It remains one of the most infamous bust-ups in English football.
Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Davis, always regarded as a quiet, unassuming and skilful player, landed a knock-out punch to break Southampton’s Glenn Cockerill’s jaw. Davis was given an unprecedented nine-match ban, £3,000 fine and made the Ten O’Clock News after television pictures emerged of the incident which went unseen during the match.
Even his own manager, George Graham, asked whether the punch had been provoked by a racist remark. But in his book 'Arsenal And After', Paul Davis details for the first time what really happened. Adapted by John Cross
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southampton at home, September 17th, 1988. I’d played against Glenn Cockerill many times and there had never been any issues between us. Which made what happened that afternoon even more difficult to explain. That game changed my life.
From the first whistle, Glenn was trying to leave his mark on me. Every tackle, he’d be trying to physically hurt or intimidate me. Nasty stuff. At least that was my perception of events: high challenges and late challenges. If we were on the floor and the ball was somewhere else, he’d look to kick out or stamp on me. Or leave an elbow out when we went up for a high ball together.
Are you trying to put me off my game? Or are you actually trying to hurt me? Professional to professional, what he was doing showed a complete lack of respect. I was getting increasingly frustrated with the injustice of the situation and took matters into my own hands. If I’m honest, I remember making a conscious decision. I’m not going to take any more of this. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I’ve had enough of it.
I walked over, closed my left hand and swung hard. I hit Glenn on the side of his face, the left jaw, the side where he wouldn’t have seen it coming. That probably made it worse. He went down in a heap in front of me. Straight away, the thought went through my mind, “Oh no! What have I done?”
The game was stopped. The medics came on to treat Glenn, and he walked off holding his jaw. The Southampton players knew by now that something had gone on.
Once the game restarted, whenever I was on or near the ball, they were chasing me down, trying to give me a good kicking. I did fear for my safety from that point on. George Graham could see what was happening by then and quickly took me off. It never even crossed my mind that there’d be any fallout once the game was over. It had happened, the ref hadn’t seen it, and that was that. But how wrong I was.
At that point, I still had no idea how badly hurt Glenn Cockerill was, that I’d broken his jaw. The pictures existed just by chance: the game hadn’t been televised. Very few were in those days. But there’d been an ITV film crew there covering a different story altogether, and they caught my punch in the bottom left-hand corner of one of their shots. It was football’s first trial by TV.
I was out that evening for a drink with some friends. That was when I heard: someone came up to me all excited, “Bloody hell! You’re on the news. The 10 o’clock News. You hit that player on the pitch today! It’s saying you’ve broken his jaw.”
I went out and bought the newspapers in the morning. There were some ugly headlines. Ugly about me, anyway: Thug! Disgrace! Ban him! A few pieces in the press had suggested Glenn must have said something racist to me to make me react in the way I had, in a way that was so out of character for me. I told George it hadn’t been anything like that.
It felt like weeks – and it was definitely a few days – before the verdict came through. The club got in touch with me to say I’d been fined £3,000 and banned for nine games. It was the longest ban in English football history. Those were difficult months. I’m left with regrets about that day, about how I reacted to Glenn Cockerill’s provocation. I made a mistake and paid the price for it. The whole business damaged me: damaged my career and damaged my reputation.
- Paul Davis: Arsenal and After is on sale August 18, RRP £20. Pre-order for 25% off from reachsportshop.com
