With it being the biggest week in the racing calendar, mentions of Cheltenham are never too far away.

Former Crystal Palace and Ireland defender Damien Delaney recounted on Wednesday’s Newsround the time that he and his Palace teammates took a trip to the festivities in Cheltenham.

At the time of the trip, the Eagles were flying high in the Championship and heading for promotion to the Premier League.

With Ian Holloway as manager at the time, it was decided that the players deserved a break on the back of their good form.

Cheltenham

However, as Delaney recalls, with a derby against Brighton looming on the horizon it probably wasn’t the best idea.

 “We went the year we got promoted from the Championship.

“We were going great at the time but we had Brighton on the Saturday [after Cheltenham]. 

“We went down on the Wednesday because we were off and we ended up getting beaten 3-0 and it was pandemonium afterwards.

“It was all fine to begin with, ‘yeah go ahead and have yourselves a good time’ and then we got hammered in a derby game against Brighton.

“We were going so great that we all thought, ‘we’ll have some drinks, we’re doing brilliantly,’'' Delaney said.

The plan backfired though when they faced off against Brighton as Delaney recounted.

“We got our arses handed to us on the Saturday and it was carnage, the finger pointing that was going on.

“Ian Holloway was the manager at the time and he said it was alright to go.

“He was like, ‘yeah go ahead and enjoy yourselves.’

“But then after the game, he was like, ‘what did you all go down there for?!’

“A few weeks later he said to us that it was his fault and he shouldn’t have given us the go ahead,” Delaney said.

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