Is there a more thrilling feeling than peeling open a packet of football stickers? Well, it certainly affected Leeds United goalkeeper Rob Green more than most.
Leeds United goalkeeper Rob Green may have grown up on the banks of the River Thames, with Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, Tottenham and co all within reach, so that makes his choice of childhood club all the more bizarre.
The former England international shot-stopper has also played for an array of respected clubs, from QPR to Norwich and now the Yorkshire giants, but he has admitted to the club’s official Twitter account that the exhilaration that accompanied opening a pack of football stickers, a feeling unexplainable to anyone outside the footballing sphere, influenced his decision above all else.
Rob Green, you see is a Dundee United fan. Why, you ask? Well, let the man himself explain.
“As a kid, I decided to pick a random team to support,” Green recalls to Leeds’ official Twitter account.
“I had the Panini sticker album and the first team I managed to complete, I supported them. And it was Dundee United. And so I supported them. They actually got to the Cup Winners Cup final or something like that!”
Close enough, Rob. The Tangerines were knocked out in the second round by Dinamo Bucharest in 1988-89, but they did, in fact, reach the final of the UEFA Cup two years earlier, losing to Swedish outfit Goteborg.
Whoever said the Europa League is a backwards step?
But does the Leeds shot-stopper see his future north of the border once he’s achieved all he can in the English game? Not quite.
“My mum and dad sent off and got me a signed birthday card [from the Dundee United squad] when I was a kid but that’s probably about as close as it’s got.”
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