The best bits from a book on football's 'last maverick' Thomas Gravesen - the Everton and Real Madrid midfielder turned reclusive millionaire

The midfielder was renowned for his tough tackling but is now better-known for his off-field exploits

Thomas Gravesen enjoyed a colourful career (Getty)

Footballer Thomas Gravesen has been described "as a grenade with the pin pulled out."

The bald-headed Dane's eccentric ways and outlandish antics were legendary within the game .

He shocked team-mates, coaches and managers on his journey from boyhood heroes Vejle Boldklub to German giants Hamburg SV, English heavyweights Everton, the world's most glamorous club Real Madrid and Scottish powerhouses Celtic.

But at the age of 32, he suddenly retired and disappeared only to resurface several years later living in a luxurious gated community in Las Vegas, with Andre Agassi and Nicolas Cage as neighbours.

Rumours swirl that the midfielder made himself a £100 million fortune in the US, there's also reports he lost $54 million in a high stakes game of poker.

Very little is actually known about the man dubbed Mad Dog, with some in Denmark even labelling him a unicorn due to the mystery that surrounds him.

He was a world famous footballer, but so much is unclear apart from his engaging and totally unique personality which saw him become a cult hero everywhere he went.

But a new book pulls back the curtain and lets fans find out about the life and times of one of the most colourful players ever to exist. Below are an insight into some of the tales found in Mad Dog Gravesen: The Last of the Modern Footballing Mavericks.

Mad Dog Gravesen: The Last of the Modern Footballing Mavericks by Chris Sweeney is on sale now from Pitch Publishing

A dip in the bubble pool

There was a bizarre incident while at Hamburg in which Thomas and partner-in-crime Allan Jepsen decided to have a laugh one afternoon.

A new book on Gravesen is released this month

They covered the entire wellness area at the team’s training base in foam, soap and shampoo, so it became their own personal giant, infinity-style swimming pool made of bubbles.

The pair got naked and began sliding through the whole building all the way to the swimming pool, where they launched in by doing cannonballs. A member of staff was alerted and came in to catch the young Danes having the time of their lives. Their only punishment was to clean the place up before the manager saw it.

Chopper Gravesen

It was only thanks to HSV team-mate Bernd Hollerbach that Thomas and his love of motorbikes was rumbled too.

Defender Hollerbach had a reputation for driving very fast in his Porsche, ignoring any speed limits where they were in place as Germany’s Autobahn allows drivers to go as fast as they like in some parts

A club insider revealed how one day Hollerbach arrived at HSV’s training ground looking crestfallen but also with an expression of shock on his face. The source said, ‘He’d been speeding as usual, overtaking everyone, when out of nowhere a biker flew past him doing 160mph. The rider was clinging on for dear life dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops but his identity was hidden under a helmet. The tale goes that with a shake of the head, Hollerbach sighed, ‘The bloke must have had a screw loose ’. It was only when he got inside to change for training that he spotted Thomas standing there in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. It was him who’d been riding the bike! He was casually getting ready, thinking nothing of it, and went out for the day’s session leaving Hollerbach dumbfounded.

The club then discovered that Thomas wasn’t just using the motorbike for high-speed dashes to training. He was actually going home to Vejle most days of the week. One way, the journey is 175 miles and usually takes around three hours, but speed freak Thomas was doing it in well under two. He’d leave training, go home, and then come back for the next session. It underlined just how much energy Thomas had and with no one there to rein him in, he was spending his days driving like a maniac back to the small, sleepy town where he felt most at ease.

The other half

Archie Knox who was the assistant manager when Thomas joined Everton said, ‘He just got into scrapes left, right and centre. He always had plenty to say, he’d challenge everything even in training, but Thomas always insisted that he was in the right. There was never a chance of him backing down. He was that determined, to him he was always in the right. But he had more good about him than he had bad, there’s no doubt about that.'

As well as always acting up and having a laugh in training, Archie was fascinated by how Thomas interacted

with his childhood sweetheart Gitte Pedersen. She’d also left Hamburg and joined Everton’s ladies’ team. After he’d done his work for the day, Thomas and Gitte would do extra training and play against each other. Archie could barely believe his eyes at what one of the strongest and most powerful players in the English Premier League, known for its high degree of physicality, was up to. Archie was shocked as he saw Thomas flying into tackles and using his body as if he was in the middle of a full-blooded match Instead, it was with his own childhood sweetheart in an indoor hall. Archie recalled, ‘She played for the ladies’ team and they used to go in the gym and play one v ones But he’d batter the ball at her as if he was playing against a man It was in the big indoor gym at Bellefield [Everton’s training ground] They’d play for ages in there, the two of them going at it ’.

Some summer

Then at Celtic he had the entire club scratching their heads about what his plans were for the summer break.

Normal service is for players to be pictured on golden beaches in far-flung places, cruising about in exotic sports cars or on Sunseeker yachts. After all, they’re wealthy young men with free time on their hands, but not Thomas.

Celtic team-mate Mark Wilson explained: ‘When he came to the club, I was 23 or so, we were all into Call of Duty at that point, so when Thomas came in he said he played it as well. We didn’t know how good he was and he said his mate was the top player in the world. We looked him up and he was. Then, at the end of that season, when we asked him, “What are you doing in the summer?”, Thomas said “Just back home, lad” and he said he’d go back to his parents’ house, go in the basement and play computer games constantly. I’m thinking, “Jesus Christ, this guy has got millions, he could go anywhere in the world and at that time he had his porn star girlfriend and he goes home to sit in a basement ”. It was so far from what a footballer of his stature was about.'