Everyone in the UK knows Jimmy Bullard. Once the most common English footballer, he is now making a successful career on TV. He was not an outstanding player and does not have an irresistible appearance. But Jimmy Bulldog was the king of jokes and banter, for which he was hated by his teammates and adored by fans and viewers.
Hero of the generation
Now social networks have become the main instrument of interaction between football clubs and fans. But in the early and mid-2000s, all the jokes and banter of the players at each other passed by the fans, always remaining in the dressing rooms of the teams. Fans were tired of boring football players and wanted them to react to them, respond to their jokes and banter. Therefore, people liked Bullard with disheveled hair, legs like matches, and a boyish grin. He had something to say in return. Or create. “I don’t go around thinking, ‘Oh, I’m a joker, I have to do something stupid today.’ It just happens sometimes. As is the case with Mark Crossley. He said it was hot, so I thought I could cool it down and poured a pot of yogurt over his head. And he really liked it, “- once admitted Bullard.
“I turned my head and saw Bullard masturbating.”
Becoming the future comedian of English football dates back to the 2004/05 season, when Wigan qualified for the Premier League for the first time in history. By that time, Jimmy already had a number of outstanding antics on his account. At the first Christmas party at the club, he showed up dressed in a suit and tie. “They told me it was a masquerade party, but I figured they were kidding, so I just put on a suit and went like a gangster, thinking, ‘Wherever we go, I’ll be fine.’ It wasn’t until I saw Mike Flynn disguised as Spider-Man that I realized it was no joke, ”says Bullard.
At a pre-season training camp in Spain, Jimmy was arrested because the police mistook him for a criminal. The police were confused by the identical names of the football player and the wanted person. While the police were studying the photographs of the real criminal, Bullard missed his return flight. Once in a hotel restaurant, the midfielder tried to pull the tablecloth off the table without dropping the dishes. It is easy to guess that this venture turned out to be a failure. “I don’t think he did it well then,” Lee McCulloch recalls with a laugh. But he clearly had no time for jokes when, on the eve of the 2006 English League Cup final, he decided to go to bed early in his room, and in the morning he woke up in bed in Jimmy’s arms.
Ryan Taylor also has something to remember: “He called me Tony all the time, and when I told him my name was Ryan, he replied,” But you are more like Tony, so I’ll call you Tony. ” And since then, others have done the same! ” But sometimes Jimmy himself became a victim of jokes. During the next trip, teammates pounced on him at the hotel, undressed him, and then rolled him down the corridors in a trolley with towels because he annoyed them. “Usually when you have children in the house, they wake you up at night. With Jimmy it will be the other way around. I would not be surprised if he wakes up the child in the middle of the night and wants to play with him, ”said Leighton Baines, who spoke with him at Wigan.
But the most shocking story was told by another ex-Bullard’s Wigan partner, Pascal Chimbond. On French TV, he recalled his period in the Premier League: “The British are crazy. When I arrived at Wigan, I met Jimmy Bullard there. Once we were at the hotel and had a rest before the game. There were five of us in the room. We were watching TV, suddenly I turned my head to the right and saw Bullard masturbating. ” Emmanuel Petit, also on the air, summarized the story briefly: “This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
“He chased me for three days – wanted to kill”
After moving to Fulham, Jimmy briefly pondered how to break the ice between him and his new team-mates. “I was only at the club for four weeks and decided to play a trick on the biggest guy in the locker room – Papa Booba Diop,” recalls Bullard. In his opinion, if the rest of the players see how he was not afraid to play fun with the African nicknamed Cabinet, this will help him gain their recognition. While the unsuspecting Diop lay face down on the massage table, Jimmy crept up to him and rubbed his causal place on his bald head. He managed to do this three or four times before the shocked African jumped off the table. In the next instant, Bullard asked such a snatch that even Usain Bolt would envy. “I put my balls on his forehead and he was furious. He chased me around Fulham’s training base for three days – he wanted to kill me. Melting the ice is what I call it. Ninety percent of the guys thought it was funny, ten percent didn’t, so I won, ”boasted Jimmy.
