Ex-ref’s insight into football’s fight club

Jul 26 2009 by Michael Kelly, Sunday Sun

THE season hasn’t started yet and already there’s been an on-field bust-up involving a Newcastle United player in a so-called friendly match. Does it show a misguided fighting spirit that occasionally gets out of control, or do players just like to have a scrap now and then? Mike Kelly reports . . .

WHEN Portuguese football star Sa Pinto was told by his national team coach that he had an attitude problem, he was outraged by the suggestion. So outraged he punched the coach’s lights out.

It’s not often you can use the word “ironic” in a footballing context, although a chance was offered again last week during a pre-season “friendly” between Newcastle United and Huddersfield Town.

During it, Toon defender Fabricio Coloccini had a dust up with Gateshead-born Huddersfield Town striker Lee Novak. It was the latest in a long line of such incidents that players with North connections have been involved in.

Nothing can match the Kieron Dyer v Lee Bowyer clash at St James’s Park in 2005, which had to be broken up by Aston Villa’s Gareth Barry.

However, Sunderland fans might remember how defender Gary Bennett took exception to a challenge by David Speedie, then with Coventry, and throttled the diminutive striker as he lay over the advertising hoardings.

Talk about former Toon boss and Tyneside legend Kevin Keegan, and it will not take long until reference is made to his 1974 Charity Shield punch-up and shirt-throwing strop with Billy Bremner.

However, far from representing a breakdown of order on the pitch, former top ref, Middlesbrough-born Jeff Winter, said the fact most football fans can detail every such punch-up shows how rare they are.

He said: “You can count on the fingers of one hand when there’s been a mass brawl. Even then, it’s usually only ‘handbags’. Most of the players who get involved are trying to break it up.”