Ahead of the North London derby this weekend, Balls.ie caught up with former Arsenal and Spurs midfielder David Bentley this afternoon.
You can listen to more from the interview on our daily sports podcast, The Racket:
During the course of our conversation, Bentley revealed more details on the infamous Tottenham Christmas party trip to Dublin in 2009.
Robbie Keane was believed to be one of the main instigators of the party, which was organised without the knowledge of then Spurs boss Harry Redknapp.
In December 2009, Redknapp told his players that they would not be allowed host a Christmas party in response to recent poor results, only to subsequently realise that 16 members of the Spurs squad had spent the previous Saturday night in Coppers on Harcourt Street in Dublin.
It ended with the 16 players involved being fined a couple of weeks' wages. At the time, however, it was reported that the incident might accelerate Robbie Keane's departure from the club, owing to the feeling that the trip was organised by the Irishman. Ultimately that did not happen, and Bentley recalls that all of the Tottenham players were culpable for the party.
He also revealed how determined the squad were to go, delaying the flight for almost an hour as Bentley had to do some post-training running following a dispute with Harry Redknapp:
We were all to blame. We were all master-planning it together; it was the worst plan ever, but we had a great time.
I was actually in trouble that day. I had got in a bit of a heated row with Harry, so he made me stay behind for extra training, extra running. But the flight was taking off at one, and all the lads had gone, so they were all waiting on the plane for me. I was desperately trying to get my running done, but he had left me with the fitness coach and he kept saying 'no,no you're not done'.
He left me with the fitness coach, The flight was at 1pm, and I finished at quarter to one and I was 45 minutes away, so they had to wait 45 minutes on the plane for me.
We like the idea that so ingrained is Harry Redknapp's wont to disrupt his player's off-field fun, unconsciously almost spoiling a party he knew nothing about.
When asked whether the Dublin nightlife was worth holding the plane for:
Oh yeah. We went into a live music place - I don't know where it was actually - and we all ended up on the mic, singing, it was great.
Then we ended up in..what was it called... oh yeah, Coppers. Yeah, we ended up in the tourist venue, as the locals told me.
Bentley's career ended prematurely, retiring from the game aged just 29. Illustrative of that is the fact that the man he replaced on his Arsenal debut in 2002 - Kolo Toure - played for Liverpool in the Capital One Cup final just last weekend. Bentley stepped away from the game having become frustrated at the professional duties of the modern game, finding that he just didn't enjoy his football any longer.
He has no regrets having stepped away from the sport, however:
It panned out really well for me, I'm really happy with what happened. I did what I did, and enjoyed it. I didn't want to hang around.
You can live that [play on while not enjoying the game]. You ain't got a long time to live, and there's only so much money you can have. I'm very happy, very privileged.
I came from nothing, mum and dad struggled to give me anything over five quid. I was brought up getting my shoes out of car boot sales.
Whatever I get above that is a bonus. Everything I do, I want to enjoy every minute of it.
Former Arsenal and Spurs midfielder David Bentley was at Dublin’s Irishtown Stadium today promoting live coverage of his former clubs’ crucial Premier League clash on the Setanta Sports Pack this Saturday at 12.45pm. It’s a Super Saturday of sport on the pack with UFC 196 McGregor V Diaz also exclusively live and three games in the Allianz Leagues also featuring. To subscribe go to www.setanta.com.
