Not the Hand of God, the hand of a cheating b ***** d.. .and it still gives me nightmares

LEGENDARY HARD MAN PETER REID SAYS

IN my sleep, I still get flashbacks to the day England were cheated out of the World Cup by Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’.

And I never knew a single football match could have such a lasting effect on my life.

Seven years earlier, I had been warned that my career might be over after suffering a badly broken leg at Bolton Wanderers.

Although I recovered from that injury, the physical scars remain – and so do the mental ones inflicted by Maradona.

I knew it would be an unforgettable experience when I went to the World Cup after conquering England and Europe with Everton.

But I had no idea the impact of it would be so profound, and not just because I was powerless to stop one of the finest footballers of all time from delivering the signature moment of his career – the incredible solo goal he scored to make it 2-0.

A witness to Maradona’s genius, I was also a victim of his deception.

The biggest game of my career, a quarter-final at the 1986 World Cup, was defined by one man and Argentina’s greatest sporting hero remains a villain in the eyes of the English public. I have more reason than most to regret being on the receiving end of both his brilliance and his deviousness.

It still hurts that he finished us off with his feet after opening the scoring with his hand – and I have had to come to terms with the fact that I may never get over it.

Cheat is a strong word to use in football. Players hate it when they are accused of being one... but I can say without fear of contradiction that Diego Maradona is a cheat.

He deliberately used foul means to deceive the referee and to damage England unfairly, so how could I see him as anything else?

We all cut corners and take advantage of situations, but there are boundaries to what is acceptable – and he crossed them.

Years later, Maradona tried to justify his actions by setting them against the backdrop of the Falklands War four years earlier.

“Whoever robs a thief gets a 100-year pardon,” he said. But was he really thinking of a disputed territory in the South Atlantic when he led with his hand? Was he f***!

The only thing on his mind was doing whatever it took to score a goal at the World Cup and hope that he got away with it. I certainly don’t call it the ‘Hand of God.’ It was the hand of a cheating b ****** .

From there, he went from the ridiculous to the sublime and scored what I believe is the greatest goal of all time.

Even now, more than three decades on, I’m still incredibly disappointed that I couldn’t lay a glove on him. I could have been the player who stopped the world’s best footballer, the one who prevented England from being eliminated from a World Cup we could have gone on to win.

In my dreams, I’m still running but there’s a wind against me. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get there. A psychiatrist would have a field day with that one, but I don’t need anyone to tell me why I have these visions while I’m asleep.

I got a bit of revenge a few years ago when I was in Dubai and I discovered that Diego was coaching nearby. He was showing off a bit, pinging free-kicks into the top corner while smoking a cigar, and I have to admit I was impressed.

When he had finished, I went over to speak to him through an interpreter and I went to bite his hand. Some people got the wrong end of the stick, suggesting I was kissing his hand as an act of forgiveness, but I was actually pretending to take a chunk out of it.

It was amicable, but at least I had made my point after all those years.

It had been less friendly in the tunnel after England’s 2-1 defeat in Mexico City which knocked us out of the World Cup.

I was numb and I can’t remember anything about the walk from the bench to the tunnel, but I recall what happened as I got closer to the dressing room area because it all kicked off in a big way.

They were all singing Argentina songs, which I didn’t want to hear just then, but I knew it was their soundtrack of victory and we had to put up with it.

Terry Butcher had other ideas, though, and he went for one of their players.

All hell broke loose, it was absolute mayhem.

Punches were thrown but it became a melee so quickly, and there were so many people involved, that it ended up being a mass bout of grappling because nobody could get any leverage to throw any digs.

The security guards waded in and brought it all to a halt but I just wanted to get in the dressing room, and when I made it there I sat in a scene of sheer desolation.

Looking back, I take pride in having been involved in such an iconic game, but at the same time all I felt was pain.