I’m a former Arsenal and England star who had to pay kitman £10k when my kit washing gamble massively backfired
PAUL MERSON has revealed he once had to pay a kitman £10,000 after his washing gamble backfired.
The former Arsenal and England star made 280 Premier League appearances during his career.
However, he was shocked after learning he would have to wash his own kit following his move to Portsmouth in 2002.
Merson went on to captain Pompey to the title as they won promotion to the Premier League in his only season at Fratton Park.
That success would cost the midfielder, though, who scored 12 goals in 45 league appearances on the south coast.
He told the Sacked in the Morning podcast: “I go into the dressing room after training one day and I take all my kit off and I throw it on the floor in the middle of the dressing room.
“At Arsenal and Villa and all that, they wash your kit. You turn up the next day and all your kit’s hanging up, all rolled up in a towel ready for training again.
“So I’ve thrown my kit on the floor and all the lads started laughing. I said ‘What you laughing at?’ They said ‘We clean our own kit here’. I said ‘F***ing clean your own kit? We’re a Championship team. What do you mean we clean our own kit?’
“So straight away I’m thinking ‘what have I done here?’ All of a sudden, one of the lads went ‘the kitman will clean it for ya for £30 a month or £30 a week,’ something like that it was.
“So I was on a big bonus if we got promoted so I said to him ‘I’ll tell you what Kev, clean my kit for nothing’. I thought I’d try and be funny. ‘Clean my kit for nothing and at the end of the season, if we get promoted, I’ll give you 10 grand’.
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“We f***ing got promoted, didn’t we. I gave him 10 grand. Portsmouth had finished bottom six every year for the last 10 years and we went and won the league.
“He went to me, ‘I can’t have cash can I?’ I had to meet him at a service station and give him 10 grand for cleaning my kit.”
Merson had been brought to Portsmouth by Harry Redknapp in the summer of 2002, signing on a free transfer from Aston Villa.
The former England international helped guide the club to promotion before leaving for Walsall at the end of the season.
He retired in 2006 after a brief spell with non-league Tamworth, ending a career which included 21 caps and three goals for England.