Alan Shearer knocked Newcastle team-mate ‘clean out’ during boozy Dublin trip

Former Newcastle defender Steve Howey has revealed the full details of when Alan Shearer ‘knocked out’ Keith Gillespie.

The pair came to loggerheads on a boozy night out in Dublin in 1997, with the fight well-reported despite the players’ best efforts to cover it up. Stories of a drink-driving crash were fed to the police and the media as the cause for Gillespie’s head injury, but Howey has now recalled how the scrap between the two Magpies teammates came about.

Speaking on the Under The Cosh podcast, Howey revealed that a big group of players were out at a pub playing a drinking game – as they usually would. The game revolved around each individual getting asked a question, if they got it right then it was the next person's go, if not, they’d drink the ‘concoction’ in the middle.

Howey revealed that Gillespie was already too many drinks down and thus kept getting questions wrong, and therefore drinking, meaning that the game never truly ‘got going’. But it meant that tempers were rising amongst the players, including Shearer, and former Manchester United star Gillespie was becoming more agitated.

“He was already chewing, in all fairness. I think early on in the day I think he’d gone to the loo and someone hadn’t held the door for him, he was just being awkward. He was one of these where he just wanted to fight somebody, and Keith can’t fight, he’s soft as s***e.”

Shearer couldn’t bite his tongue and proceeded to call Gillespie names ‘worse than rotten’, which sparked a reaction from the winger. Howey explained: “He stood up and he went ‘Listen, you f***ing baldy b******, you call me one more time then me and you are going outside’.”

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Anyhow, the game continued, but once the questions had gone full circle back to Gillespie, it stalled as the winger got his question wrong. The fight sparked from this point, and more specifically, because of a champagne bottle. Howey said: “For some reason, I’ve got a champagne cork top in my hand, and I’ve gone ‘f***ing hell Dizzy’ and I’ve bounced it off the table. It could’ve gone anywhere, but it’s actually bounced and hit Keith right in the eye. Quick as a flash, Shearer’s gone ‘F***ing hell, look at you (to Gillespie). You’re the only Irishman that doesn’t know where Cork is.”

Gillespie then offered Shearer outside, which was where the drama unfolded – though Howey was not there to see it as he never thought the two would come to blows. After hearing that Shearer had hit Gillespie, Howey ran onto the scene.

He explained: “I’ve run up and Al’s standing over Keith, and Keith is out. There’s claret all over the floor and I’ve looked at Al and gone ‘what’ve you done?’ and he said ‘well, I’ve hit him, he tried to hit me so I’ve hit him.”

Howey then spoke of how he told Shearer to flee the scene immediately and that he would think of a coverup before the ambulance arrived. The team attempted to keep the whole story a secret for a while, but when Howey had told a group of fans, sparking them to chant ‘Shearer, Shearer’, then the Toon Army striker was content with the anecdote being told to the masses.

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