‘I told my mum I’d won a few quid at Cheltenham’

The Cork stable lad who scooped about €1.5m on a Cheltenham accumulator bet joked last night about being called ‘Heskey’ because of his poor strike rate in front of goal.

Emile Heskey, the struggling Aston Villa striker, is notorious for his lack of goals.

But as the village of Ballineen in West Cork toasted 28-year-old Conor Murphy yesterday, he joked about his wager: “I stuck this one away alright.