A Manchester City fan got the surprise of his life at Man City parade: A golden day to celebrate a season that will never be forgotten – when he was asked to give Pep Guardiola a lift back to his hotel!
Cameraman Mark Hilton, who had been working for the BBC, was packing up his gear when he was asked by a City security man if he could get the Blues manager back through the crowds.
Guardiola had a room booked at a city centre hotel so he could get changed from his official club gear and into his party outfit for the ensuing celebrations.
He wanted to walk, but with an estimated 100,000 Blues in the city centre, club staff were concerned for his safety.
So one of them asked Mark, who was packing up his gear, if he could help out.
“I was just about to pull off, to leave, and this security guy comes over, all Men in Black, with a City suit on, and an earpiece in, and he said ‘Are you going?’” said Mark, who is from Langley.
“So I said ‘Yeah’, and he said ‘You couldn’t give Pep a lift home, could you?’
“I said ‘You what?’ and he said ‘Can you give Pep a lift home, we can’t get him out.’
“I said ‘Give him a lift home? I’ll carry him home, get him in!’
“Pep was saying he’d walk and all his security guards were saying ‘No, you can’t walk, you can’t walk’- so one came and got me and asked if I’d give him a lift.”
Dumbstruck Mark, a lifelong Blue who grew up on Langley estate in Middleton, said the conversation was a bit limited as Guardiola seemed a bit worried.
“I think he was a bit edgy because he could tell I wanted to stick the lips on him, so he was edging over towards his door – but he was dead nice,” Mark told BBC Radio Manchester .
“He was just saying ‘Drive, drive’ because once people saw him get in my van, it was the centre of attention.
“I obviously didn’t play it cool – on the picture I’ve got the biggest, cheesiest grin on my face, and all the way there I was going ‘Pep, no-one’s ever going to believe this happened’.
“My phone had died so I didn’t think I was going to be able to get a picture. But I found my work phone in the end and took it on that.
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“I rang my kids to tell them and they didn’t believe me.”
Covering the parade, to celebrate City’s historic domestic treble, was a dream job for Mark, and his dad had taken his kids so they did not miss out on the fun.
“It was amazing. My dad brought my kids, so they were in front of where I was filming, so it was a little family affair,” he said.
“I was just about to leave at the back of the media compound, and Pep and all the players were at the back of the cathedral.
“It had all finished on the stage and they were just having drinks.”
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