AS a general rule, multi-millionaires approaching their 60th birthday don't take kindly to being branded football hooligans.

Lifelong Manchester United fan Fred Done still has not forgotten the incident this time last year when he jumped out of his seat to celebrate a Ruud van Nistelrooy goal during a crunch game against Arsenal at Highbury.

"I was sitting with my wife Mo and we ended up getting thrown out because two big 50-year-old blokes objected to the fact that we were sitting in the Arsenal stand supporting United," he said.

"I couldn't believe it when the stewards asked us to leave. The last thing I said to the guy who started the bother was that I'd be back."

True to his word, Done returns to the capital this weekend with a two-fold mission.

To start, he wants to celebrate the first running of the £150,000 Betfred Gold Cup, the highlight of a tremendous two-day mixed meeting at Sandown Park.

Second, he aims to ensure that the fat cats of London's bookmaking industry finally know what it feels like to come up against a lean and mean opponent.

Done, who lives in Worsley, launched his first betting shop in a tough part of his native Salford in 1967 and has gradually grown his business to the point that a flagship outlet due to open in Leicester Square this summer will be the 400th in his chain.

"I've been too parochial for too long but that's all changed and we'll have 40 shops within the M25 by the end of 2004," he said.

"That's where the high-staking punters are and, after a long spell where the big firms have had it way too easy in the South, we're planning to get right in amongst them."

To do just that, Done will offer bonus payouts on a wide range of multiple bets, as well as paying out on both the winner and the second place-getter whenever the stewards disqualify a horse who passes the post first.

He also has a maverick attitude to the boom industry of football betting which has resulted in some memorable highs and lows.

Done never tires of saying how Liverpool fans "have sent me on some lovely holidays" by backing their team for the Premiership over the years.

But his decision to grab some column inches by paying out early when United went 11 points clear with 10 games to go in 1998 backfired after Arsenal came roaring back.

"I just couldn't see any way United could get caught, so we paid out every punter who had backed them to the tune of half-a-million quid," he said.

"We then had to pay out another £250,000 on Arsenal, but the story got into papers all over the world and in PR terms it ended up being priceless for us."

Done has played the PR game to maximum effect since that episode and took all of 20 seconds to decide that the race which is still remembered as the Whitbread Gold Cup was the right vehicle to launch his first major venture into sponsorship.

"I didn't even realise that Attheraces (the TV racing channel) had sponsored the race for the last two years, which suggests they hadn't done a great job of promoting it. But this is a race with a wonderful tradition and we're determined to get right behind it," he said.

"Yes, we want to help raise our profile because we're launching our Internet betting venture next month, but racing has given me a very good living.

"I'm probably speaking against my professional interests when I say that all-weather Flat racing is just betting shop fodder, but for me top-class jump racing is something special. The top horses and jockeys have been heroes of mine ever since I was a kid and backing the Betfred Gold Cup is a great way of putting something back into a sport which has taken a few knocks recently."

Done looks frighteningly fit for a man of 60 and is preparing to run his 30th marathon in New York later this year.

But first comes a return to London for Saturday's big race and the ongoing battle for a bigger slice of London's multi-million pound gambling market.

"I'm totally in love with the bookmaking business and because I don't have to answer to the board of a plc I can get stuck in and take a few chances," he said.

Done's latest chance involves having given the biggest price on Chelsea for this season's Premiership on the basis that "a championship-winning team has to be built and not bought".

Title success for Arsenal will spare him a £1.5 million payout, and this time the man who was thrown out of his seat at Highbury is cheering the Gunners on.

"I'm 60 now, so it's no good making five-year plans," he said. "What I want to do most of all is go into London to have some fun and show those fat southern bookies what a bit of cut-throat competition is like."

This article first appeared in the London Evening Standard.