Highlights

• Manchester United fan Karl Power once blagged his way into the pre-match team photo before a Champions League match against Bayern Munich.
• Power and his friends planned the stunt meticulously, bringing different United kits and rehearsing their moves in their hotel room.
• Power's audacious stunt caused a massive buzz and made headlines, but he was also banned from Old Trafford for life after invading the pitch.

Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to line up for your club before a huge Champions League fixture? One Manchester United fan who doesn’t need to imagine the feeling is a guy named Karl Power, who famously blagged his way into the pre-match team photo before a huge quarter-final second leg clash against Bayern Munich in April 2001.

As Man Utd’s players lined up for the customary pre-match photo, captain Roy Keane noticed the random man with ‘Cantona’ and a number seven on his back stood next to Andy Cole. How on earth did Power manage to pull off such an audacious stunt in front of 60,000 people at the Olympiastadion, plus millions more watching around the world on television?

“We planned it like a military campaign and brought three United kits with us – red, white and blue,” Power told The Sun in 2001, per Planet Football. “Then we found out where the team were staying and got one of the directors to tell us what colour they’d be wearing.

“We then went back and rehearsed it all in our hotel room. We got a taxi to the ground, pretended we were with a TV crew, and the gatemen let us in. We managed to get down to pitchside and waited for the players to come out of the tunnel.

“Then with 20 minutes ’till kick-off, we saw an opening where there were no stewards and a couple of us walked all the way round the running track and ended up behind the goal. We sat with the photographers watching the warm-up. Then, when the teams walked out, I went to the players’ entrance and knew nothing was going to stop me.”

Video: Power sneaks into Man Utd line-up

Footage shows the Man Utd fan's plan worked to perfection

The stunt was executed to absolute perfection. Here’s how it looked on TV while the game was being broadcast across the world:

Remarkable scenes. The plan was nearly foiled by defender Gary Neville, who was told in no uncertain terms by Power to stay quiet.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2016, Power said: “[Neville] points at me and says, ‘Who’s that?’, and I say to him, ‘Shut it, Gary, you grass, I’m doing it for [Eric] Cantona’.”

Power, an unemployed labourer at the time, admitted: “It’s still the best day of my life.” United failed to reach the 2000-01 Champions League semi-finals that evening after suffering a 2-1 defeat to Bayern but the ambitious stunt was the biggest talking point in Britain’s newspapers the following morning. “It must be the biggest and best football sting of all time,” Power, who briefly came a minor celebrity following the prank, said days after the match.

What Karl Power did afterwards

The prankster made a habit of stunts at big sporting events

The Man Utd fan clearly enjoyed his brief taste of the limelight because he went on to make an unexpected appearance at Headingley, coming out to bat during a test match between England and Australia. Then, in 2002, he played a warm-up rally for Tim Henman on Centre Court at Wimbledon, despite only picking up a racket for the first time that morning. He also appeared on BBC One gameshow They Think It's All Over as a mystery guest and gatecrashed the winners' podium at the British Grand Prix.

He was also banned from Old Trafford for life in 2003 after invading the pitch before a match against United’s fierce rivals Liverpool. Alongside some friends, Power re-enacted a famous goal scored by Diego Forlan against Liverpool at Anfield earlier that season.

However, blagging his way into the United line-up before a massive Champions League fixture is always likely to be his most infamous prank. It's hard to imagine we'll ever see anything like it again - particularly in a tournament as big as the Champions League.

Asked if he had any regrets, Power told The One Show in 2016: "No, do I heck. I think every one of them was just good fun, that's all it was. I'd do it all over again. We just proved we could do it, that's what we done it for."

He went on to run a recording studio and managed a band called The Backhanders. Asked if the public could expect to see more high-profile pranks, Power added: "No, I've retired from all that - for now!". Watch this space.