Ex-Premier League star reveals team-mate once took a s*** in his boots, it was a secret for a decade

Former Reading, Swansea and Middlesbrough star Leroy Lita claimed his team-mate once left a 'present' for him in his boots.

Lita, who began his career at Bristol City, revealed that a team-mate once excreted in his boots to teach him a lesson about seniority.

In the past, it was tradition for youth players to be tasked with cleaning the boots of a first-team star after training.

And one day, Lita was mercilessly punished for forgetting to clean team-mate Danny Coles' boots.

Speaking on the Under The Cosh podcast, the 38-year-old said: "I was Danny Coles' boot boy. I was going back to London for the weekend, and the bus was going, I was rushing, and I didn't clean his boots.

“So I got back in on Monday and my boots had s*** in them - from Friday.

"I spoke to [Bristol City team-mate] Clayton Fortune and was like, 'Is this real? Are they really doing things like this? We're professional footballers'. What's going on, man? Is this normal?"

Lita explained that he threw out the boots, and didn’t discover who the culprit was for another decade.

[Coles] told me about it 10 years later," he said. "We're good pals, he's a good guy. He was trying to teach me a lesson."

Lita spent a couple of years at the Chelsea academy before joining Bristol City in 2002.

There, he made his league debut and was quick to establish himself as a first-team regular.

Indeed, in his third season in the south-west, he netted some 24 goals in 44 league games, which led to Reading coughing up a club-record £1million to sign him in 2005.

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