Broad shoulders needed...! by Graham Sharpe


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a bookmaker at some early stage in his life, or someone close to him during his up- bringing has to have been a consistently losing punter. How esle to explain the regular attacks he launches on bookmakers and betting? I have become used to being pilloried


atrick Collins, the highly respected columnist for the Mail on Sunday must either have been frightened by


what he must surely realise by now is the most laughable and risible half a paragraph he has ever inflicted on his readers: ‘It seems not to have crossed his (Yu’s)


mind that if there were no sports gambling industry, there would be no question of corruption, nor any need to safeguard the integrity of sport.’ Read that again, would you, please? What


in his column on a regular basis - most recently, I think, for having the nerve to dare to add to the terrible stresses and strains associated with being a Premier League manager - a position we all know barely pays enough to keep the wolves (sorry, Mick) from the door and the food on the table - by opening a book on the next member of this endangered species to leave his or her (oh, no, some mistake,there, never a ‘her’, is it?) job. Well, I realised long ago that broad shoulders would be required to work in this business - on the day I started working for William Hill in fact, when I broke the news to my mother who looked at me pityingly, and pointed out that I was moving from perhaps the most reviled profession there was, that of journalism, to one even less worthy - bookmaking. ‘You’re such a disappointment to me’ she


declared. ‘What next? - an estate agent, I suppose’! Fortunately, I have as yet avoided that


dreadful fate, but I’m sure Patrick Collins would much rather host a party night for the entire estate agency business than to accept that bookmakers have even a right to exist, let alone make a living from their repulsive operations. Anyway, Mr Collins exceeded even his


do you think of it? Can you quite believe a man clearly of sound mind would compose such fatuous nonsense and commit it to print? Do you agree with Mr Collins’ apparent conclusion that Ben Johnson became a drugs cheat because he wanted to back himself to win an Olympic medal? That all the athletes guilty of doping over the years have been corrupted by the betting industry? That motor-sport’s recent ‘Crash-gate’ scandal was caused by betting? That all those Italian football teams fined


or relegated a couple of years ago were involved in a betting scam? That rubgy players walk off of the pitch with fake blood pouring out of their mouths in order to dupe bookies? What planet does Mr Collins write


his column from, do you think? Planet Prejudice, perhaps? Not that I disagree with everything he


ever writes. In the same column he wrote an excoriating review of James Corden’s World Cup TV show. ‘Woeful beyond words’ he called it. I agree - but the same phrase can be employed to describe Mr Collins’ inane, naive apparent belief that the only thing responsible for corruption in sport is gambling.


own, somewhat over-familiar, illogical and rather hysterical ravings when he wrote what I believe to be probably the most ill thought out and downright ridiculous paragraph he has yet penned, under a piece headlined ‘What price integrity in sport?’ Now, bookmakers have their own issues


racing at Stratford a few weeks ago, where we had gone to help celebrate a friend’s most recent ‘significant’ birthday in a box at the track generously hired by her old man. Lovely time had by all, sufficient winners


I VERY MUCH enjoyed the evening’s


and ‘Wendy’ from the track told me: ‘Indeed, there is a railway carriage at the


far end above the track on the Greenway, which was the old railway. This doubles up as a cafe and bike hire outlet. Meantime, we look forward to welcoming you back to Stratford.’ There you are then, they hadn’t gone off the rails, after all!


these two recently published racing books a mention at some stage, so I won’t venture too far on to his territory, but I should advise you to look out for what could be perceived as this year’s ‘Eclipse’ - Nicholas Clee’s book which last year made the shortlist of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. This one is also by a Nicholas - Foulkes of that ilk. And his book is entitled ‘Gentlemen & Blackguards’, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. This one takes a close look at the social world of the early to mid 19th century as its sub-title, ‘Gambling Mania and the Plot to Steal the Derby of 1844’ suggests. This is a story well known to most racing


I’M SURE Chris Pitt will be giving


fans, but Foulkes gets under the skin of the characters involved, delves deep into the race itself and the skulduggery it inspired, and guides the reader through the murky world of early Victorian gambling. Paul Mathieu was rightly praised for


his terrific book, The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy, but has taken his time coming up with the follow-up - which now arrives in the form of ‘The Masters of Manton’ (Write First Time) which brilliantly tells the tale of the four training legends associated with the Manton racing stables - Alec Taylors, senior and junior; Joe Lawson and George Todd. Again, the author delves into the darker


with betting exchanges, which I do not propose to rehearse and reheat here, but I have to defend Betfair chief executive, DavidYu - who is also, I’m sure, capable of protecting his own interests - against Collins’ scorn that his company have dared to become a sponsor of the British Athletes Commission. Collins, barely able to conceal his


distaste, comments on Yu’s belief that the sponsorship deal will help raise awareness amongst athletes over potential corruption in their sport which could arise from betting-related issues. Almost audibly choking on his coffee, or whatever tipple he favours, Collins writes


12 July/August 2010 BOS Magazine


backed to make a profit for a change, a few bob chucked in the direction of top man Bob Champion who was there as part of his 60 courses in 60 days cancer fund- raising effort, bizarre incident as fully kitted out jockey ejected from the paddock before he could mount his horse - just as well, as he was a slightly inebriated groom-to- be on his stag night- lovely birthday cake, amazing sight of motorised wheelchair user apparently keen to be viewed as the Lewis Hamilton of wheelchair drivers swerving and swivelling his way through a packed crowd of departing racegoers at a mighty lick, irritating wait for pre-booked cabs which never arrived - but left still wondering just why there appears to be in one of the remote areas of the course an abandoned former London tube train carriage. So I contacted the course to ask them,


sides of racing in general, training and gambling in particular, introducing a rich cast of characters along the way - ‘there was a time when the stable lads’ every meal was bread and butter, a mug of tea, and a cut from a riding crop, and the only second helpings were from the crop’. Those were the days, eh!


joint front men for William Hill for the past 18 years or so. We share a name - Graham is his middle moniker - and both support underdog footballs teams - his is Derby, and you know mine. He is a former jockey, I am a former


journalist. We have similar personalities and have


been known to disagree once or twice over various matters. But one thing we both agreed on - together we made an unbeatable PR team. David is off to pastures new and I can only wish him well for the future.n


Please mention BOS Magazine when replying to advertisements DAVID HOOD and I have been the


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