Aaron Wilbraham has revealed it was the Crystal Palace bus driver who did the smelly damage at the ‘poogate’ play-off clash with Brighton.
The Palace players were stunned to find excrement smeared on the dressing room floor when they arrived at the Amex Stadium for their semi-final second leg tie in 2013.
Eagles boss Ian Holloway was furious after it was believed that someone from the Brighton camp had done the dirty deed to get at their arch rivals.
Former striker Wilbraham said the incident inspired the players to win the game 2-0, but he later discovered it was actually the coach driver who suffered an embarrassing accident.
Wilbraham said: “We turned up at the stadium and the smell in the changing room, it was like someone had sh*t and like it was smeared it all over the shower and toilet areas. It was all over the floor, these brown swirls and the smell…
“Holloway went off his head, we arrived fired up anyway and the fact we think someone’s done this in the dressing room. Everyone was, ‘What the f*ck?’. The smell was hitting the back of your throat, it was horrible.
“So he sent us out and demanded someone clean it. [Brighton manager] Gus Poyet was apologising and I could see he was worried because he was thinking that this was going to fire these boys up. He was unhappy about it.
“The boys were fuming and we went into that game thinking, ‘Right you f*ckers, doing that’. Even if it was a member of staff, we went into it fired up and won 2-0 and knocked them out. Afterwards, they were doing an internal investigation into it.”
A few days later, the Palace kit man then pulled some of the players to one side and informed them that it was in fact the coach driver who did the smelly damage after he failed to make the toilet in time.
“The changing rooms hadn’t really been done yet so there was no toilet roll and he’s sh*t himself,” Wilbraham added to the Undr the Cosh podcast. “There’s no one about so he’s used these blue hard paper towels you get to dry your hands and tried to clear it up with a bit of water.
“He’s probably panicking trying to do it quick. He’s not told anyone because he’s thought he’s done a good job of cleaning it up. We’ve walked in a couple of hours later when it’s dried.
“For us and Holloway, we didn’t know anything about this. We were in the dark as only the bus driver knew. I think when it all came out he probably felt bad and consoled in the kit man.”
Palace then met Watford in the play-off final at Wembley and beat the Hornets to secure promotion to the Premier League.
Wilbraham continued: “After we won the final, everyone is buzzing and we have the trophy on the bus. The bus driver is there and keeping his head down and we’ve had a few beers.
“I thought, ‘F*ck it’ and stood up and just sang, ‘Our bus driver, he sh*ts where he wants!’ and everyone has gone, ‘He sh*ts where he wants…!’. Holloway didn’t like it and told everyone to shut up. But it must have been bad to not make the toilet in the first place.”