The Evo-Stik League Northern Premier

Bobby the Badger and Miller Mouse flew the flag for the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League at Uttoxeter Races annual mascot race!

The event, in aid of the The Children's Trust, saw a field of more than twenty mascots line up against Stafford’s Bobby and Carlton Town’s Miller in the race which was screened live on television.

Both mascots were entering the event for the first time with Bobby finishing a respectable ninth behind Burton Albion’s race winner Billy the Brewer.

The pair could now step up to become regulars in the nation’s biggest event for mascots, the annual Mascot Grand National in aid of the Heart a Heart charity which was won this year by Barnet’s Mr Bumble.

This year the race, which was first run back in 1999, moved in May from Huntingdon Racecourse to Kempton Park for the first time and was won by Barnet’s champion entry, Mr Bumble.

The event now has it’s own Facebook page and has expanded to include mascots from other sports and even non-sport mascots, the winners in 2005 and 2006 representing Kick 4 Life and The Sun newspaper respectively.

If Miller or Bobby do enter they should avoid any of the controversy that has dogged the world of mascot racing recently by being a true footballing mascots. In 2010, many mascots, especially those from professional football clubs, boycotted the race over the way it was organised and the fact that mascots from any field could enter even if they were not 'day in-day out' performers!