Prince William has revealed he had his bodyguard prank a football rival into thinking he was a 'sniper' in a mischievous schoolboy prank.
- The royal asked his bodyguard to shine a laser at the boy, pretending to be a sniper. But it didn’t deter his rival for long.
- William jokingly told That Peter Crouch podcast that when it comes to football, he’s just “running around at the back, panting”.
- This follows the royal news that Prince Harry wanted Archie to be ‘best friends’ with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
Prince William has said he asked a bodyguard to pose as a sniper to scare off an opponent in a football match at school.The Duke of Cambridge told former England international Peter Crouch, that when he played football “everyone wanted to break my legs”.
So bad was the rivalry on the pitch that William once asked one of his policemen to point a laser pen at an opponent, pretending to follow him.
“A long time ago, I got one of my policemen to take a laser pen out with them,” William admitted on a Heads Up special of That Peter Crouch Podcast.
“And I got him to red mark – red dot – one of the players. I was about 15 at the time, I said, ‘see, he’s following you, following you’.”
Peter laughingly responded, “Pretending to have a sniper on him?”
“Exactly,” joked William. “It put him off for about, you know, 10 minutes.”
The hilarious interview took place over a pint at Kensington Palace before lockdown in March. The pair were also joined by BBC radio presenters Tom Fordyce and Chris Stark on the podcast.
William has been fronting the Heads Up campaign to encourage football fans to talk about their mental health.
An avid Aston Villa fan, William poked fun at his sporting technique, describing his defending style as a “fat knacker running around at the back, panting”.
But it would seem another member of the royal household might be up for fulfilling William’s Aston Villa dream.
Asked if his son, Prince George, were to get really good at football, could he be an Aston Villa frontman, William replied, “Definitely.”
He added, “I reckon he could. I reckon he could be their all time goalscorer.”
As the chat moved on to their respective partners, the men discussed the worst presents they’d ever bought their wives.
While Peter admitted to buying his wife Abbey Clancy a raincoat for three years running, William joked that he once bought his wife Kate Middleton a pair of binoculars. “She’s never let me forget that,” he said.
“Honestly, I have no idea why I bought her a pair of binoculars. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
