Young, rich and ready to rumble - the cream of the
Premiership hit Las Vegas for the big fight.
Led by England's Wayne Rooney, the high-rolling stars showed even
the bling-bling capital of the world just how to party.
Roo, 21, his fiancee Coleen McLoughlin and a clutch of A-list
soccer pals flew into Vegas last week for boxer Ricky "The Hitman"
Hatton's world-title fight in the early hours of this
morning.
And while their pal Ricky sweated it out in the gym, the off-duty
players made sure it was spend, spend, spend all the way.
After hitting the desert resort's famous strip and boozing till
dawn, they worked off their hangovers on Friday with the ultimate
pool party. Roo, plus Man Utd team-mates Rio Ferdinand, Wes Brown
and John O'Shea, Newcastle's Kieron Dyer, and Chelsea stars Joe
Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips all larged it at the famous Hard
Rock Hotel.
The hotel's pool is a specially-created sandy beach, and the
clientele, as the delighted boys found, are as hot as the 45-degree
temperatures.
The players frolicked in the water with bikini-clad swimmers while
sipping margaritas. At one point Dyer whipped off a girl's
top.
Earlier Rio - who left girlfriend Rebecca Ellison at home in rainy
Manchester with their year-old daughter Lorenz - and winger
Wright-Phillips both struck up a conversation with the girl, who
was wearing a red bikini and red polka-dot headband.
She later paired off with Wright-Phillips - to cackles of laughter
and nudge-nudge wink-winks from Brown and Dyer. It all had the air
of a raucous boys' holiday in the sun - except in five-star luxury,
not a grotty apartment in Magaluf.
Also at the poolside was Chelsea and England star Cole, who was
nursing a marathon hangover.
The players dive-bombed each other and played volleyball as dance
music boomed out from the ultra-trendy hotel's giant speaker
system.
One onlooker said: "The Hard Rock Hotel is a magnet for rich, young
and hip people and they seemed to fit right in."
Cole had run into a spot of bother on Thursday night when the
players hit the Venetian Hotel casino. He lost £1,000 in 10
minutes.
The £60,000-a-week midfielder held up the high-stakes game to get
an explanation of the rules after admitting to fellow players that
he had no idea how to play.
Taking the loss in good spirits, he laughed and shrugged his
shoulders then headed for the bar. From there it was on to the VIP
area at top nightclub Tao, where staff were told to keep the beer,
whiskey and Tequila coming all night.
Cole, 25 - who left girlfriend Carly Zucker at home in London -
chatted to several scantily-clad girls, swigged whiskey straight
from a bottle and smoked cigarettes as he danced bare-chested to
deafening rap music.
Wearing gold-rimmed rap-style sunglasses and thousands of pounds
worth of "bling", Ferdinand, 28, and Brown, 26, waved their hands
in the air and whooped before a heaving crowd of more than 3,000
clubbers from a raised section of the dance floor. Wayne and Coleen
tucked themselves away in a private booth and spent most of the
night holding hands and drinking vodka and Red Bulls.
"The players were larging it like they owned the place," said one
onlooker. "As soon as their table filled up with champagne and
bottles of spirits, the girls flocked to them like a magnet.
"Joe Cole was by far the merriest of the lot. He had a mate with
him who stepped in a couple of times to hold him up. He had three
gorgeous American girls flocking round him.
"He undid all the buttons on his shirt and one of the girls had one
hand up his back and the other on his bare chest."
The Tao club is part of Las Vegas's famous Venetian Hotel and
casino complex, modelled on Venice and featuring a network of
indoor canals with gondolas.
Coleen, 21, proved she had more stamina than all the men put
together - by being last to leave. She helped Roo into a cab at 5am
after travelling down an escalator backwards as Rooney staggered
down a steep flight of stone steps drinking from a can of Red
Bull.
They strolled arm in arm to a nearby taxi rank where a handful of
Brits recognised them and began chanting Wayne's name.
Most of the players stayed at the resort's newest and plushest
hotel, the 3,500-room Wynn, where private villas with their own
pools cost £3,500 a night.
The party-goers were joined on Friday by new manager of Sheffield
United Bryan Robson, Newcastle United's Joey Barton, Middlesbrough
and England's Stewart Downing plus snooker player and legendary
hell-raiser Jimmy White.
"They are all close friends off the pitch and wanted to support
Ricky Hatton," a source said.
With such celebrity pals in tow, Manchester-born Hatton, the
brightest British boxing hope for years, is certainly putting the
glam back into boxing.'
