The (Short) Story of Marco Boogers And His Caravan

Marco Boogers is the most notorious Premier League player with fewer than five appearances. 

He ticked every box that puts him at the top of almost every worst footballer poll: he barely played, had a moment of infamy, and has a funny foreign name. Here’s the story of one of the Premier League’s greatest forgotten footballers and his caravan.

Our story starts in the 1990s when the English top flight had just rebranded to become the Premier League. At that time, there was a very small contingent of non-British players.

But, by the mid-1990s, Premier League clubs began to import foreign talent, including David Ginola, Ruud Gullit and Dennis Bergkamp. The face of English football was changing and foreign players grew in popularity.

West Ham wanted a slice of the pie and began to look abroad for untapped European talent. Harry Redknapp was in charge at the time, the perfect manager to find an under-the-radar talent abroad with a cheap price tag.

And with Dutch players in vogue, Redknapp knew exactly the market to look into to find the Premier League’s next big thing. 

He asked to see VHS tapes from talents in the Dutch league. After one watch of Sparta Rotterdam’s striker Marco Boogers, the Hammer’s gaffer thought he had struck gold. 

Too bad the West Ham scouts didn’t do their due diligence. Boogers had only three goals in 14 league games and was suffering from an eight-game goal drought. 

Regardless, from the VHS highlight reel, Redknapp saw potential and his strategy to buy low was in full swing as he signed the Dutch striker for £1 in 1995. 

While expectations weren’t high, no one predicted that Boogers would perform below his price tag.

His debut for West Ham started on the bench against Leeds. Redknapp’s side were 2-1 down after a stunning left-foot volley from Tony Yeboah in the 57th minute. 

It was Booger’s time to silence his critics and prove that he could match the Dutch players that came before him. 

It turned out to be an uneventful appearance. Leeds stood their ground and the game ended 2-1. But, as with any player, Boogers needed time to find his feet in a new league. 

Four days later, West Ham faced Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United side. The Hammers had a lot going for them: United had sold proven winners Kanchelskis, Hughes and Ince and Eric Cantona was banned from football.

When they were 2-1 down, Redknapp rolled the dice and brought Boogers on at left wing in the 72nd minute. It was his time to shine. 

But, when Gary Neville received the ball, Boogers jumped with both feet into what The Sun labelled a “sickening horror tackle” into the right-back’s standing leg.  

Boogers was sent off and given a 4-match ban.

With the pressure of the British press mounting on Boogers, he asked Redknapp if he could serve his suspension in Holland with his pregnant wife.

“Pretty soon after he arrived I realised he wasn’t quite right… [he didn’t] speak a word of English and after a month Marco’s wife was crying, she’s missing her mother and we can’t understand any of it,” Redknapp later admitted. 

The press got wind of Booger’s ‘disappearance’ and a reporter called West Ham’s press office. Upton Park’s PA announcer, Bill Prosser answered the phone and informed the journalist that Boogers had “probably gone by car again.”

The reporter misheard the sentence and The Sun produced a notorious back page headline “BARMY BOOGERS LIVING IN A CARAVAN.” The British public believed the Dutch striker had a mental breakdown and was hiding in a mobile caravan. 

Boogers would return to West Ham, though with little success after two more cameos from the bench in heavy defeats to Aston Villa and Blackburn.

Now, Boogers lives a much simpler life. With his wife, Patricia, he started a logistics company with four branches in Holland with 140 employees. They’ve secured a big multi-year contract with DHL so all’s well that ends well.