As far as Premier League party animals go, few players can quite live up to the off-field antics of former Everton flop Royston Drenthe.
Signed on a season-long loan from Real Madrid in 2011, the Dutchman was heralded as a major coup for the Merseyside club. But Drenthe is less remembered for his actions on the field as he is for his antics off it.
Former Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard has now added another tale into the mix, after Drenthe opted to use the club's training ground to play host to a 2am hot tub party. Speaking on the Fozcast (via Daily Star ), Howard said: “We had some wrong’uns at Everton as well, and I think those are the ones that stood out more than anything.
“One was horrific; Royston Drenthe.”
The American stopper recalled: "In comes Royston with his Rolls Royces to the training ground, bowls in with his shoes untied, he’s having to run the perimeter of the training ground because he’s always late, his eyes are half-open…”
“I guess he’d never heard of CCTV or something, because he ends up coming to the training ground in the middle of the night with friends, and they were in the hot tub.
“You were just thinking, ‘you’re at the wrong club here mate’.”
The hot tub party allegedly involved several female guests, while Drenthe himself has commented on the incident previously.
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"The story's true but the stories with the girls - they just give it, like, a little extra," he told the Toffee Blues fan channel. "I remember because I was not feeling well that day. I took my car because I didn't want to come late in the morning.
"I needed my car to come back to the training ground in the morning.
"It was 2 o'clock in the morning, but in my mind it was like, what is 2 o'clock? Around this time I'm awake as well at home sometimes.
"I went to get my car but after that it was a big problem for me that I got my car at 2 o'clock in the morning."
Drenthe had started his career with Feyenoord before landing a "dream" move to Real Madrid off the back of his performances for Netherlands at the 2007 under-21 European Championships, though it's fair to say his promising career did not pan out as hoped, playing just 37 times for Los Blancos.
He was 24 at the time of his Goodison Park loan spell and eventually moved to Russian club Alania Vladikavkaz permanently the following season. He did return to English football shortly after with spells at Reading and Sheffield Wednesday before hitting the road again as his career took him to Turkey, Abu Dhabi, back to his native Holland, before pitching up in Spain, where the now-35-year-old last played for Real Murcia.
Speaking to AS, via The Sun, Drenthe admitted: "I was twenty years old and at the peak of my career. It was my dream to walk into the Real Madrid dressing room, I will never forget that.
"But you have a life as a footballer and a life as a human being. You can mix that up to a point, but I didn't see the need to change my lifestyle right away. Now I am aware that I didn't do the right thing, that I made mistakes.
"I wasn't ready to be a pro. I thought I was God, loved women and to party too much and you can't combine that with football. I learn something new every time, but what happened, happened."
