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Footballers who ARE nice people.


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Met quite a few footballers over the years. Mostly my experiences have been positive ones. 

Way back in the day I was on train from central station to Fir Park. I would have been a teenager iirc. Met John Gahagan. One of my favourite players at the time. He saw my scarf and chatted to me all the way to Motherwell. Offered me a lift in the taxi to the ground and organised a comp ticket for me. Sound guy. 

Also had the pleasure of Stevie Hammell company at a couple of dinners. He spent time talking to most fans and was just an all round good guy. No airs and graces at all. 

Edited by welldaft
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18 hours ago, Andy_K_97 said:

Ally McCoist. At Kris Boyd's testimonial at RP McCoist was managing the Rangers XI and was brilliant with everyone. Went all the way along the disabled section close to the dugouts of his own accord and made time for everyone - was more than happy to do selfies and autographs with everyone. I remember him being the same when I was a kid and he was at Killie, just a smashing guy. 

Ally was coming to the end of his career when I first started going to Pittodrie but was always weird to see an opposition player (a *** at that) signing autographs as he was walking along to warm up behind the Merkland end.

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7 hours ago, Uncle Scan said:

I have met and even played against players who the majority are decent boys

Paul McStay stands out and came across as a class act

One of his boys played for a local boys club and he was there watching

When the game finished he made a point of praising every single boy who played

Such a small, tiny gesture yet would have made all the boys feel amazing.

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6 hours ago, killiefan27 said:

Manuel Pascali - always a lot of time for fans. Remember an event for James Fowler's testimonial and the Killie Standard guy was trying to get a picture of Paska. Kept getting ruined by him inviting drunk fans into the frame

Craig Browns grandson was on the books at Killie at some point years ago. Pascale was his favourite player as he was the only one that thanked the ball boys for collecting the ball for him 🤣

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30 minutes ago, welldaft said:

Met quite a few footballers over the years. Mostly my experiences have been positive ones. 

Way back in the day I was on train from central station to Fir Park. I would have been a teenager iirc. Met John Gahagan. One of my favourite players at the time. He saw my scarf and chatted to me all the way to Motherwell. Offered me a lift in the taxi to the ground and organised a comp ticket for me. Sound guy. 

Also had the pleasure of Stevie Hammell company at a couple of dinners. He spent time talking to most fans and was just an all round good guy. No airs and graces at all. 

An absolutely hilarious after dinner speaker. Had me in tears.

Apologies for a million posts. Didn't expect to reply to so many.

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1 minute ago, Merkland Red said:

An absolutely hilarious after dinner speaker. Had me in tears.

Apologies for a million posts. Didn't expect to reply to so many.

He is a superb speaker.

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11 hours ago, CCB19035 said:

Derek McInnes is nice? 
 

Genuinely surprised to hear that, with his son being a prize bellend. 

I met McInnes when he was manager at St Johnstone and he was a really decent bloke. Old man Brown who was the Chairman then was a complete bell end.

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Following my riveting post in the other thread, I shall now give a shout-out to the nicest players I interviewed whilst volunteering for the Saints media team.

Dave Mackay (I also fondly recall him giving me a wee smile and nod from his car window outside Tynecastle when I'd arrived far too early for an away game), Steven Anderson, Zander Clark, Graham Cummins, Chris Kane (albeit via Twitter DMs rather than in person), Steven MacLean, Chris Millar, Michael O'Halloran (who always said hello and asked how I was doing when I passed him in the reception foyer), Joe Shaughnessy, Michael Doyle, Frazer Wright and Murray Davidson all passed the test with flying colours. Despite the difficulties in getting hold of him, Danny Swanson came across very well and gave me the best interview of them all, extremely open and honest in relation to topics which I'm sure would have been particularly difficult to talk about. As mentioned in the other thread, Richard Foster and Paul Paton both surprised me for positive reasons (the latter especially).

I've chatted to Brian Easton during a couple of nights out at the Loft and he has always been great, seemingly wanting to initiate conversation and ask me questions about myself, quite a rare occurrence amongst footballers. David Wotherspoon came across as a lovely guy when I interviewed him and gets a special mention because he thanked me for the research I'd done prior to the interview and congratulated me on the questions. That definitely stood out to me.

However, the ultimate stand-out was Alan Mannus. I waited for him in the reception foyer at the usual time (just as the players were supposed to be finishing up with their day's training). Soon he emerged, walked straight up to me, shook my hand and engaged me in conversation about general life for a while. I asked him if he was ready for a few questions, to which he said 'yes' and asked the receptionist lady if it was OK for us to get access into the stadium and sit in the seats usually reserved for the chairman and his pals. He was incredibly warm and polite, running me through the details of his entire career before happily signing my dad's copy of 'Our Day in May' (a book about the 2014 Scottish Cup win)  and adding a personal message for good measure. We must have spent about 45 minutes overall before calling it a day. Just as we were parting ways, he told me that nobody at the club had informed him about this interview and he should probably get home for dinner or his wife would be angry. He literally had no idea who I was when he first saw me in the foyer. I could have just been a random fan wanting to ask questions for no reason whatsoever, yet he engaged me in conversation, was perfectly happy to answer questions about his career and also went out of his way to make it a memorable experience for me. I think that says a lot about the man.

 

 

 

Edited by The Real Saints
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6 hours ago, Sweet Pete said:

Richard Sinclair is a cracking fella. Neil McGowan is a good laugh. David Fernandez was a really sweet humble guy. Had a good laugh with Alan Combe at a supporters club night. Dylan Kerr cheats at pool. Spoke to Andy Graham outside the Rock one day and mentioned Ross Forsyth hadn't looked the part since recently signing. I then went to walk off but he kept talking in great depth about fitba for about 10 minutes and wouldn't let me end the conversation. Just a really friendly guy with a passion for the sport.

I worked with Andy Graham for about a year when he was at Stirling. A genuinely top guy who, as you say, just loves football. 

Also, both Alphonse Areola and Jose Maria Gimenez are absolute top bois.  

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Ian McMillan for someone who is well up in the country's best ever is completely unassuming, always got time for people. In fact he finds it quite surprising they want to speak to him.

All the Airdrie managers I knew Stewart, Coyle, Black, Boyle, players like Prunty, McPhee, Gow, McManus. Less "big names" David Dunn, Mark MGeown, Willie Wilson. Even dafties like Willie McLaren and Stephen McKeown were all good guys and volunteered for stuff away from football. Usually all on the condition of being fed.

Brian Rice who isn't normally associated with Airdrie, Kenny Brannigan not known for his genial side are another two good sorts.

Edited by Sergeant Wilson
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51 minutes ago, JMDP said:

I worked with Andy Graham for about a year when he was at Stirling. A genuinely top guy who, as you say, just loves football. 

Also, both Alphonse Areola and Jose Maria Gimenez are absolute top bois.  

Always thought Areola was a bit of a tit when I met him

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18 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Ian McMillan for someone who is well up in the country's best ever is completely unassuming, always got time for people. In fact he finds it quite surprised they want to.

All the Airdrie managers I knew Stewart, Coyle, Black, Boyle, players like Prunty, McPhee, Gow, McManus. Less "big names" David Dunn, Mark MGeown, Willie Wilson. Even dafties like Willie McLaren and Stephen McKeown were all good guys and volunteered for stuff away from football. Usually all on the condition of being fed.

Brian Rice who isn't normally associated with Airdrie, Kenny Brannigan not known for his genial side are another two good sorts.

Second this. Was at the HoF dinner at Hampden where he was inducted and he was a gentleman, more than happy to reel off old stories about Broomhill and Ibrox. 

Another one I remembered today was Lee Miller. In my old job at the Hampden museum I'd have to take kids parties round the place and one day there was a West Lothian kids' team having a trop there for their prizegiving. Miller was playing for Livi at the time - it wasn't long before he went to manage Falkirk - and he was brilliant. Chatted to everyone, loads of time for the kids and their folks too. When you get guys like that it restores your faith in humanity ever so slightly.

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23 hours ago, ATLIS said:

John Hartson is an absolutely sour twat :D From my experiences anyway 

 I'm another in the John Hartson: good guy camp. I worked at Waterstone's in Braehead when he was at Celtic. He came in looking for the Tony Cascarino autobiography and I helped him find it. He was really courteous and chatted away about having played against Cascarino when he was at Luton. When I took him back to the till he insisted on going to the end of the queue even though it was standard practice that I would just have put the book straight through for him as I was already assisting him.  

Much more recently @RiG and myself and a few others have interviewed a range of past and present ICT players for The Wyness Shuffle podcast, and they've all been brand new. Obviously there's probably an element of them being on their best behaviour as they know it's going to be a sympathetic interview with a largely sympathetic audience, but a couple have really stood out.  Ryan and Charlie Christie gave us about 90 minutes and were really engaged and enthusiastic in talking about the club, and Dennis Wyness was an absolute revelation for someone with the reputation of being painfully shy. He'd never done anything like it before, and had obviously made up his mind that he wanted to do a really good job of it, and he spoke to us for over two hours and had unbelievable recall of his career. He finished the recording lying on the floor behind his sofa, as his phone had run out of charge and it was the only place where he could continue to talk to us while his phone was charging.  

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He used to come into Linwood McDonald's regularly about 2001/2002 when I was working there during Uni. Was always very polite and courteous which was more than could be said for about 70% of folk I served. 

Ha. I’ve wanted to strangle more than a few McDonald’s employees with their, “Sorry for your wait” chat. Cheeky.
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In my job as a postie I am known as one of the few Hibs fans in my depot.  From time to time we get staff from other locations covering our office.  One time a guy who covered was a certain former goal keeper for a team called Heart of Midlothian called Henry Smith.

 

They paired me up with him for two weeks at my request when my usual partner was on holiday.  This was in early 2017 and I was in full mind when Hanlon made it 2-2 mode.  That lasted for about a day or two,  well one time he did drop his keys and I pished myself laughing.  But anyway.  Aside from being a moaning faced b*****d about how I somehow had the easier streets to deliver I got on with him great.  I actually quite enjoyed his company.  One of the Jambos at my work hero worshipped the guy.  Naturally I didn't.  This was when they were under Cathro, so I had a great time.  

But they utterly scudded Rangers one night and he was in such a good mood about it.  I could totally relate to that.  But all in all I found him to be a nice person to work with, and quite a nice guy to talk with.  He had a few decent stories.  Mental to think that a guy I saw playing as a kid I would end up working beside.

 

I was also David Grays postie for some time, but that was in 2015 and he was just David Gray back then and not Sir David Gray that we know and love.  He was nice enough.

Edited by Lofarl
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I met Bilel Mohsni when I lived down south and he was a cracking fella. This was before his days with Sevco so I don't know what he's like now but he was genuinely humble and funny as f**k when I spoke to him for a few minutes. His English wasn't great so we mostly spoke French so maybe that helped, but he seemed a million miles removed from the headcase that we saw on the pitch.

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I've met a number of football players and managers in various capacities and all of them have been positive and engaging people (I can't think of one I've met who I've disliked, to be honest) but the one who stands head and shoulders above everyone else is Alloa Athletic captain Andy Graham. He's the most charismatic person I've ever met, an absolute titan, and I can see why everyone talks so highly of him. Thoroughly kind and helpful too.

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