'I'm recognised for washing men's underpants': Portsmouth 'legend' Kev McCormack bids farewell after 27 years
The Welshman has been a popular presence at Fratton Park since the summer of 1999 - but is now retiring
The boot room where Robert Prosinecki holed up for a crafty half-time cigarette is these days a burger bar, while the laundry room which housed Premier League pre-match prayer meetings with Kanu and Linvoy Primus has long gone.
Now, after 27 years of sterling service, Fratton Park is bidding farewell to another of its iconic fixtures and fittings.
Kev McCormack, one of the Football League’s longest-serving kitmen and a Pompey Hall of Famer, is retiring after Saturday’s final game of the season against Birmingham.
Since May 1999, the larger-than-life Welshman has also been Jermain Defoe’s boxing coach, Peter Crouch’s removal man, rodent exterminator, babysitter for David James’ son, FA Cup minder, Harry Redknapp’s golfing partner, and occasional groundsman.
Yet, having suffered recent health issues, including recovering from a heart attack last summer, the 59-year-old has decided it's time to bid farewell.
‘Yes. This is our dump’
‘That Gary Neville, when he came down with Manchester United (April 2004), he walked down the tunnel, past my room, and said: “What a dump”,’ McCormack told The News.
‘I stuck my head out the door and answered: “Yes. But it’s our dump”. We beat them 1-0 that day through Steve Stone’s goal and my son, Oliver, was mascot.
‘I’ve seen it all, you know. At half-time in another match, I came into the dressing room and a big rat was sitting on a bench in front of a player’s spot. He was looking right at me, so I chased him around the room with a brush, but he got away.
‘Not too long after, Alan Knight rang and said “We’ve found a rat in your laundry room”. Not that they got rid of it, no they’d trapped it in a bucket and left it for me to deal with.
‘So I returned with one of the maintenance lads, who picked up the bucket while I whacked the rat with a broom. I definitely got that one!
‘Mind you, I once nearly died in my laundry room. We had a top-loading washing machine which had a button you pressed to get the liquid in, but there was a live wire sticking out, which I accidentally touched.
‘It knocked the wind out of me, leaving me on all fours, with what little hair I had standing on end. An apprentice called Phil Barnett found me. The electrician later told me the only reason I survived was because of my size. Good job I’m not skinny, isn’t it!
‘I swear it's haunted down there as well. Quite a few times I’ve come back from away games at stupid o’clock to wash the kit, usually between 2-3am, and the lights would go off, with no-one else around.
‘So I’d put them back on. Then it would happen again. The only other way to get to the light switch was through the Chimes Lounge - and that door was alarmed. I don’t believe in ghosts, but something was happening.
‘There’s a big shillelagh in my room, any intruders and they would get it. Even ghosts. Mind you, I don’t know who would be scared more - me or the ghost!’
It’s a fair point. Since the inauguration of the ABA Championships’ super-heavyweight division some 44 years ago, no amateur boxer has surpassed the man from Pontypool’s remarkable haul of three titles.
It’s a feat equalled only by Olympic bronze medallist and Commonwealth Games champion David Price, with other notable winners including Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, Audley Harrison and Dereck Chisora.
When Gordon Neave stepped down as Pompey kitman in May 1999, it signalled the end of an association with the Blues spanning more than half a century, having also featured as a player, coach, trainer and physio.
His replacement was handpicked by manager Alan Ball - a towering doorman and former Royal Marine found on match-days stationed outside the Chimes Bar.
‘I get recognised more for washing men’s underpants than when I boxed’
McCormack: added: ‘I am nobody, I’m just a kitman, but I get recognised more for washing men’s underpants than I ever did when I boxed. And I won three British titles, 10 Welsh titles, went to three Commonwealth Games and won a European bronze!
‘My second match as kitman was at Wolves (August 1999). At half-time, we were going back to the dressing room and I noticed their right-back, Kevin Muscat, was having a go at Jeff Peron.
‘I ended up threatening to give Muscat a dig. Then Wolves’ caretaker boss Colin Lee also decided to get involved, so he had a bit as well. My Marine head was on: “Problem? You’ll have a problem in a minute if you don’t clear off”.
‘Then I spotted Bally down the tunnel. “Oi, get in here,” he roared at me. As I went towards him, like a naughty schoolboy, he repeated “Get in here”.
‘I entered the dressing room and he slammed the door behind me. “Right you lot,” he shouted. “That’s the sort of balls I want to see!”.
‘We went to Fota Island, Cork, for our pre-season tour in 2018 and the manager, Kenny Jackett, thought it would be a bit of fun for me to fight the players, just to raise morale.
‘I wasn’t fit, way overweight, but it’s like riding a bike, you never forget, and I put the gloves back on. Kenny agreed to one-minute rounds, with him promising to step in if needed.
‘Oli Hawkins and Dion Donohue had a right go. Christian Burgess’ clever, though, he waited until I was blowing out towards the end before stepping in with me. I still made sure I gave him a big dig, though.
‘In the Premier League days, Jermain Defoe loved boxing and I used to take him on the pads, doing three two-minute rounds most days, giving him a proper workout. I’d also take the goalkeepers for fast footwork sessions, because boxers have to be good on their feet.
‘The players would take the mikey out of me, so, at one stage I would put on videos of my flights on coach journeys home, which Peter Crouch has mentioned on his podcast.
‘Mind you, he also reckons that he gave me £60 to wash his kit because back then they were supposed to do their own. Did he hell! I just did it to help him out, he never paid me!’
Peter Crouch: This man is a legend
Following last week’s announcement of McCormack’s impending retirement, Crouch rang the Welshman from a holiday in Portugal to send his regards, while posted on X: ‘This man is a legend. Enjoy your retirement Kev. Well deserved’.
McCormack also appeared on Wednesday’s recording of The Peter Crouch Podcast, albeit as a surprise guest star, orchestrated by the producer behind the ex-England striker’s back.
Indeed, a procession of former Blues players have sent touching personal messages to the outgoing kitman, including Yakubu, David James, Pedro Mendes, Gareth Evans, Lomana Lualua, Kit Symons, Callum Lang, Kusini Yengi, Nathan Thompson, David Forde, Andy Cannon, Johnny Ertl and Joe Rafferty.
In addition, Harry Redknapp has agreed to attend a sportsman’s dinner McCormack is organising to mark his retirement, while League Two title-winning boss Paul Cook rang earlier this week to deliver his best wishes.
It’s indicative of the popularity and respect he holds among those he has shared a Pompey dressing room with over almost three decades of loyal service.
McCormack added: ‘I am the biggest softie you will ever meet, I’ll do anything for anybody, but I don’t suffer fools. If you betray me or do something against me, that’s me and you done, there’s no coming back. Whether it's right or wrong, that’s who I am.
‘So I will do anything for those players, they are like my kids really. They don’t think of it like that, but I do. Watching them do well gives me that adrenaline rush, I enjoy watching them succeed.
‘I helped Crouchie and Andy O’Brien move house. Although, when Conor Shaughnessy moved to Chichester, I smashed one of his lights in a box - and wasn’t asked the next time he moved! Andy Cole wanted a painter for his house, so I organised one for him.
‘The banter’s always good. We had a game at Charlton in April 2000, staying at the Hilton Dartford Bridge, and, ahead of the match, we trained in a park and it was a mud bath.
‘I was collecting the balls and noticed a few of them plotting something. Darren Moore ran at me, so I threw a right hander, he later said it was like The Matrix, whooshing past his face.
‘They got me in the end, though, dragging me through the mud. Afterwards, all you could see were the whites of my eyes, I was covered from head to toe.
‘When we got back to the team coach, the driver told me: “You’re not getting on here, look at the state of you”. So instead I had to travel with the kit in the storage locker under the bus.
‘The players have always tried to wind me up. A couple of years ago, I was in the canteen and Tom McIntyre came up behind and pulled my trousers down. So I went into the dressing room with a pair of scissors and cut up his shorts, underpants and trousers. He had a surprise!
‘Then there was Luke Varney, who was as mad as a box of frogs. He put drawing pins into Blu Tack and stuck it on the handle of my van door. They went right into my hands. Right, I was getting him back.
‘When Varney came back from training, he opened his locker and screamed. In it was the head of a dead pig on a plate, with his pants on his head, wearing a pair of sunglasses and a fag in its mouth. I don’t suppose you could get away with that now!
‘I used to call my boot room the Custard Pie Room. Whoever hadn't made the squad would come in and I would say “Lads, don’t worry about it, have a cup of tea and a custard cream. Never mind, there’s always next week”.
‘At half-time in games, Robert Prosinecki would come in, wink at me and ask for a Marlboro Red. It would always be a few puffs before he had to go back to the changing room for the team-talk. What a player he was.
‘Kostas Chalkias would come in afterwards for a smoke, as did some opposition players such as Paul Dickov and Tugay (Blackburn). Dario Silva visited my room once and gulped down half a bottle of brandy I’d been given for Christmas. When he left the club, he gave my son his guitar.
‘Our one point, the laundry room became a prayer room. Players would squeeze in between the tumble driers and washing machines before a game and, being Catholic, I’d join them. Linvoy Primus, Darren Moore, Kanu, John Utaka, Papa Bouba Diop, it got busier as time went on.
‘It’s great looking back. I’ll miss the changing room on a match-day. I get a bit anxious thinking how I’m going to replace it, but the time is right.’
Health problems
Having contemplated retirement over recent years, including cutting down duties in July 2021 after his wife Sarah beat bowel cancer, McCormack’s mind was made up for him in November.
Unusually fatigued since undergoing a hip replacement in April 2025, it developing into breathing difficulties, he sought medical advice last summer, shortly after the Championship season’s end.
McCormack was subsequently informed he had suffered a heart attack - without realising.
‘It could have happened during the football season or after it, the doctors don’t know - and I don’t know either. They don’t even know why it happened,’ he said.
‘The specialist delivered the news in black and white: It has happened, you could live five years, 10 years or whatever, you've just got to get on with it. You’re in good hands, you are on the proper medication, just crack on.
‘It was a Sunday morning, I woke up and couldn’t breathe right, so I took myself to the Petersfield Urgent Treatment Centre. Within 20 minutes, I was in an ambulance heading to QA Hospital.
‘My pulse rate was 140 rested, they had me in there for a week and told me I had Atrial Fibrillation (AF). Cardioversion was used to shock my heart into getting it back into a normal rhythm, which didn’t work.
‘So they sent me to St Thomas’ Hospital in London for an MRI, which involved putting dye into your body, while another dose of Cardioversion also didn’t work. When the results eventually came back, they showed I’d had a heart attack.
‘As I saw when my wife was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2020, it changes your life. We are born, we’ve got to die, but I want to make some memories with Sarah and spend a bit of time with her. All through married life she has been a Royal Marine widow and a football widow, we need time together.
‘We’d been talking about retirement for a while, Sarah wanted me out of it, she doesn’t want me to have stress. It would have affected my health had I stayed and I’m tired. So that's that.’
‘It’s a working-class city with working-class people and I am a working-class lad’
McCormack’s Waterlooville home of 23 years has been on the market since December 2025, yet he remains unsure where the next chapter will take him.
With their children Oliver and Kimberley having long flown the nest, they are keen to downsize, although this week saw a new addition to the household in the form of a 12-week-old Cockapoo called Murphy. Albeit not after Pompey winger Josh.
Still, the McCormack family have discussed moving to west Wales to be closer to the former boxer’s parents, who are in their 80s. Relocating to property in Hayling Island overlooking the Solent has also been considered.
In the meantime, Birmingham’s visit to Fratton Park on Saturday will signal the former Royal Marine’s final match before officially retiring on May 22.
Except McCormack won’t be occupying his customary seat in the dug-out, instead he and sister Caroline will be the club’s guests in the directors’ box, while Dillon North handles match-day kit duties.
After 27 years, it’s time to support the club another way.
McCormack added: ‘Bob Jones was a groundsman here, brilliant at his job, but, when it came to his pitch, he was angrier than me. He would shout at me all the time - and I’d wind him up on purpose.
‘Now I had noticed these little pots scattered around the corporate lounges, with each containing one daffodil. So, when Bob wasn’t around, I decided I was going to get him.
‘I planted one daffodil into the penalty spot at the Fratton End, one on the half-way line and another in the other penalty spot. They looked very nice.
‘Bob’s room at Fratton Park was opposite mine and, on the Monday morning, I could hear him shouting and cursing about the damage somebody had done to his pitch.
‘He never found out but, following his retirement, I came clean. “I knew it was you!” he said. When Bob died in 2024, I went to his funeral and laid daffodils on his coffin, his son liked that!
‘And that’s why I love it here. It’s a working-class city with working-class people and I am a working-class lad. I’m going to miss it like you wouldn’t believe.’
* A Special Evening with Kev McCormack is being held on Friday, June 19th at The Gaiety, Southsea.
To hear Kev talk about his boxing career and 27 years of wonderful Pompey memories, tickets can be booked at https://book.events/kev