I got a Premier League winner’s medal but ex-Man Utd star pinned me against a wall for not cleaning his boots properly

LENNY PIDGELEY claims that Mark Bosnich once pinned him to the dressing room wall by the throat for failing to clean his boots properly.

Pidgeley, 40, came through Chelsea‘s academy in the early 2000s.

Lenny Pidgeley played alongside the likes of John Terry and Claude MakeleleRex

Times Newspapers Ltd

Mark Bosnich played for Chelsea while Pidgeley was in their academy set-up[/caption]

As a teenage hopeful the goalkeeper was made to clean the senior stoppers’ boots before training.

This left him the responsibility of looking after Carlo Cudicini, Ed de Goey and former Manchester United star Bosnich’s footwear.

Recounting one frightening run-in with the latter, Pidgeley told the Telegraph: “At Harlington, the old training ground, there was one outdoor tap, so there would be loads of us around it trying to clean the boots.

“We’d get in at 8am and the players would want to wear their boots for training at 10am, so you’re all in a mad rush.

“One morning, I was in the youth team changing room with all the young lads. Bosnich walked in and shouted at me that his boots were still wet.

“Next thing, he had me by the throat, pinned up against the wall. I had probably just turned 17 and weighed about 12 stone, and I was terrified.

“I might be wrong, but I don’t think anyone really got on with him.”

Pidgeley would eventually make his way into the first team squad, playing the role of third choice behind Petr Cech and Cudicini.

Having scarcely featured in matchday squads during the 2004-05 season, the boyhood Chelsea fan didn’t expect to receive a title winners’ medal.

With a little help from John Terry and Jose Mourinho, however, Pidgeley did manage to get his hands on one.

He explained: “Petr Cech played 95 per cent of the games in that season and Carlo was his No2, so I hadn’t played at all before the final League game.

“Jose called me in the week of that game and said that he was going to put me on and I played the last eight minutes of the final game of the season against Charlton.

“I didn’t think I’d get a Premier League winners’ medal, but JT sorted it out. I remember him saying at training ‘go and look in your locker’ and there it was.

“I’ve got both my medals [Pidgeley won a League Cup winner’s medal in 2005] framed. One day I’ll get round to putting them on the wall.”

Pidgeley left Chelsea in 2006 and went on to play for 12 more years before hanging up his boots in 2018.

Following his switch from Stamford Bridge to Millwall, Pidgeley began experiencing panic attacks, and even contemplated taking his own life.

Recounting that period, Pidgeley braveley recounted: “It had started during the summer, in the off-season. I started getting anxiety attacks and I’d be in bed, door locked under the covers with all the curtains closed.

“Millwall had sent me to the Priory and I hadn’t played for months. I’d just got back training a little bit and the goalkeeper who was on loan couldn’t play. 

“I had been feeling a little bit better and the next thing I knew I was playing at Elland Road, first game back. I was in the toilet 10 minutes before kick-off having a panic attack. 

“I was dripping with sweat, vomiting, my heart was pumping out of my chest and I was trying to convince myself that my hamstring was going to go. 

“I thought about it so much that I could feel my hamstring actually tightening up. Then I was running out there, standing in front of 30,000 people. 

“Three weeks earlier I was thinking about killing myself and now they’re calling me a w****r, and whatever, and I’m just thinking ‘oh my God, if you knew what was going on in my head.’”