Lineker, talking on his ‘Rest is Football’ podcast, was asked about the biggest barney he ever had with a team-mate.
He revealed it was Gazza and stemmed from some pre-match advice he gave the iconic midfielder before a game at our former ground.
“I used to have fall-outs with Gazza all the time,” said Lineker.
“The most amusing one was at Maine Road. We were playing together there for Spurs and part of my pre-match routine was – because I was stiff in the legs – I used to have a little hot bath for just two minutes to stretch my hamstrings, get out, get ready, go out and warm up.
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“So obviously at some grounds they had small baths and at others they had big communal ones. The first thing I used to do when I got to a ground was check to see the bath situation.
“At Maine Road, it was a big one. So I put the hot water on, filled it up, got in and stood there, did a few stretches of thighs, hamstring, calves.
“Then Gazza walked in and said ‘you’re always doing that, why do you do it.’ I told him it was to stretch and made me feel better before I warmed up.
“He said: ‘I might try it!’ And I told him he should for a couple of minutes, bosh, and then up you get.
“I got out. He jumped in. I went and put my kit on, went out on to the pitch. I did 15/20 minutes of a warm-up, put my shin pads on and the last thing I always used to do was go to the toilet before I played.
“I went back into the bathroom, I looked over and Gazza was still in the bath, he’d been in there for 20 minutes and he had the water up to his neck and it was boiling hot and his face looked like a strawberry.
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“I said ‘don’t tell me you’ve been in there since I left?’ He went ‘wey aye, it’s great’.
“I thought ‘for christ sake!’. So we went out on to the pitch. We played the first half and we were all over the shop. He was having one.
“He was going ‘oi Links, what have you done, what have you done to me, I’m all giddy’.
“Honestly, this is true. We sat down in the dressing room at half-time and Terry Venables said: ‘Gazza, what’s the matter?’
“He said: ‘It’s Lineker’s fault. He told me to have a bath and I’m all dizzy.’ Absolute shambles, it really was. He was a one-off that boy.”
