Gordon Ramsay - Football Career

Football Career

Ramsay played association football and was first chosen to play under-14 football at age 12. He was chosen to play for Warwickshire. His football career was marked by a number of injuries, causing him to remark later in life, "Perhaps I was doomed when it came to football". In mid-1984, Ramsay had a trial with Rangers, the club he supported as a boy. He seriously injured his knee, smashing the cartilage during training. Ramsay continued to train and play on the injured knee, tearing a cruciate ligament during a squash game. He never fully recovered from the double injury.

Ramsay has claimed to have played two first team games for Rangers. According to his autobiography Ramsay played "a couple of non-league matches as a trialist" for Rangers and was signed by the club at the age of 15. In May 2002 he told The Observer newspaper that he played two first-team games, for Rangers against St Johnstone and Morton. However, according to Rangers historians, there is no evidence he ever played for the Rangers first-team and he was never a signed player.

As evidence of his time with Rangers, Ramsay has produced a team photo showing him in full kit, boasting that he played in a reserve match against Celtic. But while the caption mentions the other players by name, Ramsay is labelled simply as 'triallist'. And Rangers historian Robert McElroy said: 'It's all nonsense. The reserve team was really good but Ramsay wasn't even a signed player and wasn't in it.' However Allan Cairns, the photographer who took the picture in September 1985, said the photo was not one of Rangers first team but a side picked to play a testimonial match. A Rangers spokesman said: "Ramsay was a trialist in that testimonial game. He trained with us for a few months after that but then got injured."