A ROMANY gypsy footballer who scored a stunning winner against Ronaldo’s Manchester United has revealed his VERY different life after the beautiful game.
Not many can say they put one over on a Red Devils team packed full of legends like Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, but this ex-striker did just that.
The 2006/7 United team won the Premier League and included eight players who made that season’s PFA Team of the Year, but they failed to defend the League Cup after a stunning fourth round loss to Southend.
The man responsible for that loss was Freddy Eastwood, who scored an incredible free-kick winner to dump the most dominant team in the country out of the competition.
Proud Romany man Freddy, who was raised on a travellers site, revealed to The Athletic that he walked away from the beautiful game nine years ago and embarked on a new journey running his own building firm near London.
The now 39-year-old explained: “I enjoy it because I’m my own boss.
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“I can work my own hours, even though there are a lot of hours involved.
“Football is a completely different ball game. If you’re five minutes late, you’ll get a fine.”
However, he still has fond memories of his playing days, which saw him score 49 goals in 111 appearances for Southend, on top of stints with Coventry, West Ham and Wolverhampton, between 2002 and 2014.
Freddy recalled: “I always thought I was a big-game player, like when I scored against Manchester United and in the Millennium Stadium, when we beat Lincoln to get promoted.
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“And the next season we went to Swansea needing a point to get promoted to the Championship with two games to go. We were 1-0 down, I scored, we went 2-1 down and I scored again. We got a point and got promoted.
“On the way home the gaffer got crates and crates of beer and we celebrated all the way home from Swansea. That was brilliant.”
Despite the shocking upset, he added that the goal against Sir Alex Ferguson’s men wasn’t actually the best of his career.
He explained: “Everybody always asks me what was my favourite goal or favourite memory and they think I’ll say Manchester United.
“That was great but it wasn’t in a final or anything like that. I look at the Millennium Stadium and that Swansea game as bigger moments, because we actually won something.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
