Balotelli got sent off and threw his boot through the TV
LES CHAPMAN, MAN CITY’S KITMAN FOR 17 YEARS, LIFTS THE LID ON DRESSING ROOM SECRETS...
WHEN media shy Mario Balotelli agreed to an interview last year, the staff at Nice could not believe the warmth with which he greeted the man who would be asking the questions.
‘It’s Chappy!’ he announced as he was reunited with the ageing interviewer in the south of France.
Chappy is Les Chapman, the former Manchester City kit man of 17 years. We find him amid the charcoal skies of Saddleworth Moor. The Cote d’Azur it is not.
‘Before matches, the likes of Balotelli and the Brazilians would show me a trick in the dressing room,’ says Chapman. ‘The lads would gather around and, if I could repeat it, they’d give me 50 quid!’
Chapman’s company does not reflect the weather, and that is why the likes of Balotelli, Sergio Aguero and David Silva hold a special affection for him.
He was more than socks and shorts, however. Scroll down the list of Football League all-time appearances and you will find Chapman, with 747, in 20th posi- tion. There was also a spell with San Jose Earthquakes.
‘We were crap and set a new NASL record for consecutive losses, but that was arguably the best four months of my life,’ he says. ‘It was 1978 and I had 60 TV channels, a big Chevrolet car and the shopping malls made the Trafford Centre look like a corner shop!’
It is easy to see why City’s millionaire superstars respected Chapman, even if he did earn just £60 per week when he helped Huddersfield Town to promotion to Division One in 1970.
Tomorrow Huddersfield meet City in the top flight for the first time since 1972, when midfielder Chapman played in a 1-0 defeat at Maine Road.
‘Forty-five years? Bloody hell, all I remember is there wasn’t a blade of grass other than by the corner flags,’ the 69-year-old says.
‘It might be more than 1-0 this time… this City team are the best I’ve ever seen. They are a different level. Pep Guardiola is top class.’
Chapman’s opinion of former City boss Roberto Mancini is not so complimentary. ‘ We won the Premier League and FA Cup and he is a legend to the fans,’ he begins. ‘But he was too confrontational. I saw him fall out with Joe Hart, Joleon Lescott, Samir Nasri, Edin Dzeko, Vincent Kompany, Carlos Tevez…
‘When Manuel Pellegrini came in it was the opposite, he spoke to you and shook your hand.’ Tevez, infamously, went AWOL after a fallout with Mancini when the manager accused him of refusing to come on as substitute at Bayern Munich in 2011. He was away from the club for four months later. ‘Why he had a go at Tevez, I don’t know,’ says Chapman.
‘Munich wasn’t his fault. He never refused to go on the pitch. He refused to warm up because he’d already done so. Mancini said he’d never play again but was ordered to bring him back... because he was so good.’
Balotelli was another with whom Mancini clashed. Chapman, though, prefers to remember happier times with the Italian striker.
It was Chapman who printed the ‘Why Always Me?’ T- shirt which Balotelli flashed after scoring the opening goal in the 6-1 victory at Manchester United, and he says: ‘He was a one-off, the most unpredictable man on the planet. When he got sent off at Arsenal he threw his boot through the plasma TV in the dressing-room!
‘But he was bright, he wasn’t stupid, and he was very generous. He would go into a garage and pay for everyone’s petrol or give a homeless guy a wad of cash.
‘Then he wondered why his car was impounded 27 times… because it was painted in camouflage and he parked it on double yellows outside San Carlo restaurant in Manchester every day. I opened his locker after he left and all his parking tickets just fell out!’
If Balotelli was a nuisance for managers, it was goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel who proved a bother for kit men.
‘He was fussy,’ reveals Chapman. ‘He’d arrive at the ground and give me his gloves and I had to hide them where no one could touch them. I then had to produce them just before he went out. He also had to have a different kit for the warmup, first half and second half. We went through 92 in one season!’
Any other superstitious characters? ‘ Gael Clichy always wore a glove for the handshakes and then took it off,’ he says. ‘ And Sergio Aguero had to be last off the coach and last on to the pitch.’
Chapman, a father of two whose daughter, Tiffany, starred as Rachel Jordache in Brookside for 10 years, winces at another memory. ‘ Ben Thatcher used to say, “Right lads, tenner a man, let’s get Chappy to drink this”,’ he recalls. ‘ It was never poisonous, but always hideous — fish paste, gravy and prawns all in one glass.
‘The worst was snorting ground pepper. My head went numb and I lost the use of my left leg for 30 seconds. And as for the bottle of Tabasco sauce… it was like drinking the inside of a volcano.’
Chapman took semi-retirement in 2014 and today he works for the club’s media department, where videos such as him boxing with Aleksandar Kolarov have become Internet virals.
The free time also allows him to meet up with former Huddersfield team-mates like Frank Worthington, who is battling Alzheimer’s Disease. ‘Frank was years ahead of his time,’ says Chapman. ‘He could have done those Brazilian tricks.’
‘Frank used to model himself on Elvis Presley and when I met him and his daughter for a coffee recently there was a guy on accordion and I asked him to play
I said, “Frank, come on, let’s go over”. Frank sang along in the street, he knew every word. It was so nice. Happy times.’
It would seem Chapman has had a lot of those. Perhaps that is why the likes of Balotelli are always so excited to see him.