I made my first move in a new direction over the Christmas period when I effectively took a piece of Swindon Town FC. Jeremy Wray (Ed€™s brother) is a long time friend, and he was working on the deal alongside his business partner, Andrew Fitton. Andrew takes the lead (and is chairman) with Jeremy playing a strong supporting role. The other two members of the consortium are me and Sir Martyn Arbib, but we are for the most part just putting cash up.
For a club to thrive in the long term it needs to be extremely well run, and Andrew is an incredibly good businessman – I have no doubt that he€™ll do the club proud. The plan is to steady the ship and slowly build the club up from there. We have a new CEO, a new manager, four new players and a decent run of recent results €“ I think we€™ve got a very respectable chance of making the play-offs.
On to more mundane matters, and I signed up with Weightwatchers on Tuesday. I turn up to weigh in and stand in a queue for ten minutes. Suddenly I hear a booming voice; €œLadies, we have a man with us today!€ followed by a lot of sniggering. The weightwatchers group consisted of about thirty overweight middle-aged women and me. Oh well.
Later I had to go and meet €œthe leader€, a 20 year old girl who gave me a little lecture on counting points as I eat. I smiled and thanked her. After that we all sat round in a big circle (I sat out the back) and had a chat about who was happy and who was unhappy that week. Not the high point of my week, but maybe the embarassment of it all will spur me on to greater heights.
Not much horse racing action, but I have one going tomorrow €“ Shepherds Warning goes for a hatrick of claimers tomorrow at Wolver. On the face of it she has a tough job to beat Rich Kid, but we know she€™ll go well in the conditions and she has a great attitude. She€™ll have a very respectable chance.