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'Hardest man in football' once 'stapled his nose together' after brutal bar-room fight

Former bricklayer Billy Whitehurst, later hailed as the hardest man in professional football, also dabbled in bare-knuckle boxing, and once went on the pitch with his face split open after a bar-room brawl

[Billy hit the back of the net 99 times during his career, but is remembered more for hitting his opponents]

Billy hit the back of the net 99 times during his career, but is remembered more for hitting his opponents(Image: Graham Chadwick/Daily Mail/REX/Shutterstock)

A feared First-Division striker who was tempted by an offer of easy money to take part in an unlicensed bare-knuckle boxing fight ended up playing his next match looking like Frankensteins monster with his nose stapled onto his cheek.

Podcaster Matt Legg explains how Billy Whitehurst was dubbed the hardest man in football by no less an authority than Vinnie Jones He said: "He was brutal and tough both on and off the pitch. He once played a football match with 15 stitches in his face from a bar-room brawl.

Former team-mate Jamie Hoyland recalled the time that Billy was called in to counter another notorious soccer hard-man, even though he hadnt been dueto play that day: We're playing Southampton at home. Razor Ruddock's absolutely battering Brian Dean all over the place; bullying him smashing him and things like that. Harry just looks around and says Go and get Billy hes up in the stands.

READ MORE: Brutal Millwall vs Everton fight sparked 50-year feud with fans 'repeatedly stabbed'

[Mark Lawrenson said of Billy: 'He would take defenders out, hard as nails. You'd go into war with him and come out severely wounded.']

Mark Lawrenson said of Billy: 'He would take defenders out, hard as nails. You'd go into war with him and come out severely wounded.'(Image: Getty Images)

Billy spoke to Ruddock at half time and made it brutally clear to him that he should leave Dean alone.

Ruddock later recalled: He was from Doncaster. Big, big man. Scary. I was whacking Brian Deane, getting the better of him in one match, and Billy Whitehurst wasnt playing. So, the half-time whistle goes, and Billy runs on the pitch with his suit and tie on, and he gets my Southampton shirt and just rips it, so it looks like Ive got a cardigan on now with no buttons.

We only had one shirt. So, second half, I had to put the shirt on like that and pull my shorts up like Simon Cowell wears his strides."

[Sir Bobby Charlton went to St James' Park to watch Paul Gascoigne and Peter Beardsley but came away saying 'by far the best player on the pitch was Billy Whitehurst']

Sir Bobby Charlton went to St James's Park to watch Paul Gascoigne and Peter Beardsley but came away saying 'by far the best player on the pitch was Billy Whitehurst'(Image: Getty Images)

He used to scare the life out of me," Ruddock added. "Youd win a header against Billy Whitehurst and hed want to tear your head off just for beating him in the air. He was a dangerous man. Everyone was scared of him.

But, Matt says, the former bricklayer was utterly fearless off the pitch, as well as on: Billy was offered two illegal bare knuckle fights for 1,000. The first fight was relatively easy with Billy getting a quick knockout, but the second one was a lot tougher with Billy suffering a lot of facial damage.

He said he got quite a mauling in that fight. He told the Oxford manager Morris Evans that he'd been involved in a car crash and he still played the following match with his face stitched up.

[Billy played for 23 clubs during his 18-year career]

Billy played for 23 clubs during his 18-year career(Image: Hulton Archive)

Another fight in a bar whilst at Oxford left Billy looking like Frankensteins monster. Billy said of the fight I put my thumb in his eye and smashed his head against the wall then his friend pulled out one of those extendable telescopic coshes and hit me straight across the nose.

Billy needed numerous stitches to close up the big cut that was in his face from the fight. While playing in a match soon after, he collided with the keeper, opened up the cut and ripped some stitches.

"During half-time he ripped all of the stitches out and, to the horror of the Nottingham Forest team, Whitehurst came back out to play the second half with his nose stapled to the hole in his cheek.

[Billy wouldn't let something like a severe facial injury prevent him from playing]

Billy wouldn't let something like a severe facial injury prevent him from playing(Image: Getty Images)

After Vinnie Jones shot to fame in Hollywood, he was on a speaking tour. One audience member asked Vinnie what it was like being the hardest man in football, and Vinnie replied I don't know, you'd better ask that man, pointing over to where Billy was seated in the front row.

But not all of the colourful stories told about the fearsome striker are true. Paul Gascoigne wrote in his autobiography that Billy broke his jaw: I didnt break his jaw, Billy later said. He put in his book that I nutmegged him in training and I said if you do that again Ill break your jaw, but I didnt break his jaw. He never had his jaw broken while I was there.

Billy played for a dizzying variety of clubs, including Newcastle United, Oxford United and Sheffield United, but his career was curtailed by a knee injury in 1993. Since then Billy, now 64, has trained greyhounds, run pubs, and done some building work.

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