David Bentley played cruel ‘Postman Pat’ prank on manager Fabio Capello

England’s players used to give former manager Fabio Capello a cruel nickname because he looked like a children’s TV character, an ex-international has claimed.

David Bentley made seven appearances for England between 2007 and 2008, when the team was under the charge of Italian Fabio Capello, who eventually quit in 2012.

The winger was renowned for his-field antics, once stealing a team bus on a mid-season trip to orlando with Blackburn.

On the other hand, Capello was known to be a strict-disciplinarian, famously even banning his players from eating ketchup.

So, called-up with fellow joker Jimmy Bullard into an England squad packed with talent, the ex-Tottenham star has remembered how the team began referring to their strict boss as ‘Postman Pat’ because of his curly dark brown hair and glasses.

Speaking to Soccer AM producer Tubes on his Golf Life channel, the midfielder remembered the joke, saying: “He did look like him, didn’t he?

“It was just classic, and then it became a thing, he couldn’t speak English, could he? So we’d be going ‘alright Postman Pat? How’s your black cat?’

“We’re in team meetings and you get all the lads going, [getting progressively louder] ‘Postman Pat’.

Bentley explained that making jokes like these was his attempt to fit into a dressing room full of superstars including David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard.

“Stepping into that environment, that golden generation, you weren’t doing it to mess around, you were doing it to fit in and make people laugh and create a decent atmosphere," he continued.

“Certain people, especially in the modern era, probably viewed that as us messing around, when that wasn’t the agenda. We took it really seriously.”

Before he was picked to represent the national side, Bentley began his career at Arsenal, even making an appearance in the club’s ‘Invincibles’ campaign where they went undefeated in the league for a whole season.

And, on a previous episode of the Golf Life series, the tricky midfielder recalled how trying to fit in with the likes of Thierry Henry and Robert Pires had led to menacing club captain Patrick Viera kicking him “ every day for six months.”

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