January 14 – In Your Face Eyal | On This Football Day

January 14 – In Your Face Eyal

IT is well known that Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham were not even on speaking terms when they were playing together at Manchester United in the late 1990s but as far as we know even their frosty relationship never spilled over into physical violence.

The same cannot be said of John Hartson and Eyal Berkovic after the former famously kicked the latter in the face while they were team mates at West Ham United in October 1998.

It was on this day in 1999 that a line was finally drawn under the incident when Hartson was sold to Wimbledon for £7.5m.

The Welshman had joined the Irons from Arsenal only two years earlier for just over £3m so acclaimed wheeler dealer Harry Redknapp had managed to double his money on Hartson as well as shipping out the bad egg in his squad.

The incident occured at West Ham’s Chadwell training ground and was sparked after Hartson tackled Berkovic and then offered an arm to help the Israeli back to his feet. Presumably upset with the tackle Berkovic swung his arm at Hartson who immediately retaliated by kicking Berkovic full in the face.

Berkovic could not eat for two days after the attack and said afterwards: “If my head had been a ball, it would have been in the top corner of the net.”

Redknapp agreed saying: “John aimed a kick at Eyal that would have taken his head off had he not managed to throw it back.”

Hartson’s punishment for an attack that could easily have warranted a criminal charge was a fine from his club of two weeks wages which was no doubt more than compensated by his signing on fee for Wimbledon.

His move to the Dons coincided with the plucky little overachievers finally being relegated from the Premier League and a move to Coventry beckoned for Hartson.

His stay at Highfield Road was even more short lived and he was soon on his way to Celtic where he really made his mark, scoring 88 goals in 146 league appearances and in 2005 he was voted Scottish Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year.

Meanwhile Berkovic also left West Ham soon after the incident, moving initially to Celtic (crucially he was not at Celtic Park at the same time as Hartson), and then a series of other English clubs before a swan song at Maccabi Tel-Aviv before retirement in 2006.

We’ll be back with more tomorrow folks when we’ll be finding out why wearing glasses doesn’t necessarily make you clever; but before you go have a look at Berkovic headbutting Hartson’s boot below. TTFN.