Alan Brazil goes AWOL as he fails to turn up for his talkSPORT breakfast show, with an emergency presenter forced to step in after a day in the bars at Cheltenham

Alan Brazil amused talkSPORT listeners by not showing up as he prepared for the Cheltenham Festival this morning – a day after he was spotted at a bar in Prestbury Park.

Brazil was ostensibly intended to guide listeners through all the conversations leading up to the festival’s final day of action.

But Chris Evans was forced to step in and initially fill the silence after Brazil were nowhere to be seen, while Shebahn Aherne later took control of the airwaves.

Ray Parlor and Dean Saunders were also present at Aherne to cover the truant chat box. They joked that he was still in bed.

Jamie O’Hara, the former Tottenham player who works on talkSPORT’s Sports Bar show, joked that it was a ‘mess from the big man’.

“Waking up to a no show from Alan Brazil is exactly the start to the day I needed, I’ll see if I can find him in Cheltenham later today, mess of the big man,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter .

Parlor claimed that Brazil texted him at 4:30 a.m. telling him to sleep in.

Evans had been preparing to take the microphone for his regular breakfast show on Virgin Radio but was snapped up by talkSPORT bosses to fill in at the start of the show.

He said, ‘Did he make it? Um, no is the answer, at least not so far.

‘I’m really sorry about this huge talkSPORT, but it’s Chris Evans here from Virgin Radio.

“So if you’ve seen Alan Brazil in the last 24 hours, where did you see him, where was the sighting and what time was it too?

‘If you don’t know what you are looking for: Alan Brazil is robust in nature and robust in character.

“Also missing this morning, we’ve got Ray ‘Party’ Parlor, he’s nowhere to be found, we haven’t seen Dean ‘Deano’ Saunders in a while, Ally ‘Goldenballs’ McCoist, no, he’s nowhere to be seen either.

“So if you see any of these characters, we need to know where they are because they need to be back here on the show.”

As he took on his broadcasting duties this week, Brazil also enjoyed the celebrations at Cheltenham.

Brazil normally presents its breakfast show from 6am, but was nowhere to be seen on Friday morning

Sports Bar presenter Jamie O’Hara joked it was a ‘big man’s mess’ and vowed to track him down at Cheltenham

Raceday TV’s Emma Jones found it in Cheltenham on Thursday after a two-day search – and where else could it have been than in Guinness Village?

‘We found him. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said.

‘Real? It’s my lucky day!’

Jones laughed and continued: “This is my first time at Cheltenham, I asked everyone what to do and they said find Alan Brazil.

‘It’s been my mission for two days. Mission accomplished!’

Perhaps his absence from the show this morning will spark a new search.

One user on

Another user posted a photo with Brazil apparently in Cheltenham, although it is not clear from when.

One wrote: ‘Alan Brazil didn’t report, really thought he deserved the whole week.’