Newcastle fisticuffs fall-out


In action even the NHL would be embarrassed about, two players for Newcastle, playing in a crucial game in one of the top soccer leagues in the world, fight each other instead of the opposition and are both ejected. Reaction is terrible and swift.

Football365.com called it "a disgraceful brawl in the dying minutes of the humiliating 3-0 home defeat to Aston Villa." Others have said worse. Police are investigating whether charges will be filed, and one player has been fined six weeks salary.
Even in hockey, a quick Google search did not turn up information about teammates mixing it up. But apparently internecine fighting is not without precedent in English football.
Lee Bowyer and Kieran Dyer came to blows as their Premiership game was winding down April 2. Some say Bowyer was mad that Dyer had not passed to him, certainly we can understand his anger, if not his actual reaction. The two men were both shown direct red cards, leaving their team with only eight players (another teammate had been ejected for a handball earlier.)
This tremendous photo gallery on foxsports.com allows you to experience the battle as if you were there.
Newcastle and England great Alan Shearer had this to say to a newspaper. "Once again the good name of Newcastle United is being dragged through the dirt," Shearer told The Sun.
Fortunately, the boys have apologized at least twice. Bowyer has been told his job is on the line over this.
My hero remains Gareth Barry, who plays for Aston Villa and restrained the volatile Bowyer, at significant peril one imagines, during the fracas. The image of an opposing team member rushing to separate two opponents who choose to duke it out mid-game is quite moving, really. Really.

Posted: Mon - April 4, 2005 at 11:24 PM          

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