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Kieron Dyer has revealed the heated discussion which sparked his infamous on-field brawl with Newcastle team-mate Lee Bowyer in 2005.
The pair hit out at each other, before being dismissed, in front of 50,000 supporters at St. James' Park, during the second-half of a 3-0 Premier League defeat to Aston Villa.
And Dyer told Chronicle they traded blows after he told his team-mate 'he was 's***'.
"He was like ‘give me the ball’ and I was like ‘I haven't given the ball away, what you talking about’," the former England international said.
"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 s*** basically’."
Both Dyer and Bowyer were dismissed by referee Andy D'Urso before they continued to swing at each other down the tunnel.
He added: “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."
Dyer explained how Graeme Souness threatened to beat them both as they looked to duel in the changing rooms, and Alan Shearer showed a new side to his personality after the game.
He said: “Then Souness came in and said, ‘If you want to fight I’ll beat both of you.’ Al 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.”
But Dyer has since sorted things out with Bowyer.
“I still see him now, we are friends. That’s just the way Lee was. But I still want to beat him up.”
