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21st April 2023
07:19am BST
A former Manchester United masseur has revealed a bizarre request Cristiano Ronaldo tasked him with in the late 1990s.
Rod Thornley, who worked for United for 19 years between 2000 and 2019, says he once helped out the superstar footballer by acquiring two X Factor stars' phone numbers in exchange for a half-price Porsche
Speaking on the Undr the Cosh podcast with Jon Parkin and Chris Brown, Thornley recalled how he was asked to get Dannii Minogue's number on behalf of Ronaldo.
He recalled on the podcast: "It's the night before a game; we're at the Lowry Hotel.
"He was having a massage with me, so he's on my bed, and I'm rubbing his legs with the X-Factor on TV. 'Who is this girl?' And it was Dannii Minogue, 'Can you get me her number?'.
"And I'm like f****** hell masseur for Man Utd, how am I going to get her number? Well, actually, I'm a man of many means, and within four or five days, I've got Dannii Minogue's number in my phone."
At that time, Minogue was a judge on X-Factor. One guest star on the show was Pussycat Doll Kimberley Wyatt, which reportedly prompted Ronaldo to make a similar request.
Thornley said he struck a deal with Ronaldo to make the job payoff: "I said 'What's in this for me? I'm dogging away getting girls' numbers for you, what is in it for me?'
"He said, 'OK, you want my car?' He had a Porsche Carrera convertible, and he said: 'When I go to Real Madrid, I'll sell you my car at half-price', and I said OK. It took me about 10 minutes to get her number - and I passed it on him to him."
At the end of the season Ronaldo sold him the Porsche for £30,000, "and the next day I sold it for £60,000", Thornley, who left United in 2019, told the podcast.
In a recent interview with the Athletic, Thornley recalled an incident where he was pranked by Wayne Rooney after being tasked with organising a game of golf.
He said: "On the plane, I was asked to get the players’ shoe sizes for golf shoes. I got up and started collecting them, then sat down next to Wazza and started eating a sandwich, which had been left out for me. The sandwich didn’t taste quite right but I still wolfed it down. Then I said: “Has someone put mustard on my sandwich or something?” and everyone started laughing. They were all in on a joke.
"One of them put a snus packet on my sandwich and I ate it. When we got to the hotel I didn’t feel good. We had a one-hour turnaround to go to training. I was going green. I got to the training ground and vomited everywhere… they all thought it hilarious."
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