Premier League icon living off the grid in retirement phones ex-teammate once a year ‘to see if I’m still alive’

Gary McAllister revealed that the elusive David Batty rings him once a year ‘to see if I’m still alive’.

Batty has kept a low profile since retiring from football in 2004.

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So low in fact that many of his former teammates have not heard from him in years and don’t know where he is.

Former Liverpool, Leeds, and Leicester midfielder McAllister joined Sunday Edition with Shaun Custis and Henry Winter on talkSPORT to speak about his career.

Batty’s name came up as his whereabouts are the stuff of legend.

There were some wild rumours that he became a superbike champion under a fake name, trained to be a master butcher and gone off grid to live in a caravan.

McAllister told talkSPORT: “Maybe not this year, but he tends to phone maybe the week before Christmas just to see if I’m still alive and say hello.

“Family okay? Yeah, I’ll speak to you next year.”

He added: “I think he’s on a farm. I don’t think he keeps in touch with anybody in football.”

Batty recently turned 57 and there were reports that former players in a Leeds WhatsApp were sharing birthday messages but nobody had spoken to him.

David Batty’s career

Batty had two spells for Leeds playing a combined 373 times and also played for Blackburn and Newcastle.

He famously was part of Blackburn’s title-winning team in 1995, but could not bring himself to pick up a medal after missing the majority of the season with a broken foot.

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He also played 42 times for England between 1991 and 1999.

However, McAllister revealed that he was not much of a football man.

He added: “But when I think back, Howard [Wilkinson] was very, very technical. Now, in today’s money, there are so many set-piece coaches.

“Every club’s got a set-piece coach. I used to hit a hundred set-pieces on a Friday before every game. 

“We’d go right up the pitch from as soon as we get into the opponent’s half, if we’re in this area, we’re putting it there. 

“So what you’re seeing today, Howard was doing that a long time.

“So during this sort of technical, tactical bit, David Batty would get very bored because he wasn’t taking them and he wasn’t getting in the box and he wasn’t involved in any of them. 

“So he used to send David to lash balls into a net, so he was never a massive football fan.

“He’d come in after maybe Milan were playing Juventus in the semi-final of a European Cup and he’d go, oh, it was a great game last night. And he’s like, who’s playing?”