The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
The latest in a long list
The folly of the St Johnstone duo’s actions may be laid bare by the punishing action taken against other feuding team-mates in the past.
One of the most explosive on field confrontations in Scottish football history took place in 1994, when it was Hearts that faced the shame of two of their own fighting on the field of play.
It was during a pre-season friendly with Raith Rovers that tempers flared and Craig Levein and Graeme Hogg marked their names in the history books for all the wrong reasons.
The former Scotland boss and current Hearts director of football snapped after being criticised by Hogg during the match at Stark’s Park.
Levein, then Hearts captain, broke Hogg’s nose during their struggle and a brawl ensued.
Both players were red-carded – Hogg while lying prone on a stretcher – and SFA-imposed penalties ensured it was more than 10 games before either set foot on a pitch again.
The following year saw English football marked by another brawl that has lived long in the memory as Blackburn Rovers’ spiky duo of Graeme Le Saux and David Batty clashed.
Batty berated his team-mate for miscontrolling a ball and conceding a needless throw-in during a Champions League clash with Spartak Moscow.
Le Saux responded with a punch that was immortalised in some of the competition’s most indelible photographs.
The pair then traded blows while team-mates attempted to intervene and it later emerged Le Saux had broken his hand as he delivered that infamous first punch.
Batty was soon on his way out of the club to sign for Newcastle United, where in 2005 it was stars Lee Bowyer and Kieran Dyer who lost the plot.
They traded punch after punch and tore each other’s shirts in the midst of a thumping at the hands of Aston Villa.
Dyer later admitted the pair had continued to fight in the changing room after the game – and were only cowed when manager Graeme Souness offered to fight them both.