Former West Ham United captain Mark Noble has revealed a story about former goalkeeper Joe Hart ‘beating up’ current captain Declan Rice following an incident in training.
Noble, who retired last summer and recently became West Ham ’s sporting director, has opened up on a time he and a young Rice wound up Hart during a shooting drill in a training session at the London Stadium.
Former England international Hart spent the 2017/18 season at West Ham and played 23 times for the Hammers during his season-long loan spell.
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While Hart was with the Hammers, it coincided with Rice starting to break into the first team and Noble has said that during a training session at the London Stadium, Rice wound up Hart to the point where he chased him around the stadium.
Noble described Hart as a ‘top fella’ in a discussion around the goalkeepers Noble played alongside.
“Another fruitcake,” Noble told Fozcast - The Ben Foster Podcast . “Harty will tell you this. We were doing a shooting session, the coach pings it at you, you have a touch and finish.
“Dec must’ve been young, like 19 at the time, and he’s had a touch and he’s got a lovely strike on him. He’s whipped one of them past Harty and Harty dived for it and didn’t get there and he went ‘Harty, one day son.’ Harty went ‘Dec, if you say that again I’m going to [beat you up].’
“It’s come back to Dec and he’s missed one, he’s hit another one and it’s gone in and I said ‘go on, say it.’ He went, ‘one day, Harty’ and I swear to you, Harty has just left him, sprinted across the pitch and Dec’s took off down the tunnel, chased him the whole way around the London Stadium, like the whole way through it, got him and beat him up. Harty was mad.
“He is such a tank, he is so strong. I played with him at England for all age groups and he’s a top fella. He’s just mad, they’re all mad.”
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