He was renowned for being one of English football’s true mavericks, but this time Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock has shown his sympathetic side in the wake of accusations that he deliberately broke the legs of former Manchester United forward Andy Cole.
Speaking exclusively to TheSportsman.com, the former Liverpool defender has put the record straight on the unearthed interview from 2010 and has claimed he has been deliberately misquoted in order of the press selling stories.
In the publication’s ‘Halloween Tackles’ segment, Razor spoke about the incident that left Cole, his former England youth teammate out of action for several months.
Ruddock had been quoted saying that the injury occured as a result of Cole’s frosty relationship with his pal, Teddy Sheringham.
Razor however claims that he was heavily misquoted and that he never wanted to deliberately injure the player,: “It was an honest challenge that broke both his legs, but I won the ball.
Referee said play on, but me being me being silly, I said it’s not big and it’s not clever breaking peoples legs, I only meant to break one, I must of sat on the other one”
“I’ve got no guilt, no regrets, it was play on”, said Ruddock defending the challenge.
“It was an honest challenge, I went in hard and it’s just unfortunate what happened to Andy”
Speaking on the initial backlash at the time of the controversial challenge back in 1996, Razor claimed, “I used to get death threats from Man United fans and thank you letters from Newcastle fans”
The fallout from the interview has left Razor once again with death threats, as well as eggs being thrown at his home and a heavy level of abuse on social media.
“Me and Andy used to get on, I tried to get a hold of him on twitter and he’s blocked me, so it’s obviously hurt him too”, explained Ruddock when asked whether he’s tried to reach out to the forward in the last few weeks.
After admitting that he shouldn’t of tried to make light of the incident in 2010, Ruddock then proceeded to send a message to the forward, stating ”Andy we’ve got on since then, it was an accident mate, it’s just one of those things, it’s a freak tackle and I hope you’re doing well pal.
Former Manchester United striker Cole is yet to respond publicly regarding the comments that came to light in November of this year.
