Islander enjoys NYC encounter with Lampard

A SHETLANDER had a surprise encounter with superstar footballer Frank Lampard in the Big Apple last week – which ended with the ex England star forking out for tickets so the group she was with could see his New York City FC team in action.

Megan Nicholson from Brae, who is one of 20 British youngsters over in the US doing coaching this summer, is based at the State University of New York campus in Purchase.

The group went along to the nearby NYC FC training centre to see if they could meet some of the players.

They spotted 37 year old Lampard – who as over 100 England caps and spent many trophy-laden years with Chelsea before moving to US Major League Soccer (MLS) recently – and Spain’s former Barcelona star David Villa in the car park.

Both happily signed autographs and chatted with the group. On spotting their accents, a “really chatty” Lampard was interested to know hat they were in the US for and “more than happy to talk to us”.

Twenty year old Megan said one of the girls “cheekily asked” if they could get tickets for NYC’s game against Toronto.

“We said we would go and he said not to worry about the tickets because he’d sort them. We went to pick them up and asked for 20; he said he only got four complimentary, but we were to hold on a minute.

“He nipped back inside and came back with 16 Ticketmaster e-tickets that he’d bought himself, very kind man!”

The Toronto game, which took place at the Yankee Stadium on Sunday, turned out to be an eight-goal thriller with the visitors’ Italian striker Sebastian Giovinco bagging a hat trick in just nine minutes.

“It ended 4-4 with three penalties in the first 30 minute, so definitely got our money’s worth, but poor Frank was injured so [we’ll] maybe get to see him play another time!”