Jermaine Jenas has revealed former teammates Benoit Assou-Ekotto and Rafael van der Vaart once had a fight while naked in Tottenham's dressing room.
Jenas played for Tottenham between 2005 and 2013. The England international was part of the team that reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League under Harry Redknapp during the 2010/11 campaign, playing alongside Assou-Ekotto and Van der Vaart.
Although that was one of Tottenham's most successful teams in recent years, the star-studded squad did come to blows every now and again. The most eye-opening incident happened after an argument between Assou-Ekotto and Van der Vaart over a free kick.
"There was a moment at Tottenham when Benoit Assou-Ekotto and Rafael van der Vaart both wanted to take a free-kick," Jenas told William Hill's Stripped Podcast. "Rafa wanted to take the free-kick, but Benoit wasn’t having any of it and so when Benoit was ready to take it, Rafa just came up and took it on the sly!
"We get in, everyone is getting changed and then suddenly I hear this commotion in the showers. It’s Rafa and Benoit going at it, naked! It got stopped pretty much immediately but it just shows that these things happen a lot, just not on the pitch."
Jenas, who won 21 senior caps for England, came through the ranks at Nottingham Forest and joined Newcastle in 2002 before moving to Tottenham three years later. He later played for Aston Villa, QPR and Forest again before his career ended in 2014.
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The midfielder turned pundit and TV presenter witnessed several memorable incidents during his playing days - including the scrap between Newcastle teammates Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer in April 2005. That remarkable episode unfolded during a 3-0 defeat to Aston Villa at St James' Park.
Jenas was playing for Newcastle on that famous day. He said: “I’d never experienced anything like that. The maddest thing about the whole thing was that every single morning we’d have round tables in our canteen and you’d have breakfast and lunch together.
"Bobby [Robson] was very serious about the players eating together and we couldn’t leave without his say-so. On my table every day was me, Kieron [Dyer], Jonathan Woodgate, Lee Bowyer, and Bellers [Craig Bellamy]. We’d sit there and eat and chat every single day and got on really well.
“It was just a moment of madness to be honest, but our dressing room was fiery like that. At half-time, if things weren’t going well, there wasn’t like ‘let’s see what the manager has to say’, instead you’d have a player in your face telling you to sort yourself out.
“For Kieron it was a real shame because it’s what he’s known for. Honestly, when he was on, he was one of the best players I ever played with.”
