Wayne Rooney gave Michael Gray a black eye in an infamous brawl in a Manchester nightclub in 2006, forcing the former Premier League star to wear sunglasses to hide it from the press.
Wayne Rooney was not pleased with Michael Gray’s comments during a night out (Image: Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Former Premier League star Michael Gray has refused to take on Wayne Rooney in a charity boxing match – 20 years after the Manchester United legend was left with a black eye. Gray, 51, is delighted to leave Rooney with “one win” after the infamous brawl in a Manchester nightclub.
The two soccer players spent separate nights in September 2006 at the celebrity-famous Panacea Bar. However, when Gray asked Rooney, “Which one would you like to eat tonight?”, Gray reportedly hit him back. He mentioned a group of women he was sitting with.
However, the former Sunderland defender was unaware that Rooney’s current wife, Coleen, was there. Rooney gets angry and punches Gray, leaving him with a black eye.
The three-time England international had to wear sunglasses to hide his bruises from paparazzi. In a new interview with the Mail, Gray was asked if he would like to rematch Rooney in a charity fight.
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“I think I’ll just say Wayne has one win,” he replied. “I’m not the type of person to climb the ropes to do a white-collar fight, if you want to call me that these days.
“But no, it was just one of those moments that you look back on, and I can laugh and joke about it now. A lot of people ask me about that, but what do you attribute it to? It was a mistake at the time, but we’ve been okay since then, so I got over it.”
At the time, Rooney’s spokesperson claimed Gray, who played for Blackburn Rovers, had angered Coleen and the other women at the table. “Wayne and Colleen were enjoying a night out with three other couples and were having a quiet dinner when Michael came to their table uninvited,” they said.
“Michael then began making comments that made Colleen and Wayne’s other female guests uncomfortable. Wayne asked Michael to leave on several occasions. It was a brief incident and as far as Wayne is concerned, he holds no ill will toward Michael.”
Gray also discussed the incident on his podcast “No Tippy Tappy Football” last year. “Everyone just blows up the story as it goes on,” he argued.
Michael Gray becomes commentator (Image: Getty Images)
He clashed with Wayne Rooney on and off the pitch (Image: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)
“When we were in Blackburn, Man United came to the nightclub. Wayne Rooney was there and three or four of the players, myself, Gary Flitcroft and Stephen Reid. So I was there and there was a booth and one was a Blackburn player here and a Man United player there. We were young at the time and we were having fun. There were a lot of girls around.
“I looked at the Man United players and I bent over to all the girls and I just said, “Okay, Wayne, what would you like to have tonight?” Because it was just a normal conversation that we had, not knowing that Coleen was one of the girls in the crowd next to him.
“So he didn’t really like it. It hurt my eye, but to be honest, that’s all it took. But then we found out, ‘Gray is asking Rooney and Coleen for threesomes and stuff.’ It was rubbish.”
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