“l don’t believe in ghosts, but it happened.” 25 years ago, Wimbledon champion Pat Cash met his match when he became convinced his hotel room was haunted.
By Alan Clarkson
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald on October 14, 1987
Wimbledon champion Pat Cash moved out of his room at a Kings Cross hotel on Monday because he feared it was haunted.
Cash asked for a change of room when he heard footsteps, and then a scraping sound in his room at the Hyatt Kingsgate.
Pat Cash … “I don’t believe in ghosts, but it happened.”Credit:Greg White
“l don’t believe in ghosts, and I’m not on drugs or anything, but it happened. It must have been one,” Cash said.
He became so terrified that he rang the hotel switchboard, and asked for a change of rooms.
When the hotel could not make the switch at that stage, Cash left the room and slept on the couch in the room of his coach, Ian Barclay.
Haunted? … The Hyatt Kingsgate the following day.Credit:Staff photographer
After his game yesterday, almost all of Cash’s press conference was taken up with his dramatic account of the incidents in Room 1705 in the early hours of Monday morning.
To add spice to the tale, Kelly Evernden, the player Cash beat in straight sets in his first-round match in the Australian Indoor Tennis Championships at the Entertainment Centre last night, is staying at the same hotel – and he thought someone was in his shower this morning.
It was so real, he got out of bed to investigate, but there was no one there.
“That’s weird,” he said when told of Cash’s ghost fears.
Cash said he woke up on Monday morning to the sound of footsteps at the bottom of his bed.
“That’s weird” … Kelly Evernden thought someone was in his shower.Credit:Anton Cermak
“I looked round but nothing was there, and I thought it was a bit weird,” Cash said. “I started to relax, and then I beard a scraping noise. I started breaking out in a cold sweat, I was so scared.
“I just stayed still for 10 minutes. I didn’t move an inch or even bat an eyelid.
“The third time it was right at the end of my bed, and I was starting to freak out, and I was too scared to look in case I saw something.
“When it quietened down, I turned on all the lights, pulled up the blinds, turned on the television set and made lots of noise.”
Cash said he made a quick trip to Barclay’s room and stayed there, only going back to the haunted room to collect his gear.
The chief security officer at the Hyatt Kingsgate, Mr David Jones, said last night that in his four years at the hotel he had heard of no other ghost reports, and believed that the “footsteps” could have been those of a porter or even air-conditioning noise.
He had spoken to Cash, who had told him of hearing footsteps, but Mr Jones said he was still sure there was no ghost. As he spoke on the phone, there was the sound of chuckling in the background.
As for the tournament, Cash would win through to the final before falling to his fellow Wimbledon finalist of the same year, Ivan Lendl. The score was 6–4, 6–2, 6–4.
