This week the coaching staff at Leyton Orient decided to ban FIFA 14 from the team bus on match days, as the increased gaming of the team saw the Orient's winning streak come to an end. In light of this news, we have compiled a list of some of the most ridiculous and random things banned by managers and football clubs over the years.
1. Mushrooms
In 2008, Giovani Trappatoni banned his irish players from eating mushrooms. Only months into his reign, the Italian spotted some players eating them before a game, and this is what he had to say on the matter at the time,
"I gave them carte blanche when it came to their diets. I did not want to change their established habits.
"However, I saw the players eating mushrooms before a friendly, and I was stunned into silence for several seconds. I then told them that mushrooms are banned on matchdays- both for breakfast and for dinner.
2. Mars Bars
Arsene Wenger is often said to have revolutionised English football when he arrived in England in 1996, and one of the stock reasons generally given is because he banned his players from eating Mars bars.
Before his first game in charge, Wenger banned the team from eating chocolate, provoking outrage, commenting later,
“We were travelling to Blackburn and the players were at the back of the bus chanting ‘we want our Mars bars!’”
3. Ice
Paolo di Canio's presence on this list was inevitable, it was only a case of whether to go with mobile phones, singing in the shower or ketchup, but the strangest of all has to be banning ice.
Di Canio, during his brief time in charge of Sunderland, didn't allow his players to put ice in their coke. It really just begs the question, who didn't he ban coke rather than ice?
“If you have ice with coke you can have indigestion. I know players who’ve had ice with their coke the night before a game and then couldn’t play."
4. Toast
As we all know, white bread is 'common', but it's also quite fattening. When Jackie McNamara took over as manager of Dundee United earlier this year he wanted to change the players diets.
Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson said on the matter,
“Jackie is changing the players’ lifestyles and that’s something which appeals to me, so instead of toast for their breakfast, it’s now porridge and Weetabix.”
5. Sex
Historically, coitus has long been on the banned list of many managers in the run up to match days, and the most recent sex ban occurred at Napoli, in 2012, who were the stewardship of Walter Mazzarri at the time.
In an effort to prevent players picking up injuries in the lead up to games, players were banned from any sexual activity within 48 hours of a game.
Napoli's club doctor, Doctor De Nicola, spilled the beans to Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno:
"Avoiding sexual activity for two days before a game is fundamental to prevent muscular strains, contractions or inflammations, for us this is a rule."
6. Swapping Shirts
In the old days shirt swapping was regularly banned because the more hard-up clubs around needed to use the same shirts again the following week. Yet, in August 2007, in order to keep his players focused on the more important issue of staying in the Premier League, Roy Keane banned his Sunderland players from partaking in the post-match shirt-swappping ritual.
"I had senior players coming up and asking me for my shirt during a game and I'm thinking, "are you really focused on the game at all?" You see players now who say, "I've got 50 jerseys in my garage? and I think, "Yeah, brilliant. But how many medals have you got?""
7. Ping Pong
Just this week the Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin banned his players from using the team's game room, so that means no more pool or table tennis for the 0-4 Steelers.
The ban had already been in place for younger players but has just been extended to the entire team sue to their dreadful start to the season.
The players don't seem too upset though, as left guard Ramon Foster and safety Ryan Clark testify,
"It makes everything focus on football right now, which is A-OK with me."
"Nobody is really tripping about it," the 12th-year veteran said. "We understand the spirit in which it's done in, and we're just playing football."
8. Twitter
In college football in the US, Boise State head coach Chris Petersen banned Twitter his players from using Twitter back in 2010, which caused a huge stir in the US at the time, but many other schools followed since thereafter.
According to Petersen,
"The reason we decided to not allow our players to have a Twitter account is we feel like it will prevent us from being able to prepare our football program to move forward. Simple as that.”
9. Guitar Playing
Giovani Trappatoni gets a second mention on our list. After our victory in Mainz against Georgia in our first competitive game under Trap, Reid felt the Italian's wrath for playing his guitar into the night and beyond the team's curfew.
That night in Wiesbaden has become the stuff of legend, to the point that Trap and Reid almost came to blows. Over the next five years under the legendary Italian, no Irish player dared to strum a chord again.
"If he was my son, I would go boom! [kick him in the rear]. But he is not my son. Do you understand? This is the first time I have clarified the situation. The ten players can say it is true or not true."
If anybody out there has any additional suggestions, don't be afraid to comment or tweet us.
