Despite having only been at the club for six months at the time, Dietmar Hamann has confirmed that his Newcastle teammates still saw fit to buy him a copy of Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto “Mein Kampf” as a hilarious Christmas present in 1998.
Geddit? He’s German. Exquisite stuff. Banter Claus truly came to town that year.
Hamann was asked about the rumours by a fan during a Twitter Q&A earlier today, to which he simply replied…
They did. https://t.co/qOiMltPcQw
— Didi Hamann (@DietmarHamann) December 22, 2015
It would appear that ‘novelty’ presents were the order of the day at Newcastle in ’98. Indeed, defender Alessandro Pistone revealed that he was given a sheep’s heart by the lads – purportedly because “he didn’t have one of his own”.
“I’m sure it was a joke,” the Italian mused in an interview with the Sunday Times the following year.
“The others had some really funny presents too: Temuri Ketsbaia got a hairbrush and Duncan Ferguson a prison shirt.”
Oh, to be a fly on the wall. The repartee, the whimsy.