We all had a good chuckle about the horse placenta massages supposedly curing an array of the Premier League’s finest injured talent. But what other strange methods - which perhaps originated with someone saying, “It’s a million to one shot, but it might just work” – are on offer? Did You Smash It? implores you not to jump through the nearest window once you’ve read Number 2…
1. Horse placenta – What do Robin van Persie, Frank Lampard and five senior Liverpool players have in common? Well, they’ve all gone to Belgrade to have a Serbian housewife massage horse placenta into their injured bits. Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez sounded out the following endorsement:
"We checked it out when we became aware of the different players who had been there. I must admit we have been surprised with how well it has worked. It means we have players available and training that we expected to be out for several weeks."
If you’re good at mimicking an international dialling tone then you’ve got yourself a primo excuse for bunking off work here.
2. Lager baths – The ever-reliable Daily Star reports that scores of South American footballers are ditching the horse placenta to bathe in lager mixed with a plant called rue that used to be used as a defence against witches in the Middle Ages. Well, wouldn’t you? Manuela Jara, the healer in question, recently had a high-profile falling out with Paraguayan midfielder Cristian Riveros over an alleged unpaid bill. Surely a man who has bathed in beer can be forgiven for a touch of forgetfulness?
3. Removal of wisdom tooth – Chelsea winger Florent Malouda attributed his upturn in form to this procedure, and van Persie (surprise surprise) was quoted as saying, "My osteopaths think there may be a connection between my teeth and the muscle injuries I suffer.” This of course leads to the uncomfortable image of the Arsenal striker ‘grooming’ himself in the style of a cat. Everton tried this cure on Duncan Ferguson back in the day; who knows just how injured he could have got if they hadn’t?
4. Goat’s blood - Bayern Munich and Germany medic Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt prescribed St Johnstone striker Peter MacDonald a course of injections of goats’ blood to help him recover from a hamstring injury. "The specialist said my hamstring was too tight and I had goats' blood injections. That's the best for loosening it off," he said in, we imagine, a child-like matter-of-fact manner.
5. A bit of cock - Bayern Munich and Germany medic Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt (hurrah for copy and paste!) claims that an extract from the crest of cockerels – ‘called Hylart’ - can help to lubricate knee injuries and take away the pain. Michael Owen, Jurgen Klinsmann and Arjen Robben are just some of this guy’s high-profile clients, so perhaps he’s not quite the whacky Professor Weetos-type that we at least are imagining him as. Or the “even better than that!” character from The Fast Show.
Drewery...book
6. Faith healing – Former England and Spurs player and manager Glenn Hoddle made faith healer Eileen Drewery a household name when he appointed her as a consultant to the England squad for the 1998 World Cup. Drewery had helped Hoddle to combat injury during his playing days but the clear trust – faith, if you will – invested by Hoddle in Drewery was not shared by the England team. In retrospect, it probably puzzled them sufficiently to have been the reason behind David Beckham’s red card and David Batty’s missed penalty. So now we know.
7. Viagra – Brilliantly-named Bolivian side Blooming were prescribed Viagra by club physio Rodrigo Figueroa to help them perform better – in terms of playing football, that is – at high altitudes. The ‘sex drug’ isn’t on the banned substances list and it improves blood flow so, clearly, it’s a must for coping with the difficulties of playing at more than 3,500m above sea level. And it makes for some cracking goal celebrations.
8. Shamanism – When Cristiano Ronaldo was sidelined with an ankle knock earlier this season, it came spookily soon after a voodoo priest (good name for a metal band, that) called Pepe had ‘revealed’ to the Spanish press that he’d been hired to injure the Real Madrid star using black magic. A band of Peruvian shamans gathered outside the Spanish Embassy in Lima to perform a cleansing ritual, involving a bizarre combination of swords and maracas, but Ronaldo remained sidelined. You know you’re a top footballer when you’ve got wizards and warlocks locking horns over you.
9. Stem cells – The Sunday Times reported that a number of Premier League players have stored frozen stem cells from the umbilical cord blood of their newborn babies in case they suffer a career-threatening injury.
"We decided to store our new baby's stem cells for possible future therapeutic reasons,” said an anonymous footballer, presumably from some dark corner of a multi-storey car park. “As a footballer, if you're prone to injury it can mean the end of your career, so having your stem cells - a repair kit if you like - on hand makes sense."
10. A magic sponge – What’s so Blooming magical about it, anyway? You don’t see physios standing over stricken players, sponge aloft, saying, “Expelliarmus!” Or maybe you have? Let us know.
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