March 13 – Diouf Goes Spitting Mad

Sha la la la la la la la
Diouf Diouf
Sha la la la la la la la
Diouf Diouf
Sha la la la la la la la
Diouf Diouf
El Hadj Diouf will spit on you

As terrace chants go, this ode to El-Hadji Diouf, sung to the tune of Tony Christie’s Show Me the Way to Amarillo isn’t a bad one.

Today in 2003 the Senegalese wild-card made great strides in getting his phlegmy reputation going when he spat at a Celtic supporter during their Uefa Cup tie with Liverpool at Parkhead.

Diouf had arrived on Merseyside at the start of that season following a starring role in Senegal’s World Cup quarter-final run in Japan and South Korea for a fee of £10m, but found the going a bit tougher in the hustle and bustle of the Premier League.

Liverpool and Celtic were drawn together in a battle of Britain clash in the Uefa Cup last-16, with both sides bigging-up the ‘special atmosphere’ that started when Gerry Marsden led a rousing version of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

A frenzied first-leg match resulted in a 1-1 draw thanks to early goals from Henrik Larsson and Emile Heskey, but it was Diouf’s late oral contribution that left a sour taste in the mouth.

Diouf was seen by television cameras to clearly spit in the face of two Celtic fans after he had fallen into the crowd. The Celtic fans naturally said they were just trying to ease him back onto the field of play, with supporter Anthony Cosgrove saying: “The Celtic fans tried to help the player up and lift him back on to the wall.

“Some of them gave him a pat on the back as they helped him up. He then turned round and spat into the crowd.

“One young lad, about 16, got the brunt of it in the face.”

Diouf, along with two Celtic fans that ran after him onto the pitch following the incident, was arrested and he would later be pulled up in front of Glasgow Sheriff Court, where he was fined £5,000. This came after Liverpool fined him two weeks wages, thought to be around £47,000, immediately following the incident.

Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier was quick to defend his man though, saying: “The boy has made a mistake. He knows that. We all make mistakes in life because we are all human.

“I am not going to make excuses for him but the boy is young and I can tell you he is devastated by what has happened.

“It is sad this has overshadowed a great night’s football.”

Whether he would share this view a year later when Diouf became the first ever Liverpool number 9 to fail to find the back of the net in a season is debateable.

After 33 appearances and 14 months without a goal and the arrival of new gaffer at Liverpool in the shape of Rafa Benitez, the striker was dispatched on loan to Bolton. Controversy has continued to dog his career and he can now be found back in the north west as part of Big Sam’s Blackburn survival project.

See El-Hadji upto some of his usual tricks below and if you were wondering what happened in Scotland today in 1873 then it’s time to get very excited and click here.