Daniel Nardiello was signed by Manchester United in the aftermath of their momentous treble win and has some stories to tell of life behind the scenes at his old club
Former Manchester United striker Daniel Nardiello has recalled a “horrible” experience during his time at the club where he had to pretend to make love to a woman in front of the likes of David Beckham, Roy Keane and Ryan Giggs.
Nardiello joined United’s academy from Wolves shortly after the club’s famous treble win in 1999. He only went on to make four senior appearances for the Red Devils during a six-year stay before his release on a free transfer to Barnsley.
But despite not being a regular part of the first-team set-up, the now-40-year-old has some tales to tell from his time in United’s ranks. Speaking on the Under The Cosh podcast, Nardiello discussed some of the “fun and games” academy prospects were subjected to by the senior players at the club’s old training base, The Cliff.
He revealed one academy starlet had to play “the spoon game” with United defender David May, where each player put a spoon in their mouth and tried to hit the other on the head as hard as they could – though each time the youngster bent forward to put his head down for May’s attempt, Giggs would trick him by sneakily whacking him really hard with a separate spoon.
Sadly for Nardiello, his punishment was much more humiliating.
“Mine was I had to make love to a [pretend] woman on the table. A few of us had to do that. You had to describe the girl. It was horrible. Is she blonde, brunette, is she busty, is she not? How are you doing it? What are you saying to her? [I was] bright red, it was horrible.”
Asked if it was “strictly missionary”, a bashful Nardiello responded: “100 per cent”.
He added: “These are the superstars as well, it was Giggs and David May the main guys in there but you can see Keane and Beckham there just lapping it all in and you’re like ‘oh my God, I’ve got to make love to a girl in front of all these guys’.”
Nardiello also revealed Dwight Yorke would organise the Christmas parties and claimed one year included “four or five strippers at Sugar Lounge”, but “all the first team lads were nowhere to be seen, they were getting well away from it”.
“They [the strippers] got Luke Chadwick and they were dancing all round him on the floor and he was just there smiling his head off.” Adding of the first team, he said: “They were all married and behaving themselves, but Dwight organised a good party.”
