That's the way edm july2009 it was."It may have been fairly mundane for the rest of Foley's career had edm july2009 he not bought a gelding by The Parson for £IR7,000 at Goffs edm Sales. Like Sirrell Griffiths, the Carmarthen dairy farmer whose cow-herding horse, Norton's Coin, won the Gold Cup five years ago, Foley has proved that space remains for the small man even in the most rarefied july2009 competition National Hunt racing can offer.Foley started training only nine years ago, and even then it was hardly by edm the textbook "I made it up as I july2009 went along," he said. If Danoli wins the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday (and no Irish horse has done so since july2009 Dawn Run in edm 1984) officials will know what it was like to face the second wave at Rorke's Drift.Tom Foley is popular, and not only in Ireland, because he epitomises what the Cheltenham Festival is all about. This victory caused logistical problems for the Cheltenham executive in that the whole of Co Carlow attempted to squeeze into the winners' enclosure.

The 48-year-old Irish trainer, who has the sort of lined, mobile face usually associated with gurning contests, returns to Britain on Tuesday for the first day of the Cheltenham Festival.

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At the same meeting 12 months ago, Foley and his best horse, Danoli, ensured the Prestbury Park clapometer would be off for repair when taking the Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle. Racing's contribution to improbable heroes is Tom Foley, who, unlike the other two, is drawn only in appearance. Which was perhaps what had happened to Armstrong: after all, he forgot how to put the ball in the net several months ago.. Athletics had Alf Tupper, training on chips and gravy and winning titles in old shoes, while football gave us Roy Race, lithe of body and luxuriant of coiffure to the end despite several decades in Melchester Rovers' first team. Waste of money, Cole, you are, a waste of bloody money." Three days after Cole had scored five, the supporter had obviously been taking too much of the old memory-impairing funny stuff. During the game between Wimbledon and Manchester United, a United fan behind me was driven to fury every time Andy Cole got the ball "You're lazy, you, get involved, get to work. No transfer can now take place without conspiracy theorists spreading dark rumours about clubs off-loading coke-heads.

Indeed, since nine other, as yet unnamed, players failed the nationwide drugs trawl which netted Armstrong, sudden absences from the first team will now be explained in the stands as drugs related.This may be because fans, unlike administrators, know about drugs; they share the same habitats, perhaps even the same suppliers, as the players.Certainly, despite Armstrong's suspension, there was something lingering in the air at Selhurst Park on Tuesday night. Yet most managers, most administrators, are clueless about the temptations because they simply did not exist in their day.Fans, on the other hand, seem far more aware. Grass was so openly on sale, it changed hands out in the bar.Young footballers, with plenty of readies, are just the kind of soft targets these dealers salivate about. In the fun pub just down the road from Highbury that I visited recently there was a bustling pharmaceutical market: you could buy Ecstasy in the corridor, cocaine in the urinals, and if you wanted heroin, you went into the cubicles, where a dealer sat ready to help. Oh, and a touch forgetful.Yet Armstrong was treated in much the same poor-lad-gone-off-the-rails manner as Paul Merson, who had a real career-threatening problem. Why exactly is counselling necessary for someone with minute traces of cannabis in their system? Football's clueless inability to differentiate between the benevolent and the malevolent does not augur well for how it will deal with an increasing problem.In the past five years, the kind of pubs and clubs that footballers tend to frequent have become a recreational drug consumers' paradise. Had Chris Armstrong turned up for training nursing a monster hangover he would have been giggled at as a bit of lad.It doesn't take a degree in medicine to suggest that, as a method of relaxing from the pressures of the game, Armstrong's was the more sensible.