Former Newcastle United midfielder Lee Bowyer has opened up on the infamous incident between him and Kieron Dyer on the pitch of a 3-0 defeat against Aston Villa in 2005.
Despite being teammates, they traded blows against each other. This resulted in the referee sending both of them with a straight red card and reducing Newcastle to just eight players. This is one of the astonishing incidents in the Premier League history. Not much has been said about it until now. Bowyer says that it was one of those incidents when frustration due to a thrashing boiled over.
He says that he still remains friends with Kieron Dyer, who he has called as one of the nicest blokes in football. Both players later issued an apology after being forced by then manager Graeme Souness. Bowyer says that such an incident would have never happened had Newcastle been winning by the same score on that fateful day. Newcastle had already been reduced to a man down after Steven Taylor was sent off. The incident between Bowyer and Dyer occurred eight minutes from the final whistle. Hence, it prevented any more misery for Newcastle.
After several years of being plagued by injury problems, Kieron Dyer recently retired from football. He has begun a coaching career at Ipswich Town. Bowyer last played for Ipswich Town before retiring in 2012.”It was a moment of madness. Everybody regretted it afterwards. But we are winners.When you play football, you have to be that way. You have to want to win. Sometimes it goes too far – that’s what happened that day.I’m sure if we’d been winning 3-0, it would never have happened. Kieron’s a nice lad and I still see him. I saw him at Sir Bobby’s [Robson’s] golf day and we had a beer and a laugh,” said Bowyer.