During a solid, but unspectacular playing career one thing Lee
Bowyer was known for was his combative nature, which was something that often
landed him in trouble.
This was never more evident than in his notorious on pitch scrap with Newcastle United teammate Kieron Dyer back in 2005.
In the middle of a 3-0 defeat to Aston Villa, out of nowhere
the two men came to blows with Bowyer raining fists down on his bemused teammate.
The reason for their scrap, and what occurred afterwards
other than an awkward picture of the two shaking hands, has never been
revealed. That is until today.
Speaking to the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Dyer has
finally spilled the beans on what sparked this little melee.
According to Dyer:
“We were playing the game, he came short and wanted the ball
and I passed to someone else.
“He was like ‘Give me the ball’ and I was like ‘I haven’t
given the ball away, what you talking about’.
Five minutes later he came again and I gave it to somebody
else and he said, ‘You never pass to me!’
I said, ‘The reason I don’t pass to you is because you’re
shit, basically’.
“There were a lot of swear words. And that was it, then you
just saw him lose his head.
“He said, ‘You what?’ And I said, ‘You heard me.’
“As he was walking towards me I just thought he was going to
grab me or push me.
“When he was raining the punches in I thought, ‘You need to
get on the weights because they aren't hurting.’
“Secondly, I was thinking ‘I can’t believe he’s doing this
in front of 50,000 people’.”
But this was just what occurred on the pitch, back in the
dressing room things carried on after defender Jean-Alain Boumsong urged the
two to finish fighting, which they started to oblige, before notorious former hard man and then
Newcastle boss Graeme Souness offered to fight them both.
They both thought
better of it after the steely Scot put this out there and ceased hostilities.
Captain Alan Shearer was also less than impressed with the
pair and yelled at them for disgracing themselves and the club.
Dyer continued:
“I didn’t know you could get sent off for fighting your own
team-mate, so when the red card came out I thought, ‘What the hell!’
“I was sent off first and I was waiting in the tunnel to get
some revenge.
“He came in, and we had two massive masseurs and they just
dunked us on their shoulders.
“It was like a cartoon when your feet are dangling off the
ground and we were trying to get at each other.
“We are sat in the changing room and they were in the middle
of us.
“I was thinking how I could get to him. Then we heard the
final whistle.
“Boumsong came in and said, ‘If you want to fight, fight
now.’ I was wanting to fight and get the revenge.
“Then Souness came in and said, ‘If you want to fight I’ll
beat both of you.’
“[Alan Shearer] came in and I never saw him lose it like
that – he went mad and called us selfish and a disgrace.
“He knew we’d have a three-match suspension and miss the FA
Cup semi-final that was coming up.”
The two players, who would later become teammates again at
West Ham United, have since made up and actually see each other quite often. So
there’s no bad blood and they can both laugh now about a pretty ridiculous
incident.
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