Craig Bellamy has spilled the beans on his notorious bust-up with team-mate John Arne Riise that bizarrely inspired one of Liverpool's most famous European away victories.
Anyone who was at the Nou Camp the night Liverpool came from behind to defeat a Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho-inspired Barcelona 2-1 in their own back yard in 2007 will never forget the match. But even more supporters will recall the controversial incidents that preceded the Champions League last-16 first-leg encounter.
A warm weather training camp descended into farce when reports surfaced, claiming that things had got out of hand at the Barringtons Golf and Health Club, in Vale do Lobo, Algarve on a Friday evening. One of stories to emerge suggested that a Liverpool player - Bellamy - head threatened to wrap a golf club around the neck of one of his team-mates - namely Riise.
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Bellamy was fined £80,000 by the club but started against Barcelona and incredibly it was he and Riise who scored the goals that cancelled out Deco's opener, to earn Rafa Benitez's side a famous win that was eventually enough to see the Reds through to the quarter-finals of the competition.
Bellamy memorably celebrated his first-half equaliser by pretending to swing a golf club, but in a recent appearance on You Tube show Golf Life Legends, the ex-Liverpool star shares his own version of events, while enjoying 18 holes in Majorca with former Sky presenter Tubes.
Setting the scene that led to the incident, Bellamy said: "We were playing golf and like I say, I never really played then so it was me, Robbie Fowler, John Arne Riise and I don’t know if Steve Finnan was playing with us. I don’t know, it was hard work all-round. I see a ball splash in the water and then I found it outside the water. I haven’t found it, he (Riise) found it and it was difficult. You don’t want to say anything at the time and it just grated on me.
"We went out for the evening, there were songs. People had a song and he didn’t go on the Christmas do that year. He said he had to fly to Norway, then we found out there were no flights so he didn’t go and he was fined for it, but he had to sing a song as well. Me being me, after the day as well, I wasn’t letting him get away with not singing and I could see he didn’t want to do it. Then, he took offence to it, he told me in no uncertain terms he wasn’t singing and to stop mentioning it, but not that polite and the longer the evening went, the more it annoyed me."
Seemingly unable to let his fury pass, Bellamy explains how he later paid Riise a visit to put the record straight. "I knocked on his door, there’s no good way of it, certainly not proud, I don’t particularly like (it), it’s not a great moment for me at all," the former Wales international continued. "Honestly, I went in there, smacked him across the a** (with a club)."
Explaining how he ended up with a golf club in the first place, he added: "I went back to the apartment and I was with Steve Finnan. I didn't have clubs at the time, but he had a set and I asked him, 'which one don’t you like?' and he said the 8 iron. I said, 'that’s coming with me then'. I said to him (Riise) don’t ever speak to me like that in front of people and he quickly apologised which you would if someone’s at your bed with a golf club."
Unsurprisingly that was not the end of the matter and it wasn't long before Bellamy found himself docked two weeks' wages. But whatever went on in Portugal did not damage Liverpool's team spirit.
After navigating past Barcelona, the Reds went on to reach the Champions League final in Athens where they were narrowly defeated 2-1 by Carlo Ancelotti's AC Milan.
And although Bellamy clearly had regrets about the hotel room fracas, his introduction to golf wasn't a wasted afternoon. He now plays off a handicap of four.
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