Ryan Giggs’ brother Rhodri has opened up about life as a Manchester United hooligan.
The 46-year-old, whose brother Ryan infamously engaged in a sordid eight-year affair with Rhodri’s spouse, grew up in Salford, Manchester. While Ryan loved the luxuries of being a footballing prodigy, Rhodri was “robbing cars and motorbikes” and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than he joined up with United’s hooligan agency, the Red Army.
The group would meet, or ambush, rival fanbases on match day for punch-ups, however Rhodri had one thing of an epiphany after watching a number of individuals get stabbed throughout a very horrifying bust-up in Blackburn.
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“We got into some shady situations, robbing cars and motorbikes, doing stuff I shouldn’t be doing. It seemed to [carry on] when I got a little bit older and starting watching United,” Rhodri revealed on The Central Club podcast.
“Week after week I’m walking around with the hooligans, meeting up with rival fans. There was one point where I was like, what am I doing? And I got out of it… they were good lads, but back in the day they were scary.”
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He added: “There was one night at Blackburn where it went off, it was like the middle of no where and it was pitch black and I can just see people running all around me and I was like, nah this is not for me. People were getting stabbed and I was like, woah… it was scary.”
A transfer to London when he was 18-years-old supplied an escape route, but it surely wasn’t lengthy earlier than Rhodri was on the fallacious facet of the legislation once more. He took a job as an property agent, however was sacked after being “stitched up” by the infamous ‘pretend sheikh’ – an undercover journalist who posed as an Arab sheikh to carry out sting operations on excessive profile figures reminiscent of Sven-Goran Eriksson, who in the end misplaced the England supervisor’s job after agreeing to a phoney transfer to Aston Villa in 2006.
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX)
The pretend sheikh requested Rhodri to point out him a few flats in London earlier than finally convincing him to take him as much as Manchester to fulfill his brother Ryan. There, he requested Rhodri to attain him some medication, and after obliging, Rhodri was labelled a drug supplier within the following morning’s papers. However, the case was thrown out by a decide.
“I got sacked from the job and I was back home in Manchester, and a year later I was in jail,” Rhodri stated. “I used to be on the town at a urinal and a Man City fan comes over and asks me if I’m Giggsy’s brother, and I inform him, ‘Mate, do one I’m having a p*ss.
(Image: Getty)
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“He keeps pestering me so me…so I’ve gone to my mate ‘we need to get out of here’… so we go out of the club and we’re waiting for a taxi, and him and his mate come out. Straight away he says something and my mate goes bang [mimics punch]. The other guy grabs me and I’m drinking a Budweiser so I go bang with it over his head… I got nine months for that.”
After placing his troublesome previous behind him, Rhodri determined to calm down with long-term girlfriend Natasha. The pair tied the knot in 2010, however a yr later it emerged that Natasha had been sleeping with Ryan for almost a decade.
The controversy cut up the household aside, with Giggs’ mom Lynne taking Ryan’s facet. In December final yr, Rhodri revealed he hasn’t spoken to his mum since 2011.