John Cheatle – 1911 – 2002
Some members may not be aware of John C.A. Cheatle and the part he played in the history of RPGC.
John was born in 1911, the same year as the club was founded.
RPGC Captain 1957 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlS6GwqsLLk&t=18s)
RPGC President 1967 – 70
L&RGU President 1974 -75
Midland Golf Union President 1978 – 83
English Golf Union President 1983
He donated the trophies for the John Cheatle Foursomes and the John Cheatle Bowl both of which are played annually at Rothley Park.
He was instrumental in extending the course in 1972 with the expansion of the 17th hole from a par 3 to a par 4 hole and the 18th from a par 4 to par 5.
He was sufficiently eminent to warrant an obituary in the Daily Telegraph in 2002.
Excerpt from the John Cheatle obituary in the Daily Telegraph:
John Cheatle, who has died aged 91, was a successful racehorse owner and founder of the Leicester retail and property group which bears his name.
He was also involved for more than 40 years in the administration of golf, culminating in his election as president of the English Golf Union in 1983. As a player, he represented Leicestershire County First Team for more than a decade.
John Cecil Alfred Cheatle, the son of a Staffordshire farmer, was born on February 20 1911. He left school at the age of 14 and eventually began his business career in 1930 as an apprentice at Buxton & Bonnett outfitters at Wolverhampton.
Seven years later he started his own clothing business, in Leicester, and during the 1950s expanded it to seven branches across the Midlands. After his son, Nicholas, joined the business in 1963, they developed the business to more than 100 branches throughout the UK; at the same time they diversified into farming and property.
In 1976 he became chairman of the John Cheatle Group of Companies. Almost 20 years later the group acquired Buxton & Bonnett, the business in which Cheatle had served his apprenticeship more than 50 years earlier.
As a racehorse owner for nearly 30 years, Cheatle won 118 races on 21 different racecourses. His two most famous horses, The Moke and Time, were favourites for the 1951 Lincoln Handicap and the 1964 Grand National.
His career as an owner began in 1947, the year that the jockey Willie Stephenson established his training yard at Royston, and Cheatle became one of Stephenson’s most loyal patrons.
The Moke was purchased for 270 guineas at Doncaster in 1948, handsomely repaying the investment by winning five races in his first season, and prize money totalling more than £2,000.
After winning the 1950 Free Handicap at Newmarket, and another race at Worcester, The Moke was made favourite for the Lincoln, but finished only fifth. Turning to hurdles as a five-year-old, the horse won five further races, increasing his career earnings to more than £6,000.
A two-year-old purchased in 1957, Time was aptly named, since Willie Stephenson was insistent that the horse would be slow to mature. It was not until he was an eight-year-old that the horse won his first major race.
He improved to win the 1963 National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival and was favourite for the Grand National in the following year, but was baulked while leading the field at Beecher’s the second time around; despite a brilliant recovery by the jockey, Michael Scudamore, Time was eventually brought down four fences from home.
Cheatle began playing golf in 1948, at the age of 37. By 1953 he was playing regularly for Leicestershire County First Team off a handicap of three. Playing as an amateur in Bermuda, he twice won the world’s oldest Pro/Am tournament, the Bermuda Goodwill Tournament, and also twice won the Castle Harbour Pro/Am Tournament between 1972 and 1979.
He became a member of the Council of the English Golf Union in 1973; president of the Leicestershire & Rutland Golf Union (1974-75); chairman of the Midland Group of the English Golf Union (1977-82) and president of the English Golf Union in 1983.
In retirement Cheatle shot and fished until his late eighties. He died on July 4.
He married, in 1937, Norah Louise Shale. She survives him with their son and daughter.
