Luke Shaw has, on a number of occasions, had to deal with an accusation rarely levelled at footballers: that he is fat.
When Jose Mourinho was Manchester United manager, he criticised a number of things about the defender, including an apparent lack of fitness and physique. Long-lens photographers relished snapping him on holiday with his shirt off looking “less than toned” or “relaxed”.
Three years later, Mourinho is long gone and Shaw will go to Euro 2020 this summer probably as England’s first-choice left-back.
And he should have no misgivings about taking his shirt off during a warm summer training session, according to his personal chef Jonny Marsh.
“He has got a different body type but in actual fact he is absolutely ripped,” Marsh tells i.
“I’ve got mates who will say to me ‘I can’t believe how heavy Luke Shaw looks’ and I promise you he is anything but. He is shredded. He’s just stocky, big, powerful and strong, but I was gob-smacked the first time I saw him without a top on. Honestly, if that’s fat, I want to be that fat.”
Marsh did not set out to be what he is now, a private chef to some of the north-west’s very best footballers. He was not even much of a football fan until he had something of a vested interest.
He worked mostly at Manchester City’s hospitality suites when Kevin De Bruyne approached him through the club to do his private Christmas dinner. The Belgian was taken with the spread and the professional relationship blossomed from there. Despite no real background in cooking for athletes or sports science, he began high-quality meal prep for the talismanic midfielder, learning on the job and liaising with club nutritionists to hit all his new client’s requirements. He was soon round Chez De Bruyne most nights cooking dinner.
His reputation got around and Marsh now pre-cooks meals for players up and down the country and sends them out weekly, as well as working in the homes of a number of players.
As well as being credited with the reinvention of Shaw’s physique, Marsh is just about one of the family at the De Bruynes’, having watched the family grow from two to five from their kitchen.
“You do feel like you’re part of the family. Of course you’ve got to be careful you don’t cross that line and sometimes you do find yourself slipping and just chatting to them but you kind of have to separate yourself too.”
There are times when the lines inevitably blur, such as with Ilkay Gundogan, with whom Marsh has become close over the years. Unlike De Bruyne, his family still lives overseas in Turkey and Germany, a particularly difficult prospect during the pandemic.
“It was tough for Ilkay with feeling lonely. It’s very tough being away from home, it’s just a bit crap, and he would say to me sometimes that he was feeling a bit down, but it was tough for everybody.”
Things are though getting better as the country begins to emerge from lockdown, and while Marsh is still working with some of the world’s best footballers, he is also working with gym company Everyone Active to write recipes that everyone can follow at home, that will still support an active lifestyle.
“We’re just trying to show people how easy it really is to cook,” Marsh says.
He has of course found out the hard ways to cook as well. He worked as an apprentice under Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, and if you scroll back far enough on his Instagram, past a veritable smorgasbord of Premier League footballers from Marouane Fellaini and Kyle Walker to Troy Deeney and John Terry, you’ll find potato and truffle veloutes and parsnip poppadoms, the kind of thing that doesn’t quite pass muster for an elite athlete’s dinner on a regular Tuesday night, however much of a gourmand they might consider themselves.
“When I first started with Kevin I tried to be dead fancy because of my Michelin background and coming from working on yachts, so I wanted to continue that,” he adds.
“But something fresh and simple, with that homely feel, cooked right it can be miles healthier than anything you’ve eaten thinking it is healthy.
“Players tend to like to feel like they are not eating differently. They feel as though they are eating fresh and simple every day. They want that home-cooked style meal – but to a whole other level.”
That tasty food is not healthy food is just one of the misconceptions Marsh is fighting against, appreciating that even his own upbringing was imperfect from a culinary standpoint.
“It’s massively to do with culture to be honest. If you think of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal, they grow up in a food culture where they sit down together, they know when they’re going to eat and everything is home-cooked and fresh. Whereas here, I grew up on potato smiley faces, beans and fish fingers. It was all on a tray, bunged in the oven, get it in and out as quick as you possibly can. I think there are a lot of fads around too where people do certain diets and I don’t think people are educated enough to see how simple cooking can actually be.
“People think it’s difficult or expensive to buy healthy food, but if you buy dried pasta from the supermarket, it’s going to be worse for you than if you make it fresh, and that really it isn’t as hard as people think. You might think it’s time-consuming but it’s really not. There are lots of little things like that where people have mind-blocks on what can actually be done in a kitchen at home rather than thinking ‘I haven’t got time for this or that, I’m just going to buy a ready meal instead’.”
So what is Marsh’s one tip for what we can all do to eat a little better and shift a few lockdown pounds?
“Portion control,” he instantly replies. “You can get fat off salad, to an extent. I see people say I’m going to eat healthy so I’ll have some chicken in a sauce, sticky rice and vegetables – but how much rice have you got there? How much veg? How much sugar is in that sauce? And then a little bit of veg.”
Jonny Marsh has teamed up with leisure operator Everyone Active to create simple, easy-to-follow recipes that support an active lifestyle. You can find out more here.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3eI8Hvc
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