Former Manchester United footballer Brian McClair went viral in January after being snapped in a pub with a bushy, white and long scraggly hair
Manchester United icon Brian McClair admits he looked like an “island castaway” weeks after an image of him sporting a wild, bushy beard and long scraggly hair circulated on social media.
The former Scotland international, who had a painfully-uninteresting (normal) haircut throughout his playing career, says the Tom Hanksification started during lockdown when all the barbers shut.
“I just thought: let things grow, see where we end up,” McClair told The Telegraph. “Then … I was out one night and next thing I see I’m trending on social media as ‘old man down the pub’.
“I’ve had the trim since. You’ll be disappointed to hear I look a wee bit less as though I’ve been cast away on a desert island.”
McClair made over 450 appearances for the Red Devils over an 11-year spell, winning four Premier League titles and two FA Cups. After hanging up his boots in 1999, he worked briefly as assistant manager at Blackburn, before returning to Old Trafford as reserve team manager in 2001.
In 2006 he was promoted to director of youth development, a position he held for nine years before taking up a job at the Scottish FA.
The fact that McClair has remained fairly aloof since retiring in 2016 only added to the wild man mystique that surrounded his epic online re-appearance at the start of the year.
Many branded him “weird”, a tag McClair is more than happy to lean into, despite the fact he doesn’t agree. “I think I’m normal, others think I’m weird. I tend to notice bizarre things, bizarre things come out of my head.”
Yeah, you mean like all that hair, Brian?
SOURCE: dailystar.co.uk
