David Meyler has finally spoken out on his infamous headbutt moment with Alan Pardew, when facing the former Newcastle manager as a Hull City player.
Tensions had been bubbling over in the match, when matters came to blows on the touchline after Pardew decided to withhold the ball after it bobbled out for a throw-in.
With Hull badly trailing in the game, defender Meyler had hurried over to the touchline before shoving Pardew away from the ball.
Taking a few unsteady steps back Pardew, immediately incensed, completely lost his cool and decided to square up to the player.
With Meyler caught by surprise the veteran Premier League boss launched a headbutt, from which a mass brawl was to unfold.
When asked to talk through what sparked the incident, Meyler offered his version of events while featuring as a guest pundit on BT Sport's FA Cup coverage.
‘I just said something to him, a token gesture, and then he used some explicit language. I referred to him being a “soft, southern something”,' Meyler said.
'People say “he headbutted you” but I wouldn’t say it was a headbutt. He kind of brushes his head against me. I don’t know what Alan Pardew was at the time, 56, 57, but if he’d have dropped me I would never have lived it down.'
Meyler, who announced his retirement from football last August, went on to explain how his team-mates then seized the opportunity to turn it all into a big joke.
'A lot of people ask if he apologised or whatever but funnily enough the next day I was at home and my phone rang. We had some pranksters in our team at the time so I thought it was a wind up, Robert Snodgrass would have been a prime example.
'I answered and they said “David, this is chief superintendent….” So I said “yeah good one” and hung up the phone. He rang back, I hung up again then the Hull chief executive at the time rang me and said “David, this is actually the police. Do you want to press charges?”
'I just thought it was a complete wind up. I said no of course. I wasn’t going to press charges against him but even so.
'We played Crystal Palace after he (Pardew) moved on from Newcastle and at Palace there’s a short tunnel and I remember walking past him and I gripped his hand, didn’t let go of it for a good five or six seconds but he never acknowledged it.
'I didn’t want an apology but I just wanted him to acknowledge he made a mistake. I don’t need him to say sorry to me,' Meyler added.
After a Premier League panel analysed the incident, Pardew was hit with a seven-game ban and fined £60,000 for his conduct.
An independent FA commission at the time ruled the first three matches imposed were to be a complete stadium ban with the remaining four a touchline ban.
In the aftermath, Pardew told Newcastle's official website: 'As I have made clear, I deeply regret the incident and again wholeheartedly apologise to all parties for my conduct, which I understand was not acceptable.'