Troy Hawke, the self-described President of the Greeters Guild, has been reacquainted with the stars of Manchester City’s treble winning team and the result is just as hilarious as you’d expect.
As Pep Guardiola’s players celebrated winning their historic treble in the Manchester rain with a trophy parade through the city centre, comedian Hawke was there for the party, ripping it up with the City team members again. Hawke first met the City squad last summer as they arrived in the U.S. for a pre-season training camp, when he famously described the club’s new star striker Erling Haaland as a ‘tremendous Nordic meat shield’.
He also told Dutch defender Nathan Ake, “You have the poise of an apex predator but the eyes of a kindly woodland creature. It’s a devastating combination. Get in there and smash it all up.”
Having gone viral with his hilarious pre-season greetings last year, when he also described Jack Grealish as having a ‘fabulously symmetrical face’, the self-styled ‘raffish 1930s throwback homeschooled charmer’ was at it again at the treble winners’ celebration bash.
Having motivated the City side with some solid advice last July, “Get out there, shoulders back and smash it. Take no prisoners…” Hawke now asserts that his interactions with the players has had a lasting impact.
On City’s historic treble, including their first ever Champions League triumph in Istanbul last weekend, Hawke commented with a wink, “Some people have put it down to me, being a good luck charm. I wouldn’t take any of the credit for that, of course! Nothing to do with me.”
Talking to the official Manchester City YouTube channel, he smiled as he continued, “I mean the idea that I would have provided a video at the beginning of training that would have put them in a good mood, got them joking, a bit of solidarity… I mean there’s no real way that any of that would have had any effect on their preseason form or training and then that would have run on throughout the season, making me almost solely responsible for all the success. I would never claim any of that.”
Whilst Hawke is clearly tongue-in-cheek about his relationship with the Blues’ highly successful playing squad, he does seem to have brought the team good luck on the field in the 2022-23 campaign, the most successful in the club’s history.
Guardiola’s men had struggled for form earlier in the campaign but from February of this year their performance levels were remarkable. The team went on a long winning run in the Premier League to overcome Arsenal for a third successive league title, before beating local rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup final and then rounding off the treble with a tense 1-0 Champions League final victory over Italian side Inter.
On the subject of being a good luck charm as an unofficial City mascot Hawke replied, “I’ll take a punch off Conor McGregor!”
At City’s treble celebrations he also told City’s young home grown hero Phil Foden, “you turn like a Swiss clock”, before another interaction with ‘Nordic meat shield’ Haaland.
“You’re still evolving,” Hawke told the giant Norwegian striker, who scored 52 goals in an incredible first season with City, adding, “I can’t imagine your final form, there will be meat turrets everywhere.”
