A 'psychic' alpaca who has been predicting the outcome of games in the World Cup has yet to pronounce on how England will fare against France this weekend.

Furry football pundit Alfie, who lives at Fairytale Farm near Chipping Norton, has been choosing flags on feeding stations to indicate who will win each match.

And his keepers believe that he can match the legendary achievements of football oracle Paul the Octopus, whose accurate predictions in the 2010 World Cup brought him worldwide attention as an animal oracle.

Alfie, who is 10 years old, shares an enclosure with fellow alpacas Horace and Hagrid, is considered one of the brighter animals at the popular family attraction.

Owner Nick Laister, who looks after him, said: “Alfie is one of our smarter and (more) responsive alpacas on the farm who has an abundance of common sense, so if I was pushed to pick an animal to make the right decision, it’d be him."

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He seemed so clever that at the start of the World Cup the staff decided to put his fortune-telling abilities to the test by draping flags on his feeders and getting him to choose which one would win.

Alfie has had a mixed tournament so far.

He appeared on ITV's This Morning with Mr Laister, to show off his skills and correctly predicted Wales would not make it out of the group stages. 

Alfie also reckoned England would defeat Wales.

But then he also predicted England would lose to Iran in the opener, prompting football fans to take to social media.

'Alpacas haven't got a clue,' one said.

'Not laughing at all at Alfie the Alpaca,' one joked, adding 'good boy.'

 Meanwhile, another simply wrote: 'Oh no Alphie!' 

Mr Laister said he was fairly confident that "Alfie knows what he is doing."

He added that the animal can see through people, and has a "knowing look that tells you 'I know a little bit more than you do'."

In fact England beat Iran 6 - 2.

And now England hopes are extremely high after the team beat Senegal  3-0 to reach the quarter-final on Sunday night.

General manager Adele Bridgman said: "Alfie hasn't been very accurate so far. He only did the group stage and his prediction turned out to be incorrect. 

"His latest appearance was on 'The Russell Howard Hour'. All a bit of light fun, which I think we could all do with at the moment."

Fairytale Farm said they may try to get Alfie to predict the England France game tomorrow.

 

 

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This story was written by Miranda Norris, she joined the team in 2021 and covers news across Oxfordshire as well as news from Witney.

Get in touch with her by emailing: Miranda.Norris@newsquest.co.uk. Or find her on Twitter: @Mirandajnorris

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