Used to deal poker for Michael Owen and a few big wigs in Liverpool. A member of his game was a big wig barrister who dropped the n word multiple times as well as call me a dirty paddy. Owen was asked about it and denied it happened. Casino let them stay due too the money being spent. Anyone got anything similar?
Danny Drinkwater - weirdo
Just to balance this out
Jack Charlton - lovely man
Was a kid and was in Cyprus for under 18 European championships, was at an Ireland game and Liam Brady was in the stands sitting by himself. She was a massive Arsenal fan and he was her favourite player. I walked over to him at half time and asked him to sign my jersey so I could give it to her and he basically told me to do one and not to bother him. Complete bellend.
Edgar Davids …was working at the airport and there were young kids looking to get autographs from the Juve team. Davids just blanked all the kids , literally pushed his way past them, arrogant tosser.
The other Juve players were more or less sound though, especially Alex Del Piero …spent lots of time signing autographs and having chats.
Lee Dixon after commentating a game, my Arsenal friend wanted to speak to him and as soon as he realised he was recognised, he swiftly went back to his bus
Worked at a cocktail bar in Manchester and a few of the United boys came in with their girlfriends. Fellaini’s girl had a bit too much to drink and broke a couple of glasses and Fellaini was yelling at me to clean it up immediately. On the other hand, Daley Blind’s fiancee was genuinely so lovely and kind and made my night.
David James. Gatecrashed my mates wedding reception, was a novelty at first til he got drunk, tried it on with every woman there, asked my mum of all people “who’s got the chuff on them?” and ended up being thrown out, using the line “I’m worth more money than all of you put together” on his way out.
Ironically he filed for bankruptcy
Oh that’s really sad! I met him recently - sober - on the tube and we chatted the rest of the journey (at least 20m) and he kept the conversation going more than me. I even politely said I’ll leave you to your book and he was like na I’m not really reading it anyway. He was a genuine bloke, affable, friendly, charming. A mile away from your story. We did speak about footballers being role models and he was saying he finds it hard the idea of footballers have to be role models when they are so young and in such a weird environment that we shouldn’t really expect them to have these high moral standards that set examples for kids. Which I sort of see the point of. Didn’t realise he partly meant because he didn’t want to be a role model :/
Jason McActeer.
Autographed my programme, asked if we could be pen pals, borrowed my pen to sign other autographs AND THEN NEVER BOTHERED TO WRITE ME A LETTER AS AGREED IN OUR VERBAL CONTRACT
My step dad is a mobile mechanic who works in the London/Essex area for Land Rover Jaguar, so has been called out to repair a few footballers cars.
Jermain Defoe was very nice, as was Matthew Upson. Danny Rose was apparently very stuck up, rude, barely spoke to him, no please/thank you etc.
Living where I do (Romford/Gidea Park/Hornchurch area) there’s quite a few London based footballers living round this way that I’ve bumped into. Never asked for an autograph or picture, but just to say hello. Frank Lampard is really nice and actually stopped to chat for a minute or so. John Terry literally ignored me and walked past. The worst was Diafra Sakho, who used to play for West Ham. I said hello and he stopped and glared at me and said “yes? What?” in a really aggressive tone and then walked off.
I used to see Michael Carrick in The Archers quite regularly during his WH days
Adam Johnson, when I was 13
Was he trying to shag you?
David Alaba. Apparently, when he was younger and the austrian national team resided on the countryside to prepare, he dicked’ down whole villages. When I met him a few years back, I couldn’t get rid of those thoughts. But: nice guy!
Dicked down? Sorry I don’t understand 😅
John Moncur walked past my mate’s kid saying he didn’t have time to sign an autograph, he had to get on the team bus, which he did and then sat there for 15 minutes doing nothing. He then got off the bus and walked past my mate and his kid again and ignored them.
I don’t know if this was before or after he became a born-again Christian.
Another friend’s kid spotted Ian Wright and Rio Ferdinand at West Ham in the stand and his kid asked them both for an autograph. Rio was more than happy to oblige and Ian Wright just smirked and blanked him. Rio was really embarrassed and had to persuade Wright to give the kid his autograph.
Rio Ferdinand = Top bloke
Ian Wright = bellend
I actually knocked at Onana’s house on Halloween. He was kind enough to answer and arrived at the door with a pumpkin filled with various sweets. Unfortunately he fumbled the pumpkin and all the contents fell on the ground so I didn’t manage to get anything!
Miralem Pjanić. Used to be a waiter 10 years ago and was his waiter at the beach for 4-5 hours maybe. I remember him acting like he owns the place, he was rude and his wife was making problems about everything. The owner who loved the guy before just said to him to pack his stuff and leave. The owner also didn’t want to take his money (if i remember correctly, it was like half my salary).
Not a footballer but I’ve met Alan Pardew a couple of years ago. Told him that Scaloni is a wanker about the 2006 FA Cup final and he laughed. He told me he still keeps up with West Ham and that we are in his blood. Overall a nice experience.
I used to work at Southampton airport and we had a lot of footbal teams come through. One memorable occasion was Ronaldo when he was at Man Utd trying to get all his ‘products’ (hair gel, moisturisers etc) through security. Bear in mind that post 9/11, airport security were very twitchy about liquids and told him they couldn’t go in his hand baggage and he threw a fit. Sir Alex heard this, and gave him a massive bollocking and told him to appologise.