Noel Gallagher used to wash Manchester United players’ cars – and was mad for Penguin biscuits

May 19, 2023 Sports 3 Views

Noel Gallagher is notoriously a Manchester City fan, but, before he made it big-time with Oasis, he used to clean former Manchester United player Brian ‘choccy’ McClair’s car.

The Scotsman told FourFourTwo that Liam and Noel worked for a car washing business when they were starting out as musicians, with the latter loving Penguin chocolate biscuits.

“A lad called Paul Ashby had a car washing business – he had started washing the cars at Man City by saying he’d wash the manager’s car for nothing if he could wash the players’ cars,” McClair explained to FFT.

“He came over to United and he was brazen: he just waited for Fergie to come out and then said the same thing. Fergie said yes, and two of his helpers were Liam and Noel.

“One day, Noel came to my house with Paul to wash my car. He never said a word, apart from ‘Thank you’ after I gave him coffee and chocolate biscuits. Paul said, ‘Listen to that.’ I don’t think it was a demo. It was just a tape – their songs before they were famous. I said, ‘Aye, they’re not a bad Beatles soundalike.'”

Soon McClair had other people washing his car, with Noel opting to aim for No.1s in the charts instead spotlessly cleaning the exterior of a footballer’s car who played for a club he despised.

“Then they started releasing their first stuff, and no more shammies and sponges were needed. I haven’t seen Noel since then. I’m sure he’ll probably deny this, but it’s a fact: he was quite partial to a Penguin.

” I saw Liam again later on. We were out somewhere and he was saying to Nicky Butt, ‘I’m the hardest in Oasis. You think you’re the hardest at United? Let’s sort this out – we’ll have a scrap’.

“There hadn’t been any conversation or fall-out, and Liam wasn’t drunk. It was funny. A fight didn’t happen. Butty just said, ‘Pfft, whatever…’”