LOOK SHARPE

AUTHOR: Star Sports Content

LOOK SHARPE: How Bloody Stupid…

Sports betting PR legend GRAHAM SHARPE brings you his latest ‘LOOK SHARPE’ column…


I WAS ONCE approached by a would-be punter wanting to place a bet that he would give blood two hundred times.

He was now in his sixties, and had worked out that,assuming he continued to give blood on a regular basis, by the time he reached the double century landmark he would be 83 years old.

I thought it would therefore be appropriate to offer him 83/1 about reaching this sanguinary landmark, and he duly placed a wager of £200. The stpry appeared in a few media outlets and I chalked it up as another unusual ,personal punt that I’d been able to help an individual place and didn’t expect to hear any more about it for several years at least.

However, a few weeks later I was sitting in an office at the National Blood Transfusion Centre, along with my punter – and a couple of bloody irate folk from the Blood Transfusion Service.

They had been in touch with my punter—their invaluable donor—and had let him know that they were not remotely grateful that he had spread awareness of their service via his fun wager.

They allegedly believed that by placing this bet he had transgressed their first rule of donating – that no one should profit as a result of doing so.

It seemed to me to be rather difficult to present a man trying desperately to do what few before him had managed in terms of volume of donations over several years, as someone out to make a fast buck by selling their blood – and I told them just that.

This invaluable and unselfish donor became visibly upset when he was told that the many decades during which he had been, and would continue to be, giving blood without a problem now apparently counted for nought, as he was told, unbelievably to my mind, that if he would not cancel the bet immediately they would continue to accept his blood donations – but would immediately dispose of it.

They emphasised that as his blood group was common and there was currently no shortage of his type, therefore they wouldn’t really miss him – in fact, they could quite happily do without him.

I thought this was literally a bloody stupid attitude to take, and asked them to show him and myself any official written rule or regulation they had that barred donors from doing what he had done. They didn’t. They couldn’t.

I told them I had no intention of cancelling the wager unless the man who had placed it specifically asked me to do so as a result of their pressure, in which case I would do it purely to save him from this unnecessary pressure from them. But I also suggested to them that – assuming they had any rule – written or otherwise – in place making it illegal to have any type of blood-related wager, which I strongly suspected they did not – then they ought to make that obvious to anyone beginning their donation process.

They were unable to produce any proof of such a rule.

I pointed out that the publicity about the bet had done nothing but promote the Blood Transfusion Sevice with positive coverage and that by trying now to have the wager voided they would run the risk of alienating as many,if not more, potential donors than it would encourage to begin this admirable gesture.

At this point, I am happy also to admit that although I had once been a donor – albeit on a relatively small number of occasions compared with my customer – but had eventually been told I should cease donating as on a number of occasions I had basically fainted after doing so.

Eventually, I left the decision about what he should do entirely to my customer, (and won’t reveal what that decision was, (for fear that it may incriminate him and/or me!) but was left with the definite feeling that to me it just proved that in this modern world of bureaucracy and political correctness one can barely do right for doing wrong – or do I mean it the other bloody way round?

Now, to turn to something slightly less controversial – you might think that most trainers would be delighted to be featured on the front page of the Racing Post, but when this happened to Paul Nicholls on November 1, fourteen years ago in 2008, he was anything but delighted. Well, he had been depicted on a Monopoly board, and he was keen to make his displeasure known – ‘Quite rightly, not one person was complimentary. I wasn’t amused, and found it all very embarrassing’ he declared.

Well, whilst sympathising with Paul, and others feeling this somewhat unpleasant emotion, it is inevitable that all of us will suffer embarrassment at some time or other, and if your job puts you into any sort of contact with many other people, it can be more likely than for most – I still wince at the memory of attending a function with my better half, Sheila, a few years back, when we were approached by an attractive female with a vaguely familiar face, who rushed towards us and promptly greeted me with several lovey-dovey-type kisses, whilst my Sheila looked on, stony faced and clearly not amused.

As I tried to emerge from her embrace, the unfamiliar, but undeniably attractive lady directed an unmistakably correct question at me – ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Fearing the worst, I braced myself for some marriage-damagingly accusation about a long-forgotten misdemeanor. Continuing, she explained: ‘I was a counter clerk in a betting shop in Harrow with you – admittedly a few years ago. You paid out over a hundred quid too much to a punter and got the sack from the shop.’

Yes, I had to admit I did recall this somewhat traumatic event, and wasn’t entirely happy to hear her now add: ‘I think it was my fault.’

Embarrassment can arise in many different ways. Trainer, Martin Pipe’s wife, Carol, was at Taunton in January, 1993, with the stable’s runner, Elite Reg – whose tongue-strap was discovered to be missing. As noone was able to locate it, Mrs Pipe duly dashed into the nearest ‘ladies’ facility’, removed her tights and used them to hold down the horse’s tongue. The embarrassment ensued when the horse was pulled up.

During the same year, British trainer, John Dunlop took his horse Cazzuto to race in Italy, only to be embarrassed when it was pointed out to the apparently unaware Mr D that the name of the horse translated from Italian to English, was ‘Dickhead’ or ‘Badass’.

Excellent SIS racing reporter Robert Cooper retired from the role only recently. When asked once to recall his most memorable interview he diplomatically did not name the embarrassed winning owner ‘who had just dropped his cut-glass trophy’.

And personal embarrassment was definitely the order of the day back in 1993 when Musselburgh racecourse commentator Raleigh Gilbert found himself stuck in the commentary box long after racing had finished and had to finally call for rescue over the track’s p.a. system, forlornly requesting, ‘If anyone can hear me, please come and rescue me, I’m stuck…….’

I don’t think he’s still there!


Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.


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