SUPERSTARS IN SUPER CARS
Marlon Harewood led the line in the Premier League — now Kane, Mahrez and Walker rely on him to fix it for...
On the wall inside the nottingham garage where Marlon Harewood now spends most of his time are signed shirts from his clients.
Harry Kane’s is there. Kyle Walker’s, too. Robert Pires has written a message of thanks on an old Arsenal top. England cricketer Stuart Broad and boxer Carl Froch are also on his books.
They tell Harewood what they want doing to their cars and the ex-Premier League forward does it, whether that is to paint it pink or put a PlayStation in the back.
Some ask for their shirt number to be stitched into the seats and others want the back converted into a bed so they can sleep on their way to and from matches. nothing is off limits.
‘They come up with some crazy ideas,’ says the former West Ham United and nottingham Forest striker. ‘We get requests for coffee machines, printers, all sorts inside.
‘We do Mercedes-Benz V-Class conversions. They use it as an office or for laid-back travel to and from games and training.
‘I bought my first car when I passed my test — a Fiat Punto — and being a young lad wanted a nice stereo. I went to a place in nottingham and that’s where I met Andy.’
Andy Cole — not the footballer — would become Harewood’s business partner at AC13 Premier. What they do brings to mind the old MTV show
Pimp My Ride, though the difference is they take the world’s best cars and make them even better. Business is booming.
When Leicester’s title-winners were given the gift of 19 bright blue BMW i8s by the club’s owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha last year, several weren’t sold on the colour.
They went to see Harewood. Riyad Mahrez, Danny Simpson, Demarai Gray and Wes Morgan, whose shirt is also on the wall of fame, were among those who asked the 38-year-old to spruce up their £105,000 supercars. He got it done.
Despite his new line of work, do not think Harewood has called time on a playing career which saw him make 137 appearances in the Premier League. He has been without a club since leaving nonLeague nuneaton Town in 2016 following a spell with Hartlepool United, but if an offer came his way Harewood would consider it.
‘Once you go back into that frame of being a footballer, it takes over your life,’ he says. ‘I’ve not had time to think about it because the business has been so busy.
‘I’d be tempted but I’m comfortable at the moment. I feel so privileged I can be with my family and spend the weekends watching my kids play rugby and football, which I couldn’t do as a player.’ Told that it is, in fact, 14 years last month since he signed for West Ham
for £ 500,000, Harewood is taken aback. He can recall celebrating that first big contract by buying a Porsche 911 Carrera 4. He can remember scoring the winner in their 2006 FA Cup semi- final against Middlesbrough and simply having to rip his shirt off in sheer excitement.
Wearing a West Ham pin, the former Upton Park favourite said: ‘Fourteen years? Jesus. It seems like yesterday. It doesn’t feel that long. It’s still got a massive place in my heart. Fourteen years? Jesus.’ Harewood coaches at nottingham Forest’s academy, and, having completed his UEFA badges, wants to become a manager some day. It can be a cut-throat world, as shown when Harewood’s old club axed Slaven Bilic 11 games into the season. Harewood said: ‘It’s hard. I feel sorry for Slaven because he’s such a nice guy, a top bloke. It’s sad what was going on there. They’ve got the players to get out of it. ‘The lads just had to pull together and start grinding out results. However they do it, they need to do it. I’ve been in that situation. Even if you miss a header, confidence just goes down and from then it’s a fight throughout the whole game. They are in that situation.’
Perhaps West Ham could have gone to Harewood when they were searching for Bilic’s successor. As well as cars, Harewood has become something of a Premier League fixer, having opened a new branch of his company called AC13 Lifestyle.
He explains: ‘We get lads coming in, sitting in the office like you are, chilling, having a good chat. They’ll say to us, “I’m looking to get a new watch” or, “I want to go on holiday” or, “I need to get a gardener”. So why not?
‘If you phoned me up, “Marlon, can you get me a suit? Here are my measurements”. We can send it to you. I love things like that. Sorting everyone out.
‘Calls for tickets, holidays… this morning I got an agent saying they want to go watch a Paris Saint- Germain game. Honeymoons. Things like that.
‘It’s nice to have trust. When you’re a footballer, it’s hard to trust people because of the lifestyle. It’s hard to have friends around you. If something happens in the family, you know it will be in the papers the next day. We’re not like that. I know what it was like as a footballer.’ He has certainly changed lanes, but, with a bulging client list, Harewood and his team are now football’s go-to guys.