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'Thanks for cleaning my boots...have a £30,000 Mercedes': Soccer star's amazing gift to boot boy
Last updated at 07:37am on 15.05.08After a season shadowing a star footballer, a lucky boot boy might find himself the recipient of some souvenir kit. Or maybe even a pair of the player's old boots.
James McPike got a Mercedes.
The football trainee, who had been assigned to Birmingham City midfielder Olivier Kapo, was stunned when he was thrown the keys of the £30,000 car and told to keep it.
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Nice one son: Birmingham's £300-a-week boot boy James McPike asked if he could keep a pair of Olivier Kapo's boots and was stunned to be thrown the keys to his car
He told him he would struggle to afford the insurance for such an expensive car.
So the French international drove the disbelieving 20-year-old to his home, handed him the spare keys and log book, and then insisted on paying for a year's insurance.
It is believed to be the biggest gift ever given to a boot boy, a type of "football apprentice" who learns the ropes from a senior player and is meant to help out in return.
Looking after the boots used to be a big part of the job, although the role is a little less defined these days.
Generous: Oliver Kapo even paid for the first year's insurance for the apprentice
A club source said James, who signed a professional contract with Birmingham City on his 17th birthday, had asked Kapo for a pair of boots to mark the end of the season.
"He was obviously disappointed when Kapo replied he had taken them home with him," the source said. "He perked up considerably when he was tossed a set of keys."
Kapo, 27, who is on a £1.5milliona-year contract at the recently relegated club, is said to have bought the Mercedes as a "run around" when he arrived in Birmingham last year.
He also has a Porsche and a Hummer.
Although top players command multi-million pound salaries, apprentice players are still relatively lowly paid. James is thought to be on about £300 a week.
Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish said he learned of Kapo's generosity only when he saw James driving the Mercedes out of the training ground yesterday.
"It was a magnificent gesture and one that's entirely in keeping with Kapo's character," he said.
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A little something to say thanks: A £30,000 Mercedes similar to the one given to James
"He's been in Italy with Juventus, one of the biggest clubs in the world, but he clearly has not forgotten the time when he was an aspiring professional himself, hoping to go on to bigger and better things.
"As he was in such a generous mood, I asked him what he had done with the house he had left behind in Turin. Unfortunately, he smiled and said he wanted to keep hold of that."
Reader views (1)
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Perhaps generosity should "start at home" with our own British players rather than having "foreign johnnies" make our £multi-million earning players look like miserly skin-flints!
What do the England regulars do for "their boot boys" at their home clubs?
Even as an arch-enemy Villa fan, I wish to congratulate Olivier on his extremely kind gesture! Nice one!
Hopefully all professional footballers "with a conscience" will NOW get with the programme!
- Fraser, Telford Park
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