Ex professional footballer, and sometime radio pundit Stan Collymore hit the headlines in 2004 when he was, ahem, exposed by undercover reporters from the Sun dogging in Cannock Chase, a wooded area near his home. The former England international footballer admitted "I've been to dogging sites maybe a dozen to fifteen times and, yes, I have taken part and had sex." Collymore told the undercover reporters that his most recent visit was to a car park in Cannock Chase. Collymore sent the pair from the Sun mobile phone text messages inviting them to have "some fun" at the same car park the next day. He also told them about the etiquette of dogging and described to them his first experience of the activity.
In the Sun report, he confessed he had been cruising around car parks for two years. He described dogging as addictive and explained the etiquette of the practice, describing how some want to have group sex in the open air or in cars, some prefer to romp while being watched and others just like to spectate. He also claimed he had a girlfriend who sometimes joined in, and he took the undercover reporters on a tour of dogging haunts.
Collymore told reporters Neil Syson and Lucy Hagan: “It would be great to hook up with you whenever you are around and about.” The former Liverpool, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest striker took a mobile phone number as he and the Sun duo parted on Sunday night. Soon afterwards he texted them to say: “If you fancy having some fun this evening, ill (I’ll) be at the cp (car park) where we met originally.” In another text, he wrote: “Lucy is very attractive, and I would love to get intimate with her but if you guys at first only want to be watched, then that’s fine.” He then sent a third saying: “Why don’t you come out this evening?” In a mobile phone conversation with Syson later, he said he was willing to meet Lucy on her own and could give her a good time.
On the evening in question, after parking up at the woodland car park at Anson’s Bank in Cannock Chase, Collymore first chatted to a couple in another 4x4 for 15 minutes. He then turned to the car containing the Sun “couple” after they flicked on their interior light twice.
The star approached the reporters and asked: “Are you playing this evening?”
He gave them a rundown on dogging, saying it attracted both singles and couples. Asked what would happen if they “played” he replied “You don’t do anything you don’t want to do. If you chat to somebody and get on well, they may say, "Do you want to go somewhere a bit quieter?’ which is maybe a car park with two cars instead of 20."
Describing his first time, Stan Collymore dogging legend said “I pulled up next to a car and there were two guys in the front, two girls in the back. I got out and stood there and before you knew it everything was going off."
Here are a couple of pictures of Stan Collymore dogging on the night. He is wearing a leather jacket and you will notice that the Range Rover he owned at the time has a personalised number plate - N1 SVC - Stanley Victor Collymore.
Stan Collymore was the man who brought dogging to many people's attention. That was way back in 2004, and since then dogging of course has become ever more popular.
Stan Collymore became known as Stan Doggymore as the results of his exploits. You can check out whether the site Stan used is still an active dogging site via this dogging locator link.