Young still insists bird did not poo in his mouth – so what actually happened
While some say being pooped on by a bird is a sign of good luck, it's only ever brought Ashley Young humiliation and mockery.
Back in 2014, the ex-England winger, who celebrates his 37th birthday on Saturday, was subject to a highly embarrassing episode which has gone down in Premier League folklore as one of the most bizarre moments in the competition's recent history. During Manchester United's shock 2-1 defeat to Swansea City at Old Trafford in August of that year, Young appeared to be struck by some flying faeces.
To make matters worse, the alleged bird excrement appeared to rather grotesquely land in his mouth mid-rant as he blasted a Red Devils team-mate. Or perhaps it didn't – as Young himself would try and have you believe.
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To this day, the Aston Villa star stands by his view that the substance was something altogether different and the events of that day were not all what they seemed. But what exactly did occurr at Old Trafford?
“No, it didn’t happen!" Young adamantly denied while addressing the unsavoury episode within a clear-the-air interview on United's official club podcast back in 2019. "I’ve said this for god knows how long but it got to a point where I was like ‘I need to do an interview to say it didn’t happen’ but I just couldn’t be bothered.
“It had gone viral and is still going viral I think now and even my wife and kids turn round and say, ‘Yeah but the bird pooed in your mouth’. No it didn’t.
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“It actually didn’t. And I said at the time, I’m sure the game was on TV, someone must have stopped it, recorded it, done whatever they did and put it together because it never actually happened. I think someone edited it because I know it never happened."
Following an extensive review of the footage, a MUTV director is thought to have solved the mystery of bird-poo-gate. The theory goes that a player off camera gobbed and the spit travelled over Young's shoulder.
At the same time, the former United skipper gathered up a sample of his own saliva in his own mouth during a passionate plea to his United peers as he evidently ordered them to up their game. The camera angle and timing of the two separate incidences makes it seem as though a white substance from the sky planted itself perfectly in the winger's open mouth.
“I’m actually relieved that I’ve got the evidence," Young added. "I think you can tell it’s not real because I think you can tell, if a bird s*** in my mouth, you’re going to have a reaction.
"Why is it that it’s just gone, or carry on filming me? There you go. It is what it is, it’s like, fair enough. I know what happened.”
While Young was determined to draw a line under the episode immediately after it took place, his team-mates ensured he wouldn't forget it in a hurry. Luke Shaw revealed to Match of the Day magazine that the rest of the Red Devils toyed with Young by planting a fake bird above his changing room peg in the wake of the incident.
"Ashley Young is the joker in the dressing room," Shaw admitted. "We still laugh about the time he got bird poo in his mouth against Swansea.
"If you ask him now, he'll say it wasn't bird poo. In the changing room we hung a fake bird above his place as a joke which he didn't like."
As recently as 2019, Jesse Lingard continued to poke fun at Young. During a 1-0 win for United over Leicester, a pigeon infiltrated the pitch, prompting Lingard to troll his team-mate. Posting a picture of himself in action in the background and the bird in the foreground, Lingard wrote the caption: “Absolute Animal Out There Today. Glad @youngy_18 Stayed Away.”
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