A Fat Man Waiting To Get Out

Photo removed for copyright concerns.

(After and before, during the Chelsea times – it’s backwards day.)

For most footballers, the days of loose cars and fast women reside in a brief window, slammed shut when the days of retirement come knocking. At that point, a new life beckons and it’s off to the mundane world of pseudo-employment and living off their previous paypackets, doing anything and everything to cling to their former glories.

If this is true, then Neil Shipperley is a hero to anyone who’s ever played the game.

Finding the polar end on the glamour spectrum opposite football shouldn’t be too difficult. Garbage collecting, something involving groceries, Wayne Rooney’s post-World Cup career as a groundsman – all of these are sound choices. Taxi driver is probably right up there as well, and that’s what once Premier League striker Neil Shipperley is doing, making the news in the process.

But that’s not the story. The story is his struggle as an athlete with a secret identity cowering in the closet for all too long; his inability to live the life that he wanted, wearing his mask as…a quasi-svelte athlete.

And Shipperley, who has ballooned in size since retiring, admits he cannot wait to leave the scooter behind and get behind the wheel of a taxi.

“I can tell you it’s quite a sight,” he added. “I’m lucky there’s a helmet on there so everyone doesn’t know who I am. I’ve been called a walrus, a panda and no doubt there have been a few other words I haven’t heard as well.

“I was always a frustrated man who wanted to get to this size. I had to work so hard [as a footballer] that as soon as I retired it was full on – it was party time.”

Some footballers want the money, the women and the fame. Others, like Neil Shipperley, just want to be a fat man.

Here’s to dreams.

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Category: World Football