Footballing Nightmares

News Of The World has it out for Gordon Ramsay. They were the ones to first report on Ramsay's affair(s), now they have dug a little deeper into the past. Apparently not content to take a philanderer at his word, they started digging into his footballing past. And guess what--they found some inconsistencies.

Wait. That's not the right term. They found bald-faced lies, and a lot of them.


This is the famous picture that Ramsay built his fib around. As News Of The World deftly points out, it's not of the level that Ramsay says it is. It's not of a first-team appearance for the Huns. In fact, it's from a testimonial against a Junior side.

But at least he got his name on the team sheet, right? No. This is the team line up from the day, helpfully spotlighted by the London newspaper.


"Trialist". No more, no less.

Ramsay's lies about his career with Rangers don't end there. Going back through interviews given over the last 15 years, since Ramsay started to push the idea that he was with Rangers before an injury ended his career, Ramsay had stated that he had played at least three first-team matches for Rangers. Unfortunately for him, such claims are verifiable. Ramsay never played in any of the matches he mentioned and, even worse for Rangers fans, he got the results incorrect, often making the team out worse than they were.

Curiously, Ramsay's lies about his career go back even further than these. He claims that he was spotted by a Rangers scout while playing for Oxford United in a FA Youth Cup match against Arsenal when he was 16. The problem with this is that Oxford United and Arsenal have never met in that competition. Oops.

The article linked above has even more wonderful lies debunked within, and includes the nickname given to Ramsay while at talking to fellow cooks about his time at Rangers: Billy Bullshit. Ramsay has always had a knack for stretching the truth, as well as self-promotion, it would seem. But, and I stand by this, all of these lies don't make Kitchen Nightmares any less entertaining. That show is awesome.