RECENTLY I was with some of my ex-players, two of whom, David Peach and Nick Holmes, were the only ones who played in both cup finals.

We were talking about many things and horses and betting cropped up because the legend Mick Channon and his son Michael were in attendance.

Michael by the way has written a book recently called ‘How’s your dad?’ Apparently it is doing very well.

He doesn’t pull any punches but being in their company you can tell how well they get on.

One memory cropped up of when I had agreed with Brighton to play a midweek friendly game which was for a charity as I remember.

I decided to treat it as a couple of days away for the players.

We went down the night before and on the day of the game where normally they would be resting after lunch I said ‘off you go.’ Some went to have a round of golf, others stayed to swim at the hotel pool.

Of course, inevitably, there was the group who wanted to go to the races.

There was a very small racetrack in that area and I was persuaded to go along with them.

To put it in a nutshell, I backed more winners on the day than all of the rest of them put together.

As we remembered the other night, the last race was what Mick called a ‘cavalry charge’ because there were about 40 horses in it.

We all picked three each and, whilst I didn’t get the winner, all of mine came in before any of Mick’s, which I told him could well still be running.

I said at that time I would one day tell the squad about my system.

Eventually they dragged it out of me.

It was probably not what they expected - look at the list of horses in the newspaper and go ‘eney, meeny, miny, moe, catch a rascal…’ Even if there’s only five or six horses keep going up and down until you get to the last word and you back that one and the one after it.

I often do that when I look to see if Mick has any horses racing, and if I bother to look at the results later I find my system has normally come up with if not a winner at least a place.

The reason I thought about this in connection with this weekend is that it is the FA Cup fifth round, which involves eight games.

As we have said recently, it shows up what I think can be called the lack of respect now from whoever it is – clubs, owners, managers – for the FA Cup.

There are only eight Premier League clubs left in, along with those from the lower divisions and of course, and congratulations to, two non-league clubs in Lincoln and Sutton United.

For me the surprising thing looking at the draw is that the eight Premier League clubs have all been kept apart.

You certainly would have got good odds on that, even though as we know the draw is open, honest and done on television for the whole world to see.

If in fact coaches have not turned out first teams in the previous rounds, surely now when most of them know what their league situation is and the knowledge that if they get through this round there will only be eight clubs left, they will put out their full strength teams.

I suppose Sutton United in particular, and especially after the humiliation of Arsenal in Europe this week, will be hoping Arsene puts his third team out, never mind his first team.

Either way it will still be a great occasion for Paul Doswell, Ian Baird and the club in general.

Speaking with my ex-players and many football supporters since the last FA Cup games, the general description of Saints’ previous match in the competition was Saints reserves lost heavily to Arsenal reserves.

I think that’s a great pity and I hope that the amount of bad publicity games like that have received will persuade clubs in the future to treat the FA Cup with the respect it had in our day, and continues to have with supporters all around the world who look forward to seeing the final on their TV sets.

  • l I would like to warn all true football followers I have bad news, and I would ask them to sit down before they read this.

I will quote word for word a sad fact I came across recently.

Former Everton defender Johnny Heitinga and his wife Charlotte-Sophie say they have found it difficult adjusting their spending now the former Dutch international has retired.

Wait for it, they can no longer afford a private jet.

I can hear the gasps and the sobbing from all around and I am sure many of you will wish to start a fund to help this poor couple.

I have only one thing to say – get a ******* life and try and catch the bus.