Craig Bellamy has given a podcast his full account of his infamous golf club attack on John Arne Riise.
Bellamy had travelled with the Liverpool squad to the Algarve in 2007 ahead of a Champions League match against Barcelona. The trip became notorious after it emerged Bellamy had hit Norwegian team-mate Riise with a golf club.
The Cardiff City idol spoke about the incident with interviewer Cullan Mais on the latest episode of Cardiff-based podcast The Central Club.
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Bellamy, 42, said there were moments in his career which later left him thinking: "Why did I do it?" He gave the example of a 2005 interview in which he accused Graeme Souness, his manager at Newcastle, of lying.
Bellamy, who won 78 Wales caps, also gave the example of the Riise incident, telling the podcast: "He pushed me a couple of times before it. I remember once in training he came through the back of me.
"He had this hard image about him. I think he thought he was. Now look, I'm street as well, don't worry about that. I can go and I'd have no problem with going... one thing I've got is balls."
Bellamy added: "He just pushed me a couple of times and I felt like, 'Where do I go with this, what do I do with this?' We'd played golf in the morning with each other and he was cheating, winding me up.
"I said to Robbie [Fowler], 'He's cheating you know.' I'd seen the ball go in the lake, he's picked it up and been like, 'Oh yeah, I found it.'"
When Mais suggested Riise was a "strange cat", Bellamy replied: "Very. We'd be training in the freezing cold and he'd be in a vest just to prove a point. There was no need. He was not a malicious person, nowhere near like that. Just different."
On the night of the incident, Riise had been supposed to sing karaoke as part of a fine for not going to a previous do, Bellamy claimed.
"I was like, 'You've got to sing.' He was refusing and my psyche was, 'Do you know what, I've actually had enough of you as well, and also playing golf with you today — no, you're singing.' So he sort of came back at me: 'I ain't singing, now mind your own business.'"
Bellamy said he initially "left it" but the exchange was "chewing away" at him throughout the night. He recalled going back to the room he was sharing with right-back Steve Finnan.
"I said, 'I'm not having this, I'm not accepting what he done there.' And [Finnan] said, 'What are you gonna do?' So I just got the club, went to [Riise's] room, knocked the door.
"Daniel Agger was sharing with him, so I ring Daniel Agger and say, 'Are you sure you're in this room because no one's answering?' He goes, 'Yeah that's my room.'
"And [Riise] put it on the latch because he thinks it's Daniel Agger. So I open the door, roll in, he's in bed. And people have this perception — no, I just smacked him across the legs and said, 'If you ever speak to me like that in front of anyone I will put this round your head.' And that was it."
Asked if the strike had been "a jab or a little swing", Bellamy said: "It was more across his backside."
He added: "I can understand him being half-asleep and then the shock. This is not a proud moment. I would love to take that back. It was stupid, beyond stupid."
Bellamy went on to score a header in the Barcelona match, which he celebrated with a golf swing motion. He also assisted Riise's winner in the game.
The Welshman laughed off media reports that he had "told people he was gonna do [the celebration] and people put a bet on".
"Do you honestly think I'm that naïve to think I was gonna score at the Nou Camp against the reigning European Champions?" he said. "It didn't even cross my head. It came as a shock. It's just nuts how the game worked out. I scored, he scored the winner."
Riise gave his own account of the attack in his autobiography in 2018. He said he had woken in the dark to hear someone opening the door.
"Obviously I thought it was Agger," he added. "I turned, but my eyes were half-asleep, and I didn’t see anything in the sudden, bright glare. But something made me realise that it wasn’t Agger. And soon I could see him — Craig Bellamy at the foot of my bed with a golf club in his hands.
"Steve Finnan, who shared a room with Bellamy, was there too, but he just stood there. Bellamy raised the club over his head and swung as hard as he could. He tried to hit my shins, which would have ended my career, but I managed to pull my leg away in time.
"I jumped out of bed, pulled off the sheet and held it between us like I was some kind of half-awake matador. Bellamy sputtered: 'Nobody disrespects me like that in front of the lads!'
"He was completely gone. He raised the club and swung again. This time he connected. Full force on my hip. I was so pumped with adrenaline that I didn’t feel the pain, but he hit me hard. It was an iron.
"The next blow smashed into my thigh. I tried to hold up the sheet, but he continued to strike. He could seriously injure me. At the same time, I knew I could take Bellamy if I needed to. I was bigger and stronger."
Riise claimed he did not retaliate because he feared it would be the end of his Liverpool career. He wrote that Bellamy did not mention the incident at breakfast the following morning.
Recalling his winner against Barcelona, Riise wrote: "Instead of shooting, [Bellamy] saw I was wide open and centred the ball across the area. Even with my wrong foot I managed to get the ball in the net. Bellamy ran towards me and jumped up on me to celebrate the goal. We were euphoric, but that’s exactly it — in a moment like that you don’t think.
"What Bellamy and myself proved was that we had the ability to use adversity to succeed. But we could never be friends."
You can read more here about Bellamy's interview with The Central Club including memories of his time at Cardiff City.
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