Fancy That ! 10 Surprising facts about Roy Hodgson
Whilst his playing career only involved Maidstone Utd, Gravesend-Northfleet and Tonbridge, his managerial career has been, quite literally, glittering, as the likeable Roy has seemingly managed half the teams in northern Europe and had plenty of success along the way. He's topped it off in 2010 with Fulham's incredible run to the final of the Europa League.
To celebrate his fantastic achievement in showing other English clubs the value of the Europa League, we bestow upon the Fulham manager the greatest honour MD has in its locker.... 10 Things You Never Knew About the gentlemen and footballing scholar, Roy Hodgson.
- 1 Roy Hodgson has the smallest mouth in football. According to a study in the British Journal of Facial Characteristics he pips Tony Mowbray's gob by a quarter of a millimetre. That's the width of a cigarette paper in old money.
- 2 Roy's favourite ever TV show is BJ and the Bear. He's got every episode on VHS and regularly has to thwart the redoubtable Mrs Hodgson's efforts to throw all his old tapes on the fire.
- 3 Roy has had a splendidly varied managerial career, taking in sojourns at footballing backwaters such as Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Lancashire. It is so varied that he has an agreement in place with NASA that if we were to make contact with extra terrestrials who played football, Roy would coach the side in an exhibition match against an Earth XI.
- 4 There's no doubt that with his ability to coax the best out of his charges, he'd relish the opportunity of coaching Martians, Cybermen or the even the technically brilliant but notoriously brittle Wookies.
- 5 Staying with the Star Wars theme, thanks to his international experience Roy can speak nearly as many languages as C3PO. But C3PO can't speak the greatest language of all. Football! It'll also prove handy when he leads out his team of aliens to confront Messi, Lucio, Zamora et al. On the moon.
- 6 Back to life, back to Roy-ality. Hodgson has a very distinctive accent and in his younger days provided voice-overs for a series of commercials. The most famous of which was the Tunes cough sweets ad. Roy famously got to ask for a “Decub-Cass Return Dicket to Dottighab Pease. I DED DOTTIGHAB!!”
- 7 Roy has got a deserved reputation for getting value for money in the transfer market. It wasn't always thus. As Blackburn manager in the late 1990s he paid £7.5m for Kevin Davies, £5.3m for Christian Dailly and £2.6m for the ventriloquist's dummy of Lord Charles whom he wanted sat next to him on the Rovers bench for good luck. The silly arse!
- 8 Roy briefly managed in the United Arab Emirates from 2002. Here he went back to his TV voice-over roots with an ad for local carpet cleaner, Sheikh and Vac.
- 9 In 2007 Mohammed Al-Fayed brought Hodgson to Craven Cottage. He has an excellent relationship with the eccentric Fulham owner. However, his contract stipulates that he has to ‘Walk Like an Egyptian' to tune of the Bangles song in the Fulham boardroom after every defeat to cheer Al-Fayed up. The subsequent embarrassment is a huge motivation for Hodgson and a key reason behind the team's improved form.
- 10 Roy has delighted the country with his team's inspirational run to the Europa League final. In respect of the club's traditions he has insisted a match ticket be held back for the ghost of former Chairman and music hall legend Tommy Trinder. Roy, a keen spiritualist, is certain that Tommy will be cheering the lads on in Hamburg.