Mike Cattermole recalls his time on the Sporting Life newspaper in the 1980s and 90s

My father, who got me into this great sport, introduced me to The Sporting Life, that legendary, much missed newspaper, which always had something of an aura about it.

For starters, I just loved the title. There was something decadent about it, which made it even harder to resist, perhaps. The Life was sort of spivvy but classy at the same time. It had a certain look to it, too, and the size, being a broadsheet, gave it added presence.

There was 'Augur' the chief tipster (although I didn’t know what augur meant) and Man On The Spot, with his in-depth analysis. Dick Whitford’s ratings were always inside the front page where the marker sheet was.

The names of the journalists there became familiar to me. George Ennor, Geoff Lester, Len Poole, Chris Gundry, Jeremy Chapman, Jack Logan, Jeffrey Bernard, Ted Allen and Bob Betts (a great name for a Life journalist), to name just a few.

Little did I know I would end up working with some of them.

I had felt very grown up when I bought my first copy of The Life as a teenager and I will also never forget on Gold Cup day in 1980 when I had it folded neatly on my lap, displaying the Cheltenham card under my desk in the maths class.

I didn’t notice it all going quiet as Mr Harris hovered behind me. When I looked up, startled, he promptly asked me to leave the room.

He was actually doing me a big favour as I went straight home to watch the racing on telly! But, it was presumably no surprise to him that I eventually scraped by with an 'E' for my A-level.

Once I had decided to go into racing, I made it my target to try and join The Life and who would have thought that, after barely two years at Timeform, I would get the chance to join the legendary stable.

With Racing Post launching in 1986 and plenty of Sheikh Mohammed’s money behind it, there was suddenly a surfeit of job opportunities around for a racing writer and some were soon poached from The Life, meaning that gaps had to be filled.

It was actually The Sporting Life Weekender that I joined in late 1985 having been interviewed by George White and the late Neil Cook who was, like me, in my mid-20s but was already the editor! I was in awe of him. He was married to the beautiful Sara, had young kids and drove a BMW. I was just an immature kid in comparison.

We were based in Farringdon Road to begin with, not far from Fleet Street, and also joining the Weekender at the time were Simon Holt, Tony 'Broon Bottle' Elves and Phill Lamphee.

Dick Hunter, a lovely man, was the lead tipster and the senior sub there was Eric Potter, who was quite a bit older than us but great company and had had a novel, 'Dear Popsy' published. I recall Eric being delighted and proud that Michael Palin had reviewed it and loved it. Ian Harrison, a genial Australian, completed our line-up.

Alastair Down wrote a weekly column for us and was another larger-than-life character floating around. He seemed far too grand and grown up for me to dare bother him. His writing of course was sublime and very funny.

We still used typewriters in those days and would all take turns late in the day to help down on 'the stone' where the paper was being constructed before it was sent to the printer. The days of hot metal of course were soon to end but I kind of like that I was around before it went.

We worked hard all through Sunday to Tuesday night for our weekly paper, published on Wednesday, and then had the rest of the week to ourselves.

I started to write a few features for The Life itself – the first big one being an interview with the late Tim Forster who was so kind. Then there were the odd days as Man On The Spot, race-reading – providing the close-up comments in the results section - and some race reporting from the track. Sometimes both. There was never a dull day.

By the time I was full time on The Life, we had moved to New Fetter Lane and much closer to the hub of Mirror Group Newspapers. I became part of the news desk with Colin Vickers and Gary Nutting and under the editorship of Monty Court, a charismatic Fleet Street veteran.

The only time I saw Robert Maxwell in person was at Monty’s retirement reception and the media mogul, a man of huge presence, spent as much time talking about himself as he did of Monty. Little did we know that he was just about to dip into our pension funds.

Noel Blunt was the chief sub then and didn’t suffer fools. It was Blunt by name and blunt by nature for the Sheffield-born, proud Yorkshireman who also had a habit of mixing his metaphors. He once said: “Those blooming football hooligans – if I had my way, I’d shove ‘em on desert island and throw away t'key!”

But Noel, who retired and replaced by the unshakeable Bryan Pugh, was an angel compared to Charles Wilson who became Editor-in-Chief for the entire Mirror Group and, being into his racing, kept an eye on all of us. The fiery Glaswegian would suddenly turn up on the editorial floor and instil sheer terror as he played up to his reputation as one of the industry’s hardest men.

Monty was succeeded by the affable Mike Gallemore whose similarity of name to my own was surely the reason I found myself sitting on a table of racing VIPs at an early edition of the Cartier Awards dinner.

I couldn’t understand why I, a mere hack, was placed next to the Duchess of Bedford and opposite other very well known faces on that strange evening. When Mick Channon asked me how long I had been the Life’s editor, I immediately twigged.

I don’t think Mike G even got an invitation!

When Tom Clark took over the role from Mike, those coincidences were never going to be repeated. Tom was a nice enough guy but I don’t think he ever got what The Life was all about. I recall one of his requests to reporters was to assess the state of the toilets at racecourses and give them star ratings. That went down well.

The writing was on the wall for The Life when it lost its libel case over the infamous Top Cees affair, which set it back thousands of pounds in awards and costs.

The reformatting of the betting shop edition of the paper then also upset the bookmakers who took the opportunity not to buy it. That, essentially, was a six-pointer with the Post.

The Life was printed for the final time on May 12, 1998. It had been going since 1859 and it was a terribly sad occasion. I had been there for over 12 years, many a lot, lot longer.

The Life was an institution and how wonderful that, in these very different times, we still have a modern version of it. Long live sportinglife.com!

*Mike will be speaking to a number of former The Sporting Life journalists for his 'A former Life' mini-series.

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