Simon Pearson
“He’s coming home, he’s coming home, he’s coming . . . Simon’s coming home.”
Not since Alan Shearer pulled on the Newcastle no.9 shirt has anyone been more excited to join his home town team, than Simon Pearson following his appointment as Oxford Racing Manager.
Born on the same Blackbird Leas Estate that surrounds the stadium, the Pearson family roots go very deep indeed.
He said: “My grandad had just left the navy when the built the stadium and he was here for the first meeting in 1936. In later years he had dogs with John Annett and from the very beginning I was just fascinated by them.
“I was about 14 and he had a nice little grader called Leeds Gift, and to this day I can remember everything about him from his breeding to his racing weight. I used to help out at John’s kennel at the weekends and my life has been greyhound racing ever since.”
34 years later and Simon can boast an impressive CV. He started out as an assistant to Racing Manager Gary Baiden, with Mick Wheble as the Northern Sports Senior Racing Manager.
He had spells at Reading, working with Martyn Dore and Ian Sillence, a spell out of the Racing Office working for the Stan James organisation, but then a spell with Chris Page at Towcester, two years at Doncaster, a return to Towcester earlier this year and then back to the place where it all started.
He said: “I’d like to thing I have been well schooled, and would like to think I learned a bit from everyone. I loved my time at Doncaster, a very good track and very well looked after but Oxford will always be home.
“We had some fabulous trainers and greyhounds when I first worked here: Mick Mercer, Litzi Miller, Ron Bicknell, Jim Morgan, Angie Kibble, Tony Meek . . . .My claim to fame was that I marked up Tony’s Derby winner Ringa Hustle.”
Simon is being joined in the racing office by Paul Johnson, who later went onto Monmore and whose father Bill was himself a RM at Milton Keynes and later at Yarmouth.
Which surely leads to the question, are there many more experienced racing offices in the industry?
Simon said: “Paul and I were both assistants to Gary Baiden, who I am still in regular touch with. In fact, Paul, Andy Lismore, Jason Mercer and Paddy Curtin and I all played in the same footbal team as teenagers. I realised even then that Andy had a great future as a commentator because he never stopped talking.”
A quiet, easy going character, Simon admits that if there is one thing that makes his blood boil, it is the social media accusations that racing managers are deliberately boxing up greyhounds with the additional risk of injury.
“It’s just not true. I haven’t seen it. Seeing a dog injured is the worst part of this job but sometimes it just happens. Nobody who thinks anything of the greyhounds would do something like that. In fact, the opposite is also true. The most satisfaction you can get in a race is seeing minimal trouble and all six dogs crossing the line together.”
As for the man who started it all off, Simon said: “Grandad was 100 years old in September. Although he is now housebound, he is delighted that the stadium is racing again.”
