Black magic, mad gunmen and Abba CDs: The top 10 football masseurs

By Steve Anglesey in Football Banter

Published 13:58 08/12/09

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It's been a big few days for football masseurs after Stoke City's had to break up a dressing room brawl between James Beattie and Tony Pulis while Hearts' was sent off after a tunnel punch-up with Hamilton.

Here's our top 10 massage men for whom football became more than a hands-on job...

1) On arrival at Sunderland in August 2006, Roy Keane quickly identified the source of the club's slump to the bottom of the Championship. Not sloppy defending or poor set-piece work but the club massuer playing an Abba CD in the dressing room before kick-off. Keane said: "It wasn't that they were playing Abba but that the masseur was choosing the music instead of the players. You go on about leaders. But if I was a player and the masseur was playing Abba, I wouldn't have let it happen."

2) Brazil's masseur at the 1962 World Cup, Pai Santana, was a practitioner of black magic. His club side Vasco da Gama used to fly him to away matches in a helicopter so he could put a curse on their rivals' stadiums.

3) Everton were inspired to fight back for a draw against Manchester United in November 2008 after a half-time dressing down from masseur Jimmy Comer, described by David Moyes as "a massive Blue". Said Phil Neville: "Jimmy said the crowd were quiet, the players were quiet, and in the second half we needed to show more energy."

4) One of Fabio Capello's first acts as England manager was to fire the team's Scottish masseur Billy McCulloch and his two assistants. McCulloch, known as Billy Blood, still has a full-time gig at Chelsea, where he is famed for his jokes on the club's TV channel... though it's hard to see why on this evidence .

5) A former jobbing pro with Orient and Cambridge who became a cabbie after retiring, Terry Byrne returned to football as Chelsea's masseur in 1993. Now he's a millionaire. How did Byrne manage it? He joined ex-Blues boss Glenn Hoddle's England staff, consoled David Beckham in the dressing room after his 1998 World Cup dismissal against Argentina and in 2003 became Goldenballs' personal manager.

6) Rivelino, one of the stars of Brazil's 1970 World Cup winners, was a prankster who at one stage put a live snake in Pele's bed, then rushed into the legend's room and beat it to death with a guitar. His other trick was tying team masseur Nocaute Jacks to a goalpost and inviting squad members to line up and punch him. Said Rivelino: "He used to be a boxer and always played the hard guy so we used to tie him to the goalpost and beat him up."

7) Michael Ball was shown the Everton door by then-manager Walter Smith after he laughed at a joke told by the club's masseur on the team coach. Smith's assistant Archie Knox had ordered players to sit in silence on the way home from a Worthington Cup defeat at Bristol Rovers. Bizarrely, former Scotland assistant manager Knox saw red during a 2000 international against Croatia when masseur Stewart MacMillan swore at the ref, who sent Knox off in error.

8) During the proof stage of his autobiography Managing My Life, Sir Alex Ferguson became obsessed over whether or not former Scotland masseur Jimmy Steel's surname had a final 'e'. After ghostwriter Hugh McIlvanney found six books mentioning Steel were split 50-50 on the issue, a Scottish FA executive was persuaded to travel 30miles from Glasgow to the old folks' hostel where the 85-year-old now lived. He returned bearing news from the horse's mouth but, said McIlvanney, perfectionist Ferguson demanded more proof. "Alex just said 'He's an old man, you know.' "

9) Sampdoria's preparations for a 1991 Champions League game against Red Star Belgrade in Sofia were disrupted when a gun-toting Serb stormed their hotel and the team masseur was injured in a strugle to disarm him. Players then went for a pre-match walk but were set upon by waiting Red Star fans, with keeper Gianluca Pagliuca punched in the melee.

10) Legendary manager Bob Paisley originally joined Liverpool as a masseur. He said: "The first person I ever treated was Albert Shelley, our first-team trainer, for a boil on his backside."