‘I was in the ambulance – Rita walked past and went, “Oh, Nicky are you OK?” I said, “I’ll be all right, don’t worry!” And then she gave me a kiss on the cheek’ Nicky Butt on his Rita Ora run-in

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Manchester United’s Class of 92 never need a reason to get together and reminisce about the glory days and one way of getting the gang back together is on the circuit of legends’ matches and charity games.

These occasions are usually good-natured, lazy-paced affairs where crowd-pleasing showboating trumps a legend’s usual win-at-all-costs mentality, but sometimes things don’t go to plan.

Nicky Butt can certainly attest to this, as he has not once, but twice suffered a major injury in a charity game, but there was something of a silver lining the second time it happened.

Butt on his charity game injuries and celeb run-in

Butt retired from football in 2011 (Image credit: Getty Images)

FourFourTwo drops in Butt discussing charity games with his former Manchester United team-mate Paul Scholes.

“I was meant to play in that too, but two or three years before that, I’d snapped my Achilles in a charity game – I completely ruptured it,” Butt tells us. “I came back, then ruptured it again two days after I got off my crutches, so I swore I’d never play again.

Paul Scholes didn't have too much sympathy for his former team-mate

“Scholesy asked me, “Why are you not f**king playing?” I said, “I’m not playing in another of those games because I’ll get injured.”

“He told me, “No you f**king won’t, you’ll be all right, just play for 20 minutes.” Then he did his cruciate and I was pissing myself!”

Scholes then chips in with his take on that first injury: “I remember that game when you did your Achilles,” he says. “You were on your own, no-one near you, and you said to me, “Who the f**k was that?” Because when you snap your Achilles, it feels like someone’s tackled you. You were like, “I’m going to f**king get them.”

Butt adds: ”I thought it was Yorkie [Dwight Yorke]. Yeah, I went, “Who the f**k’s done that?” But then I looked down and went, “Oh no…”.”

The injury did mean that Butt was able to milk some sympathy from a famous face.

Butt initially thought Dwight Yorke had caused his injury (Image credit: Getty Images)

“The only good thing was that Rita Ora was singing at half-time,” he recalls. “I was in the ambulance – she walked past and went, “Oh, Nicky are you OK?” I’m there like, “It’s Rita Ora…” I said, “I’ll be alright, don’t worry!”

“And then she gave me a kiss on the cheek.”

The Good, The Bad & The Football with Scholes, Butt and McGuinness is a new weekly video podcast, available on all major podcast platforms and YouTube