Why was Manchester City’s Erling Haaland called a “Tremendous Nordic meat shield”?
The Premier League club employed the President of the Greeters Guild to welcome the players to training, his remark to new signing Haaland was legendary.
As Erling Haaland arrived at Manchester City’s pre-season training camp he was greeted as follows: “Welcome to training camp. You are a tremendous Nordic meat shield. Have at it.”
The footage on Manchester City’s tweet of the situations showed the new star signing looking rather puzzled by the bizarre welcome, which can be seen 52 seconds into City’s tweet.
While Haaland may stand 6 ft 5 in tall, and weigh 88 kilos of Norwegian muscle, and therefore fit the definition ‘tremendous Nordic meat shield’, it’s still not entirely normal to be greeted with the phrase by someone who looks like master of stage and screen Basil Rathbone, as one of the other City attendees noted.
Who called Haaland a meat shield?
So why was Haaland called a tremendous Nordic meat shield, and who called him it? The greeter in question was none other than comedian Troy Hawke, who performs as the President of the Greeters Guild, a gentleman who goes out of his way to hand those arriving at a location outlandish greetings. Manchester City’s social media department got him along to give the staff and players a welcome they won’t forget in a hurry.
What is a meat shield?
While the term isn’t in most standard dictionaries, it is noted on Wiktionary as being a term from gaming, referring to a character who can absorb damage (it’s also used for “a stunned or dead enemy character used as a shield against attacks”.)
Given the physical prowess of Haaland, the term seems apt, he will be able to absorb a lot of physical damage, and likely dish out a fair amount in terms of goals too - just wait for the first time you hear a commentator using it this season.
Grealish’s symmetrical face
Other legendary comments included leaving Jack Grealish utterly baffled with: “You have a fabulously symmetrical face”. The player looked at him in wonder, while touching said fabulously symmetrical face to check if it really was.
The President of the Greeter’s Guild also stunned Kevin de Bruyne with “What would Jan Molby do?” Molby is a Liverpool legend, who played for the Merseyside outfit from 84-85 to 94-95. He’s also been mentioned by Troy Hawke before in his routines, such as this one outside Waitrose, leading to the store apologising for not knowing who Molby was.