John Bateman remembers funny prank Micky McIlorum played on him at Wigan

John Bateman has recalled a funny prank Micky McIlorum played on him in his very first training session at Wigan which left him speechless!

Bateman sealed a dream move to Super League giants Wigan from hometown club Bradford in 2013. He signed a three-year deal with the Warriors from the 2014 season.

But it wasn’t the smoothest of starts for the 28-year-old. He couldn’t attend his first training session with the club due to a broken window wiper!

Recalling a prank from then team-mate McIlorum, Bateman told The Love Rugby League Podcast: “I can speak about it now because I know Micky now but I didn’t know Micky back then.

“The first day we had training, I was coming over and it was absolutely p*ssing it down on the motorway and my window wiper broke.

“I thought ‘what am I doing to do?’ so I rang Waney and told him I couldn’t make it to training. He said ‘what?’ so I had to explain that I was in the middle of the motorway, stuck on the hard shoulder with a broken window wiper.

“Waney said ‘don’t worry about it, just come in tomorrow’. But I was thinking that I bet Wigan think I’m taking the mick.”

He continued: “Micky Mac then text me saying ‘Hi, it’s Micky Mac, you better get to training’. So I said ‘what mate?’ so he was like ‘why aren’t you at training?’ and I told him my window wiper was broke. He said ‘that’s not a good enough excuse, you better get to training’.

“So I was like ‘sh*t, what am I going to do here?’. I was trying to ring him and he didn’t answer. He rang me back and was serious for about two minutes and I was saying ‘mate, I can’t do out’ and he said ‘oh I’m only joking!’ and I felt like my body just disappeared!”

Click here to listen to the full Love Rugby League Podcast with John Bateman

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