Patrice Evra has revealed that during his playing career, he came to blows with a Chelsea groundsman as a physical altercation ensued.
With Manchester United in the middle of their Champions League semi-final first and second legs against Barcelona in April 2008, they travelled to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea in a huge clash at the top of the Premier League.
Sir Alex Ferguson, though, rested Evra for the match, preferring to keep the Frenchman fresh for the visit of Barcelona at Old Trafford a few days later, with Mikael Silvestre filling in at left-back instead.
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As is customary, Evra and the rest of the Manchester United subs were doing some runs on the pitch after the full-time whistle, keeping their legs ticking over having not got on the pitch. This wrankled with the Chelsea groundstaff, however, with a fight breaking out between Evra and one of the groundsmen.
“There was an incident with one of the groundsmen at Chelsea," Evra said on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet. "We were doing our warm down after the game at Stamford Bridge, where we were jogging from one box to the other, and one of the groundsmen came on with his lawnmower and almost hit me with it a couple times.
"I asked him if he wouldn’t mind waiting 10 minutes so we could finish, but he just ignored me and carried on.
"A few minutes later, he almost hit me again so at this point, I was getting quite angry, so I went up to him again, he threatened me with his pitchfork, so I slapped him, and he tried to punch me, but I dodged it and that’s when everyone jumped in to break us up.”
Despite his temper spilling out on that occasion, Evra managed to quickly get back to baseline and put in a great performance against Barcelona a few days later to book Manchester United's spot in the Champions League final.
The Red Devils eventually went on to do the coveted Premier League and European double that season, while Evra ended his career in England's top flight having, somewhat bizarrely, never received a red card.
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