A former Manchester United masseur has spoken about how he once was able to help out Cristiano Ronaldo by acquiring two X Factor stars' phone numbers in exchange for a half-price Porsche.
Rod Thornley worked for United for 19 years between 2000 and 2019 and in that time worked with some of the biggest stars in the game However, few can come close to Ronaldo, with the Portuguese megastar making a bizarre request to Thornley during his time at the club in the late noughties.
Speaking on the Undr the Cosh podcast with Jon Parkin and Chris Brown, Thornley recalled how he was tasked with acquiring Dannii Minogue's number on behalf of Ronaldo, explaining: "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***ing 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."
During that period, Minogue was a judge on the X Factor, with the talent show also welcoming a number of guest stars, including Pussycat Doll Kimberley Wyatt. And Thornley revealed her appearance prompted Ronaldo to make a similar request.
He continued: "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."
"The end of the season comes: 'Remember our deal?' he goes 'yeah'. I gave him £30,000 for a £60,000 car, and the next day I sold it for £60,000!"
Thornley left United in 2019, and recently gave an interview to the Athletic in which he recalled an incident where he was pranked by Wayne Rooney with a sandwich. He said: "I was asked to organise a game of golf. Sorting out the golf was one of my extra jobs. I also wrote the Christmas panto for 15 years and Sir Alex loved them, with all the mickey-taking out of players.
"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."
