Wayne's Shocking Christmas Dinner & Players Going AWOL

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1:15So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one just go to linkedin.com broadcast that's linkedin.com broadcast terms and conditions apply i want wayne to lay out what is on his christmas dinner plate mushy peas

1:45did you get many of those phone calls yeah now and again boxing day was probably the worst story was revel morrison went missing at west end that was it it's weird the day After the game, you come in and he'd get you to lean up against the wall and then you'd put your legs up. There's about four players asleep.

2:06Shock, it's Christmas. In case you couldn't tell, it looks like Christmas threw up on this place, didn't it? Happy Christmas, guys. Merry Christmas. There's a Christmas spirit going around in here. Good to be back together again. Why are you pulling apart the set already? No, is that a missile, sir? Don't pick it up. That would be the most awkward start. to this podcast. No, I was going to go with Wayne. I mean, feel free, but it wasn't quite the vibe I was going for. Do we like Christmas? Big fans of Christmas? Yeah, yeah. It's nice. Everyone gets festive and stuff. People are in a better mood.

2:41I think people are looking forward to a bit of time off. It's always nice. I do a bit more now. When I played, I didn't hate it. Because there's so much football. Yeah, just everyone, all your family, friends are all obviously enjoying themselves and you're away in hotels and you can't really eat others drink what you want, Tom. Can you enjoy it at all? Did you get Christmas Day off much as a player? We did on the...

3:07Van Gaal. Did we? And Big Sam. That's the kind of management you want, isn't it? More on that very soon. You like Christmas then. Yeah, the food's nice. And then, you know, you just watch the films on TV and stuff, like a bit of Home Alone. It's my favourite movie. Yeah, it's great, isn't it? Which one? The first one? I quite like the second one. Bolt? Yeah, I like Gloucester. He loves the second one. He's mixing that, innit? No, Bolt. It's quite apt, Wayne, that you said that one of the managers that gave you a day off was Big Sam, Sam Allardyce. You've mentioned him quite a lot on this show.

3:44So let's welcome him in, because he's actually here today as a guest. Yay!

3:51And we haven't got just one guest for you today. We've actually got two. He's a local, and he's always up for a Christmas party, ladies and gentlemen. Dion Dublin. Yay!

4:03That's right, isn't it, D? You had those a party in your neck of the woods and you couldn't miss out. Yes. These guys haven't come in Christmas jumpers, but we'll let you off because you're guests. Myself, I mean, I admit mine's not the most Christmassy, but it's got a reindeer and yours is vaguely green? Well, I mean, look, it's Christmassy. Christmasy. It's winter, isn't it? So it counts. Do you not own one? I just find Christmas jumpers pointless. I've got several. Do you? Sorry that no-one told you to bring it, Sam. No, they didn't. Not on the script. Which one's your favourite one? Well, I can't.

4:38One with other Christmases big head on it like that. Sam, you're clearly a fan of Christmas if you let the players have the day off. Do you enjoy it? Oh, yeah, always. I hated coming in training on Christmas Day. I mean, managers then used to be, like, so strict in my time. And so we were always in on Christmas Day and you'd get up in the morning and go in and get your kids and everybody's opening their presents and stuff like that. And you'd come in and you'd run around for 45 minutes and then go home. And then, of course, like Wend said, you can't celebrate Christmas that much. You can have a glass of wine or two, but Christmas Day is very important.

5:20but I also thought it was a complete and utter waste of time. The only thing I used to say to the players, if you're professionals and we can't trust you, there's a big problem here. Big problem. Sorry, sorry. A lot of managers will give you the option to say, do you want to come in in the morning and then we'll leave in the afternoon or do you want to just leave in the morning and we'll leave late on in the evening? So that was what most managers did. And it's up to us then to say, well, we said we'd rather not come in Gaffer at all. Did you get many Christmases off as a player? No, no, you don't, do you?

5:52And you don't expect it. As players, you just expect to train because you've got a game the following day. So you just, you go in, you do as you're told and you crack on. That's what it should be like. Do you try and do like a quicker session? Well, there's always... Yeah, always. Train a bit early. The gaff will always keep you in as little as possible, regardless of the gaff. Oh, is it? Always, yeah. It doesn't want you there. It was a waste of space though. Come on, face it. It was a waste of space, wasn't it? It was really, yeah. It came in here. You just wanted to get back home, didn't you?

6:17You didn't want to worry about tactics. You want to go back to Christmas for God's sake? I used to enjoy when we used to get the reverent in. Yeah, yeah. We do a service at the train round at United. Oh, right, OK. So you go in early, then you do a service at the train. That's nice. Train, go home, have your dinner, and then we meet up and go to the hotel. I actually like going to the hotel because once everyone's had a few drinks and stuff, and you're sat there, you don't want to be rounded. Good idea. It's mindset as well, isn't it? It's a game mindset if you're in a hotel. I also quite like Christmas at clubs, they do hospital visits.

6:49I know that it was big up north in Older Hay. But I don't know, just the whole Christmas thing and football clubs is quite nice. Yeah, and do you know, obviously, we looked on loads of them. And the big thing, I've been on the other side of that as well, when Colleen's sister was in hospital. And I remember we were in hospital with her over Christmas and the Liverpool team walking, Colleen's family, and all Liverpool players. So on Saturday, they had all the Liverpool team come in with the presents. I was looking after what I was thinking. All right. Someone could have ticked you up. The difference it makes for the parents of the kids who are in the hospital, because the kids, you know, they're struggling or being on Christmas is tough, but for the actual parents who are fans of that club, it makes a big difference for them.

7:34I would imagine you'd seen the difference, didn't you? Because you were in there on the other side, you'd have seen the difference it made to the people. Yeah, and it doesn't even matter what the presents are, because sometimes the presents aren't great. which you take in but actually just seeing the players and that makes a big difference definitely so do you have like a makeshift Christmas dinner as well when you're playing or like do you have like a proper Christmas dinner on that day or is it like pasta and stuff like that no you can still have the meat and veg and stuff but you just have to not have as much it's alright because it's not when you look at it it's not that bad for you is it Christmas dinner good meat turkey is great meat if you have turkey or chicken is good meat and then you have loads of veg and gravy and four pints and two months three glasses of champagne I think you say we've got to go in now when you when you were younger obviously it was a bigger bigger drinking culture yeah people have more drinks at Christmas we might nick a drink Christmas Eve you know what I mean yeah because we were playing Boxing Day even though we weren't supposed to because when three days before was the cut off like wasn't it that was it you know what I mean you play on a Saturday you could drink to Wednesday and then you had to stop you know what I mean that was in the rule book like I mean so that was supposed to what we would stick to like I mean not all players did that by the way but I mean you know it was yeah getting the players lounge yeah two two pints and then where we're going I mean I got a bottle of petrus um paid quite a bit of money for it and then it was one year we've done it twice I think where we've had a chef in for Christmas and I was playing the next day in Boxing Day and one of the chef has opened the bottle of the truth by accident so I'm sat there my father-in-law is drinking it I'm sat there and I'm just like you can't do it didn't do that very well and let's talk a bit more about what Christmas looks like then for all of us in our respective ways I love Christmas I make no bones about it it's brilliant but what does Christmas morning look like for you?

9:41Chaos It goes without a time when you've got four kids Absolute chaos yeah They're getting a little bit old now so I'm happy with the wire and you're having to undo all the wire on the toys and that Have you got enough batteries? That's the key, someone told me that Actually my daughter's first Christmas everyone said the one thing that you'll need every Christmas is batteries, stuff you don't think of but it's very useful So what about you? What does Christmas look like for you? Mine's okay because my kids, my older three kids, all live down in London now. So they'll probably spend it with their mum.

10:14I've got a little Ruby at home who's six. So that's quite... Oh, it's peak Christmas age, isn't it? It's great. Yeah, it is. She loves it. It's great. It's quite chilled out. I've got Cheryl and my wife, her family come over. So we'll have a glass of champagne in the morning. We'll do our presents. We do half presents in the morning and half presents afterwards as well. Because there's so many, you know, kids get so many presents now. It's just, what's the point? Because they've got all that, cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha. Brilliant, great. And they don't really take it in, so we give her a chance to breathe and go again after food.

10:44How long does it take you and your household to open presents with four kids, actually? Yeah, it's just... To think about that. Now it's easier because, like, my eldest two are more just, like, clothes and stuff like that. And it's probably my youngest one now who's still into it. And it's nice, actually, because not far from where I live, they've just opened a new Lapland. Oh, have they? Yes. Oh, nice. Not far from here, by Maxfield. Yeah, I didn't know that. Just talking to Lapland, because I've been to the one in London, and Cleans took them over to actual Lapland, having not been, but so he's going there with Cleans on Sunday.

11:19Oh, nice. What about you, Sam? What does Christmas look like? Well, in our house, it's pretty quiet, because it's just me and Lynne now, because, you know, my son's 50 now, daughter's 46, so grandkids. We've got a granddaughter, 30, so all this grandson's 17. So I think that it's just about giving them a few bob, isn't it? But then we just then go and visit them because they live in the same village as us at Bromley Crossing Bolton. So we just have a trip around. And Christmas Day after that for us is all out for Christmas dinner in a restaurant now. Oh, you eat out? Yeah. I used to be at home and then bring everybody, which was murder for me when I was playing.

12:06You know, because all the family come round and then at night time it was a buffet. Like you mean, and then some of the other family would come round and then I'd be upstairs. We're hosting for the first time this year and it is the whole thing. How many? Ten. I'm not cooking. Why not? Because I don't want to give anyone food poisoning. I can cook. But doing a Christmas dinner is next level. Have any of you guys done Christmas dinner? I usually do it myself. I like it. I have to plan it to get everything. Yeah, the timing to get whatever's going in the oven. Keep your plates warm. Exactly. It's microwave it, yeah?

12:37No, I couldn't do a Christmas dinner. Have you ever done a Christmas dinner, Wayne? No. Who cooks for you? No, I can cook, but I can't do a Christmas dinner. It is timing, isn't it? Who does it, Colin? In your house? Yeah, I clean all of Mum. Good Christmas dinner? Yeah. Right, let's get on to what's on our plate on Christmas dinner, because we have had a little off-camera chat about this. And the first thing I want to do is I want Wayne to lay out what is on his Christmas dinner plate and we'll go from there. There's mushy peas. First bread plate. I'm sorry. There's mushy peas. There's mushy peas.

13:11There's sweet corn. There's carrot and tuna. I'll take that. Turkey. I have new potato. I don't like roast potatoes. That's not okay. Broccoli and cauliflower. I get that. Those first two are weird, mate. Mushy peas. And corn. That's awful. That is terrible, Asa. Do you like mushy peas? Love mushy peas. Do you like sweet corn? Love sweet corn. Not with turkey. If you're just having things you love, you might as well have a curry then, innit? Only if that's what you want. Curry and ice cream. Also, it gets weirder. Sorry, Wayne. I'm coming from here. That'd be turkey curry. You don't have gravy.

13:55He doesn't have gravy, do you? Not really. I have. Not really. I don't... It's just messy. It's just like... Is it not really dry? No, I use the juices off the vegetables.

14:10Wayne Rooney, veg juice. What's on you when you put your can of sweet con on it? Try Wayne Rooney's veggie juice at Christmas. No, I just never really... To be honest, I'm not a big fan of roasts. So if we ever go off for a Sunday roast, I'll get gammon and eggs and chips. I'm not really a big fan of a Sunday roast, but at Christmas I'll have it and everyone will have it. I want it my way. It can be quite tasteless. You guys are having the wrong Christmas dinner. No, it can be quite tasteless if you don't cook it right. If anything's not seasoned, it can be quite tasteless. So it needs to be cooked right, without a doubt, for a long time.

14:46Do you have a starter? My side of the family do, my other halves don't. And this year we're hosting both families for the first time. And what will they have? I don't know. What do they have? Do you know? What is in... As in a starter? Well, my auntie, when we do it on my side of the family, my auntie goes all out. My auntie's not coming. OK. So... She wasn't invited. She's in Australia. You went like that. You went like that. She's in Australia. She's going to have a far better Christmas than we are. I think because I'm not cooking, I can't really put the added thing on my partner. I also kind of, now I've had Christmas with them for a few years, I love a roast.

15:25That's why I'm so offended by Wayne's roast. I just want to save all my appetite for that. I don't really want the starter. I hear you, but I just put everything on the table. Yeah, that's also something that my family... We'd normally have either a tomato soup or a prawn cocktail. Prawn cocktail's a solid one. I get that. There's a big one, prawn cocktail. But haven't people eaten like four kilos of Twiglets and, you know, four packets of crisps before you even eat anyway? Because it's all out, isn't it? Anyway, on a Christmas day. Well, it depends. I've got a lot of friends from like, they've got like Jamaican backgrounds or whatever.

15:56Their Christmas dinners are mad because they'll have like the traditional stuff, but then they'll have like curry goat and like mac and cheese and other stuff as well. This is where I need to be. Our house at Christmas, when I lived at home, was so noisy. so there was dominoes over there there was cards over there there was all sorts going on there was a DJ over there everybody was in it was just excellent so I'm guessing that the Dion Dublin or the Dublin household is still quite lively these days lively yeah I'm a Leicester boy all my family's still living in Leicester mainly my brother lives in London but when we used to go back to Leicester it was just everybody just open house really so people were just popping because all my family are musicians they all get the basses out The drums are out, the guitars are out.

16:42Do you get your doob out? Get the doob out as well, yeah. So we just sing, make noise and enjoy. But when having played for so long, you're just limited, aren't you? Can't do anything. Can't go anywhere. OK, so we've discussed Wayne's roast dinner. Any other controversial choices or anything around here? I'm not controversial. Just the usual, I think, in it. Roast potatoes, pigs in blankets. We could have nothing like that. Yeah, I forgot about them, yeah. OK. Yeah, pigs in blankets. Nice, nice. I'm a big Christmas pudding man. So Christmas pudding steamed. We have one as a family, right? Not many eat it.

17:15No one really eats it, so I don't really know why we have it. It's like them as well, they're disgusting. Yeah, me too, me too. Kay's already eaten one of those before. I like them hot though. Yeah. Not cold. Horrible. Straight out the oven. I'm not a Christmas pudding fan, but we'll have one, and then it'll probably get thrown away. I do like it, I like it, erm... Mold wine. Mold wine's good. Mold wine's good. Mold wine's good. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do it. It took a while, didn't it? It actually did surprise me a bit. Colleen will always have a Bailey's as well. I don't know if I really like Bailey's, but I don't mind a mulled one.

17:52What about a snowball? Do you know what one of them is? We always have one on Christmas Eve. Avocado lemonade. What? Avocando in a bottle. Not avocado. Avocat, sorry. It's like a liqueur. Oh, I thought we were saying avocado. What do you mean? I don't know. Advoca, Advoca, said it wrong. Advoca. He's not one of those, I don't know. He's not one of those. That's why I said to him, not avocado. I like a snowball. Avocado is yellow, but not many people drink it at all now. Yeah, they're good. It's called a snowball. What do you mean? It was, I can pretty much guarantee you, when you lived at home, in your mum and dad's drinks cabinet, there'd be a yellow bottle with a yellow substance in it.

18:33That's right. in the car. Nobody drank it ever. You've made that sound a lot weirder, haven't you? Except for Christmas. Horrible. Horrible stuff. It's nice at Christmas, isn't it? Yeah, a snowball. I like a snowball. I don't, but also it's one of those where now when I have it, I'm like, do I like this or do I like the fact that I'm having a snowball on Christmas? Take the leash off your laptop with the processor that gives you long battery life. Work on the go. Jump between back-to-back calls. Stay locked in from brewing morning coffee to burning the midnight oil. Get maximum performance, even when unplugged.

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20:27What are we all thinking, by the way, about the Boxing Day football situation this year? Because there's only one game in the evening, and I know that it's divided people, hasn't it? Because some people, it's a tradition, they go to football on Boxing Day, Sam. Well, they just want to get out the house, don't they? You know what I mean? They want to get out the house, they want to go and watch a football game and just enjoy themselves. I mean, I think it's probably the biggest attendance of the year, is it not? For all clubs, it's quite a boxing day and then, you know. And TV viewing's massive as well.

20:58You know what I mean? But also what happens is you feel like you want to spend time with a family, then you spend a few hours with them and you're like, actually, I know why I do this once a year now. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Get me out of the house for any reason. And football's a great thing. Sometimes it's a family thing as well. Sometimes you go, you boy, you girl, and you know what I mean? Yeah. And, of course, tradition. I think it's very important to keep it, like I mean, because it's so popular. I used to love going with my mum on Boxing Day. We'd go to Watford and I'd always have got like the new...

21:22I was a loser. I'd got like the new hat and everything and we'd go together. So I guess it's like the tradition of it, isn't it? You'd think that the viewers on TV as well would be more Boxing Day than it would be the 27th? Yeah, agreed. Is it what weekend it's on or something? There's a full programme on the Saturday, isn't there, this year? So it's kind of... I guess maybe it's because of the Saturday so close to it. Because you used to play Christmas Day as well? Yeah. And then the reverse fixture, was it? That's right, yeah. That must have been nuts. What was that like? Hard work. Hard work.

21:51Very, very difficult. Very difficult indeed. What time of kick-off? And it depended on the weather. Because our pitches then were, you know, at that time of the year, could be like that much in mud or it could be frozen. Yeah. You know what I mean? So often we still played on quite a frozen pitch. You had to kick, man had to get all the small studs out and change everybody's boots. I mean, it was, you know, skating around. You did, didn't you? Yeah, it was really tough. Football's changed a bit, hasn't it? Yeah, it is now. Pitches. Pitches are like half a time. Would you have liked to have played on Christmas Day?

22:30Not 25th and 26th. What's the hold on? So you used to play both days? Yeah. What, two games in two days? Yeah, I was only on the back end of that. I think it only happened once in my time. And then it changed, I mean, but it was tough. Just one other thing I wanted to talk about. on Christmas Day presents. So you've discussed that you do some presents in the morning, some in the afternoon. Absolutely. Sometimes some of my friends open presents in the evening. That's weird. What? Have to wait all day? Yeah, that's weird, isn't it? I would imagine they are people that don't have children, young children, because you can't do that with young children.

23:03They'll just grow up with anxiety. Am I on the niceless? Am I on the niceless? Yeah, all day, yeah. Have anyone got any Christmas Eve traditions? Scoop. We go out. I could have answered that. We go out for a meal every... Do you? Yeah, and we go out with a few friends and kids. Go out and normally get back home about seven and then get the kids ready for bed and stuff and then watch a movie. Yeah, they're probably pretty excited by that point, aren't they? It is weird when you've retired as a footballer and then you have your first Christmas or your first New Year, you're not quite sure... That's true, yeah.