EDWARD GILLESPIE had mixed emotions as he drove to Chester on Tuesday night to watch Cheltenham Town’s FA Cup replay. Though a regular supporter of his home-town “Robins”, the managing director of Cheltenham racecourse was keenly aware of the problems awaiting him if they progressed to a mouthwatering fourth-round tie at home to Newcastle United.
The biggest match in the club’s history duly transpired and has been chosen for BBC coverage. It will kick-off at 12.30pm on Saturday week, just 25 minutes before Gillespie supervises Cheltenham’s best raceday outside the Festival, barely half-a-mile away.
This unfortunate clash was orchestrated with the advice of local police, who saw greater dangers in the football having an early-evening kick-off, but the racecourse was not consulted until arrangements were in place. Yesterday, Gillespie was putting away his red-and-white scarf and concentrating on the logistical challenge.
“It would have been easier from our point of view if the football had kicked off later, not least as some of us might have got to watch it, but I understand the police concerns,” he said. “We’ll be adopting traffic plans usually applied only to the Festival and opening additional car parks. We have an agreement with the football club that they use some of our parking space, and we will honour that, but the fact remains that the football ground only holds 7,000 and we would hope to have 15,000 at the races.
“We’ll certainly show the game on some of our screens and it will be a great sporting day that will raise the profile of Cheltenham yet again.”
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Lee, a jockey who lives on Teesside, was already indebted to the club — he trains three days a week under the team’s fitness coach, Chris Barnes — but he sought additional help after injuring his left foot at Catterick last week. Though still limping heavily yesterday, he said: “I’ve been at the club for two hours of treatment every day and I wouldn’t be here without them.” However, Lee did admit that he trod carefully at the Riverside, after their 7-0 beating at Highbury on Saturday.
MIKE CATTERMOLE, silver-haired smoothie of the commentary box, has been booked for two enviable gigs in unexpected circumstances. Cattermole, noted for his Sean Connery impersonations, can practise some Bond-style ski stunts after a late call-up to commentate on a race, sponsored by Newmarket, at the White Turf meeting in St Moritz, next month. He then makes his debut as a course commentator for the Grand National, chiefly because Mark Johnson, one of Aintree’s regular callers, suffers from vertigo. The ladder to the commentary point out in the country has caused Johnson to withdraw with regret.
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POSSIBLY for the first time in his life, Kieren Fallon will have empathised with Sven-Göran Eriksson this week. Fallon was a previous victim of the undercover News of the World reporter known as the “Fake Sheikh”, and the fallout from his treatment in the spring of 2004 is still being felt. Fallon has an ongoing legal action against the newspaper.