F-ing liar!

CHEATING chef Gordon Ramsay always relishes boasting about his glory days as a budding soccer star with Glasgow Rangers.

But today the News of the World can reveal it's a load of codswallop created to fuel his ruthless bid for stardom.

For Ramsay NEVER "signed" for the Glasgow giants and NEVER played first team games for them-despite saying so on radio, in his autobiography and in a series of interviews.

In fact, he was such a liar fellow cooks nicknamed him "Billy Bull***t" -and he even secretly confessed to top chef Marco Pierre White that his Rangers career was boloney, adding: "But it just came out of my mouth and it was a good story at the time".

Today that story is booted into touch for good.

Ramsay, 42, only got away with it for so long because no other newspaper has managed to follow his trail of lies and piece together the truth.

And when it comes to exposing his fantasy football fibs we have more sources than he's got sauces.

Like respected Rangers historian Robert McElroy for one. "He was never a signed player for us and certainly didn't play any first team games and wasn't offered any sort of contract-it's all complete and utter nonsense," he insists.

And legendary Rangers coach Archie Knox-who the chef blames for "dumping" him from the club. "He must be a very confused individual. I was the manager of DUNDEE at the time."

And we also reveal the TRUTH behind the one "Rangers" team picture he appears in that he uses in his autobiography to back up his claims.

Brazen Ramsay-born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire-first spun his Scottish soccer fantasy in an interview in August 1994 to publicise the opening of his first restaurant, Aubergine, in London.

Football and fine dining were becoming trendy at the time, and the public took to the chef with the macho past.

So when he appeared on famous Radio Four show Desert Island Discs in 2002 he happily expanded the story to its two million listeners.

Ramsay told the then host Sue Lawley how he was spotted by a Rangers scout while playing for Oxford United's youth team. And how his family moved to Scotland to support him.

"That's how it started-going up back to Glasgow throughout school and summer holidays and then eventually signing."

Comfort

LAWLEY: "And in the end the whole family uprooted and went to Glasgow because of you?"

RAMSAY: "Because of the support. I think anyone signing for a professional team needs that kind of comfort."

But in his autobiography Humble Pie four years later, the chef dished up the kind of blunder he wouldn't tolerate in his kitchens. He claimed the family moved to Glasgow because of his musician father's, Gordon Senior's, career.

"Dad had heard that the country and western scene was better up there," he said. But Ramsay was soon back on the subject of his less-than-Humble Lie.

He wrote: "I started playing in the testimonial games (at Rangers) and I was included on the first team sheet, which was amazing.

"It was great, turning up to meet the bus when we were playing away from Ibrox, standing there in your badge and tie, all spruced and immaculate. It was such a thrill.

NO NAME: Ramsay is identified as 'trialist'

"Outside the stadium, you'd be signing things like pillow cases and the side of prams, and families would turn up with their kids to have their trainers signed."

But it was all to come to a tragic end, as he explained on Desert Island Discs, while emphasising that he had been a Rangers first teamer.

"I got my first team games, I was with the first team squad, I played three first team games," he told Lawley.

"And then I had a really bad injury. I had my cartilage removed and three months after that particular operation I tore my ligament.

"I got asked to go to the office on a Friday morning with Jock Wallace (Rangers manager) and Archie Knox, the first team coach. And I had to take my father along.

"And the night before I couldn't sleep. But I just kept on telling myself, you know, you're going to sign again . . . and you're going to be a fully pledged (sic) first team player. But it wasn't, it was the opposite."

Strangely enough, nobody at the club seems to remember the budding first teamer who was dumped because of an injury.

Memory

At that time, when Ramsay claims Knox was firing him, Archie, 61, was in fact 80 miles away working at Dundee. He NEVER worked under Jock Wallace.

Archie told us: "The first time I ever saw Gordon Ramsay was in 1996 when he launched his first book. But he didn't know me from Adam because we've never met."

John Hagart-Jock Wallace's right-hand man at Rangers from 1983 to 1986-was similarly mystified.

"I don't remember Gordon Ramsay being at Rangers at all-and I have a very good memory," he told us.

"He certainly never played in the first team. I looked after the reserve team as well as the youth sides-and he wasn't in any of those either."

The only evidence Ramsay has produced for his claims of young soccer stardom was the photo in his book of a him lining up with a Rangers squad.

It included Scotland legend Ally McCoist. But the photographer who took it has told us his snap, taken in September 1985, was certainly NOT of a Rangers first team side.

Allan Cairns, 72, said: "It was a testimonial match for the captain of East Kilbride Thistle-a junior football club. It was a team from Rangers club but certainly not the first team."

One of the players in the photo, Gus MacPherson, 40, who DID go on to sign for the club said of Ramsay: "I remember absolutely nothing about him.

"A lot of boys would come and train for a couple of weeks to try to impress. And he has only ever come to light in this photograph."

Last night a Rangers spokesman confirmed that, telling us: "Ramsay was a triallist in that testimonial game. He trained with us for a few months after that but then got injured."

Ramsay, however, certainly took the testimonial seriously. In an interview in the London Evening Standard in 1999 he bragged: "When I played a testimonial match for Rangers at 18, we came off at half time 2-0 down. I got a real ear-bashing from the boss."

Strangely enough, the final score, published in Rangers News, was 1-1. and the report listed every player by name EXCEPT Ramsay-who was listed simply as 'triallist'.

That didn't stop big-mouthed Gordon from continuing with his fictional soccer career in The Observer newspaper in May 2002.

By now he had even remembered the names of the clubs he played against in the first team.

"I played two first-team games against St Johnstone and Morton," he said. "Both away and both s**t in the sense that I played 20 minutes and 10 minutes."

Donkey

A check of Rangers records shows that Ramsay wasn't in any of the squads on either date.

In an interview with QTV host Jian Ghomeshi on YouTube, he claims to have played in a THIRD Rangers match-a reserve team game against their arch rivals Celtic.

He boasts: "21,000 spectators turned up. We lost 4-0. It was horrific. I got absolutely pummelled at half time. I got called a donkey.

"I got pulled off within seven minutes of the second half."

But Rangers historian McElroy- who has watched every competitive game the club has played since 1972-insisted: "It's all nonsense.

"The Rangers reserve team at the time was really good-but Ramsay wasn't even a signed player and wasn't in it."

He has fully researched any involvement Ramsay might have had above just being a hopeful one-match trialist . . . and drawn a blank.

"He didn't make any impact and wasn't offered any sort of contract. By no stretch of the imagination, could that match be construed as a professional game.

"Only four of the people in the photo went on to be regular fixtures on the Rangers first team-Ally McCoist, Derek Ferguson, Gus McPherson and Eric Ferguson."

Dad-of-four Ramsay-who was caught last year by the News of the World having an affair with writer Sarah Symonds behind wife Tana's back-even managed to lie about his time at Oxford Utd where he claims he was such an outstanding talent he was spotted by a Rangers scout.

MARCO - "Ramsay was nicknamed 'Billy Bulls**t' by those he worked with"

Surprisingly, his autobiography fails to contain a single photo of him in that junior team. The only one is of him playing for Broughton and North Newington FC, "my Saturday side in Banbury".

He wrote: "It was during a county match when I was 15 that I was spotted by an Oxford United scout. Then, during an FA Youth Cup match against Arsenal when I was 16, I was spotted by a Glasgow Rangers scout."

Ramsay would have been 16 in 1982. But according to David Barber, 57, the Football Association's resident historian, no such match ever took place.

Mr Barber told us: "I've been through this very carefully and searched on the years either side of that season, and Oxford Utd NEVER played Arsenal in an FA youth cup match. It didn't happen."

And, guess what? Oxford Utd's assistant manager during that time, Ray Graydon, has no recollection of Ramsay in the youth team.

Not everyone has been fooled by loudmouth Ramsay's world of make-believe.

James Steen, who ghost-wrote 47-year-old Marco Pierre White's autobiography, told us: "Marco said that when Gordon worked at the Intercontinental Hotel in Mayfair he was nicknamed 'Billy Bulls**t because of the tall stories he would tell."

In Ramsay's appearance on Desert Island Discs, one of the records he chose was Tina Turner's Simply The Best, explaining: "It's the record, five to three on a Saturday afternoon at Ibrox that gets played whilst the players are running up the tunnel."

LAWLEY: Does it still give you the shivers there?

RAMSAY: "It does. Because it's that five to three feeling . . ."

Today the chef will be experiencing that found-out feeling. Last night Ramsay's spokesman said he had no comment to make.

DO you know a lying celebrity? Email newsdesk@notw.co.uk or call 0207 782 1001.

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