beating England.

Now last time around you may remember that we lost out again so that means our kitty now contains less money than we started for the first time since we started. We can easily put that right though, so let's see what the offerings are for this week:

Bet A
Rosenborg v Chelsea
Draw
Potential winnings: £3.50

Bet B
Liverpool v Porto
Steven Gerrard to score from outside the penalty area
Potential winnings: £8.00

Bet C
Celtic v Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar to win 2-1
Potential winnings: £15.00

So which of those do you think could bring us wealth beyond our wildest dreams? Make your choice and let us know by using the voting facility below. You have until 7pm GMT on Wednesday 28 November 2007 to tell us, so choose carefully and good luck!

VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED
Unfortunately the voting period for Week 5 of You Bet is now over. With 56% of the vote, the winner this week is Bet B - Steven Gerrard to score from outside the box. Let's hope Stevie G has his sights set from a long way out tonight. Thanks to all of you who voted and good luck to us all!

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 4

It's another Champions League week so that must mean it's time to play 'You Bet' once again and we're on a bit of a bad run, it has to be said. After a win in Week 1, we've lost our stake money in the last two rounds so we're more or less back to the £10 we started off with. Time to win some more, wethinks, so cast your eyes over this week's selection and tell us which you'd like us to put our £1 bet on:

Bet A
Barcelona v Rangers
Draw
Potential winnings: £5.00

Bet B
Manchester United v Dynamo Kiev
Rooney to score from outside the penalty area
Potential winnings: £8.00

Bet C
Slavia Prague v Arsenal
Arsenal to win 3-0
Potential winnings: £10.00

VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED
Voting is now over for Week 4 of 'You Bet' and with 47% of the total number of votes cast, you've told us to put our £1 bet on Wayne Rooney to score from outside the penalty area for Manchester United against Dynamo Kiev (Bet B). Keep your fingers crossed and let's hope 'Spud-U-Dislike' keeps his goalscoring run going!

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 3

With the recent internationals out of the way, it's back to European Champions League action once again this week, so that should mean one thing and one thing alone to your good self - who do I bet on in this week's You Bet?!

You may recall that at the beginning of the month, we missed out on winning another £7 by just six minutes when Kaka failed to score when we wanted him to. That means we go into Week 3 with £11.75 in the pot, but there's more money out there to be won, so let's see what your options are this time:

Bet A
Benfica v Celtic
Draw
Potential winnings: £3.20

Bet B
Besiktas v Liverpool
Liverpool to win 1-0
Potential winnings: £6.00

Bet C
Chelsea v Schalke 04
A penalty to be missed by either side
Potential winnings: £10.00

New visitors to this feature should note that a full explanation of what this is all about and how we're raising money for charity can be found in our Week 1 article.

VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED
The voting period for Week 3 of 'You Bet' is now over. With 62% of the total number of votes cast, you've told us to put our £1 bet on Liverpool to beat Besiktas 1-0 (Bet B). Keep your fingers crossed and let's hope we can make some more money for Little League Football!

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 2

It's Week 2 of SPAOTP's Champions League You Bet and what a great start we made last time around!

Two weeks ago, you asked us to put our £1 bet on Arsenal and Seville sharing three goals in 90 minutes, and joy of joys, Arsene Wenger's men popped up with all three to earn us £3.75!

That means we go into Week 2 with £12.75 in the kitty, bursting at the seams with confidence and not a little amount of cockyness. Let's now see if you can pick us another winner as we look at the following three choices relating to this Wednesday's Champions League games:

Bet A
Valencia v Chelsea
Chelsea to win
Potential winnings: £2.80

Bet B
Celtic v Milan
Kaka to score the first goal of the match
Potential winnings: £7.00

Bet C
Liverpool v Marseille
Marseille to win 1-0
Potential winnings: £15.00

Don't forget, all proceeds we make from the Champions League campaign this season go to Little League Football, a charity which gives kids the chance to play the beautiful game in a local team where otherwise it wouldn't be possible.

For more details about that, visit the Little League Football website, and for a recap on what this whole crazy You Bet thing's about, check out our Week 1 article.

UPDATE...
Time's now up for you to cast your votes. With 75% of the share, we can now tell you that we'll tonight be hoping that Bet B comes up trumps, so keep your fingers crossed that Kaka weaves his magic against Celtic before they do! Thanks for all your votes, and watch this space to find out how we got on...

Champions League 'You Bet' - Week 1

It's time to welcome back an old favourite to SPAOTP. Last year, for those of you who weren't with us back then, we ran a series called 'You Bet' in which we asked you to help us raise money for charity. Well now it's back, back, back in a new improved state, designed to raise even more money for a fantastic good cause. We're so excited about it that we've even designed a new logo - that's how big a deal this is.

Yes, it's the exciting return of You Bet but this season we're covering the Champions League to add some sparkle and glamour to the proceedings. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the format, here's the way it works.

Each week from now until the Champions League Final next May, Smart and I will together place £1 on a Champions League bet as specified by you, our much-valued visitors.

Note the use of the word 'you' there. It's important because each week we'll be asking you to vote for which bet we choose out of three potential options. You need pay no money and your house is not at risk if we fail to win any money at the end of this. We're spending our money - all you need to do is tell us where to stick it, if you'll pardon the expression.

On the subject of money, Smart and I will start off by chipping in £5 each to make a total stake 'kitty' of £10. If all our first ten bets fail and we run out of cash, so be it. Mission failed. Frankly though, having had the experience of playing 'You Bet' last season, we don't think that'll happen. We expect to make lots of money for a good cause which this time around is something we hope you'll agree is very apt and very deserving of our fundraising activities.

Little League Football is a registered charity in the UK that aims to get kids up to the age of 13 playing football for free where the opportunity to do so is limited. Some kids only get to play for a team at school while others could join a local team were it not for the fact that their parents can't afford the fees to pay for training and so on. Little League Football aims to change that by involving the community and giving the less fortunate youngsters the chance to learn about the game and more importantly play it and enjoy it.

The thing is they're desperate to secure the funding required to expand the scheme and help more kids across the country. In order to help them out, therefore, you have three options: (1) Take part in our Champions League You Bet competition, (2) Sponsor them with a generous amount, or (3) Ignore all of the above. We hope you'll choose one of the first two options. :)

For more information about Little League Football, visit www.littleleaguefootball.com, but for now, kindly consider the following three options for this week's 'Champions League You Bet'...

Bet A
Arsenal v Sevilla
Three goals to be scored during the match
Potential winnings: £3.75

Bet B
Sporting Lisbon v Manchester United
Cristiano Ronaldo to score the first goal of the match
Potential winnings: £7.00

Bet C
Rangers v Stuttgart
Rangers to be leading at half time, the match to end as a draw
Potential winnings: £14.00

UPDATE...
Voting has now closed on this week's You Bet. With 56% of the vote, you've asked us to go for Bet A, so keep your fingers crossed that Arsenal and Sevilla can score three goals between them!
Thanks for all your votes and watch this space to find out how we got on...

You Bet - Champions League Final Special... Update

The voting period is over and tonight we'll be rooting for Kaka to score the first goal of the game. Half of you chose Bet A, so that's what our £5 will be going on. Remember - it's for Kaka to be the first goalscorer during the first 90 minutes - not extra time or penalties.

Second in our online poll was Bet C - Crouch to score with a header - which got 32% of your vote, and in last place was Bet B - Milan to win 2-1 in the first 90 minutes - which trailed in with 18%.

Thanks for all your votes... now let's see the action unfold!

You Bet - Champions League Final Special

And so we enter the second and final part of our special You Bet double-header having missed out on the chance to win some money from the FA Cup Final.

All the more reason, then, to think carefully about what we should be betting our £5 on this time around. Once again, we give you three choices - A, B or C - and all you have to do is tell us which bet we should put our money on.

In case you've joined us late and wonder what on earth's going on, any money we win goes to our chosen charity, The Alzheimer's Society and if we don't win any money at all, they'll just have to wait until our next You Bet when they'll almost certainly win something (it says here).

No money is required from you whatsoever - we just want you to tell us where to stick it. So here for you below are the three Champions League Final selections to choose from:

Bet A
First goalscorer: Kaka (Milan)
Potential winnings: £30.00
The skilful Brazilian is the top scorer in the Champions League this season, but will he be the first to get on the scoresheet in the Final?

Bet B
Milan to beat Liverpool 2-1 (after 90 minutes)
Potential winnings: £40.00
Milan enter the rematch with Liverpool a stronger side than in 2005... can they edge past The Reds this time?

Bet C
Peter Crouch to score a header (in 90 minutes)
Potential winnings: £55.00
The tallest man on the field, Peter Crouch is always the favourite to reach those high crosses. Can he convert one for his side?

Pick the bet you think will earn us lots of lovely cash for charity and watch this space to see how we do after the game finishes. (Closing date/time for voting: 7pm BST on Wednesday 23rd May 2007).

Voting has now closed. Keep visiting Some People Are On The Pitch for more You Bets soon!

You Bet - FA Cup Final Special... Update

Well the votes have been counted and with 50% of the total amount cast, the winner was Bet B - Cristiano Ronaldo to be the first goalscorer, so that's what we'll be putting our £5 bet on today.

Second most popular choice with 38% of the vote was Bet C - Wayne Rooney being the first recipient of a card during today's Cup Final, and in last place with 13% of the vote was Bet A - a draw at half-time and full-time.

All we need do now is sit back and wait for the action to begin. Can you believe you'll actually be wanting Ronaldo to score for once...?

You Bet - FA Cup Final Special

Rejoice and be of good cheer! It's the return of our old favourite, You Bet!

For those of you who weren't with us last November, You Bet was a feature that ran for ten weeks, the aim being to raise as much money as possible for charity through a series of footy-related bets. It was a tricky business, but through the tactical guile of you, our loyal visitors, we ended up virtually tripling our original £10 outlay which has since swelled the coffers of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Well, it's back, back, back for a special double bill which we hope will bring monetary benefit to another good cause, The Alzheimer's Society. For those of you that don't know, they're the UK's leading charity for supporting people suffering from dementia, funding research into the condition which, hopefully, will one day bring a cure. Over 700,000 people suffer from dementia in the UK, so we think you'll agree it's a charity worth supporting given the impact it has on so many people here.

And so to the game - how does You Bet work? Well me and Smart begin by chipping in £5 of our not-particularly-hard-earned cash, thus providing a stake 'kitty' of £10. Then, before the FA Cup Final this Saturday, we offer up three possible FA Cup Final bets for us to put £5 on. Which bet we choose is up to you - just register your selection using our online vote and when midday on Saturday comes around, we'll pick the one with the most votes. You need not part with any money of your own: you're just telling us what we should bet ours on.

If we win, the money goes back into the kitty and we do the same all over again before next Wednesday's Champions League Final. If we lose, we draw a line under the whole sorry affair and reconvene to repeat the process next Wednesday anyway. More of which next week...

For the time being, here are the three bets we'd like you to consider for the FA Cup Final this Saturday - Chelsea v Manchester United. Each has a different likelihood of actually happening and subsequently each can earn us a different amount of potential winnings. Do we go for a bet that stands a good chance of hitting the jackpot, albeit for less winnings, or do we go for a long shot? That's what you've got to work out, so here are the options to choose from...

Bet A
Draw at half-time, draw at full-time
Potential winnings: £22.50
Chelsea and Man United have drawn 0-0 and 1-1 in the Premiership this season - who's to say it won't be another draw (after 90 minutes)?

Bet B
First goalscorer: Cristiano Ronaldo
Potential winnings: £40.00
He was the second highest goalscorer in the Premiership this season... will he add another to his tally this Saturday?

Bet C
First player to be shown a card: Wayne Rooney
Potential winnings: £75.00
Always ready to blow that very short fuse of his, will Wayne Rooney see red... or yellow for that matter?

The choice, as we always say, is yours. Log your vote here and tell us who we should place our £5 bet on... (Closing date / time: 12pm BST, Saturday 19 May 2007.)

Voting has now closed. Keep visiting Some People Are On The Pitch for more You Bets soon!

You Bet - The Final Total

As you may have seen, this week's You Bet resulted in all three bets receiving an equal number of votes, which meant we had to place 33p on each one but luckily for us, one of them came up trumps and earned us some winnings.

Frank Lampard was the hero of the hour after his goal opened the scoring for Chelsea against Wigan, which meant £1.65 headed back our way after we parted company with our 99p for this week.

So what does that give us by way of a grand total for the entire 10-week run? Well it gives me great pleasure to say that from our original £10 stake fund, we managed to accumulate

£29.30

for Great Ormond Street Hospital!

Not an enormous fortune, you might think, but do you know of a bank account whose interest rate triples your money over ten weeks? No, we thought not! So let's rejoice and give thanks for all the success we've had as we give thanks to all of you that took the time and effort to cast your votes each week.

It's been a great success and a lot of fun too, so well done everybody and thanks again for helping us to support the kids at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

You Bet! Week 10

Well who'd have thunk it. We've finally reached the end of the road as Week 10 of 10 has arrived in our You Bet challenge.

We started all the way back in November 2006 with a paltry £10 to fritter away on bets which we hoped would reap further rewards to benefit our chosen charity, Great Ormond Street Hospital.

And reap we did. OK, so we didn't make an enormous fortune, but gambling is a veritable minefield when it comes to avoiding outright monetary loss. Fortunately, our consciencious selections and your thorough approach to voting for the right bet have virtually tripled our initial outlay.

But there's still one last week of betting left. Will the totaliser rise still further? People, it's all down to you.

We've come up with something slightly different for Week 10. All three options will win £5 for our charity should they come up trumps, and all three are 'first goalscorer' bets. The question is, which one will you vote for? Will it be:

Bet A
Blackburn v Arsenal: Thierry Henry to score first
Potential winnings: £5.00

Bet B
Chelsea v Wigan: Frank Lampard to score first
Potential winnings: £5.00

Bet C
Watford v Liverpool: Dirk Kuyt to score first
Potential winnings: £5.00

It could hardly be simpler. Just select the bet you favour most below, and press 'Vote'.

Well what are you waiting for?

Voting on this event has now closed.

Your votes must be in by start of play on Saturday 13th January 2007. For the last time, good luck!

You Bet! Week 9

FA CUP SPECIAL!

Yes, it's a welcome return to You Bet and it's our penultimate week before the tally's totted up and the cheque's written out for Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Our Blue Peter-style totaliser is currently flashing away at £29.65 (because in our world you can have totalisers that show two decimal places) but we're hungry for more, so let's get back in the swing of things by looking at this week's betting options... and whaddya know - it's the Third Round of the FA Cup this weekend, so a nice bit of added edge for you there.

Bet A
Birmingham v Newcastle: Draw
Potential winnings: £3.20

Bet B
Tamworth v Norwich: Tamworth to win
Potential winnings: £7.00

Bet C
Liverpool v Arsenal: Half-time - Liverpool leading, Full-time - draw
Potential winnings: £15.00

...and of course the procedure has by now been well documented: simply vote for the bet you think we should put our £1 for this week, and the one that gets the most votes by start of play on Saturday will end up as our selection. If the bet comes up trumps, the winnings go back into the kitty to push our charity total up further still. Here's where you can make your selection...

Voting on this event has now closed.

Best of luck, and let's hope for more winnings!