Liverpool legend set WAG’s ‘huge bush’ on hearth after getting so drunk he could not get up
A Liverpool legend once set fire to his team-mate’s wife’s hair while out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant because he was so drunk he could barely stand up
Liverpool icon Steve Nicol once drunk so much he thought it would be a brilliant idea to set his team-mate’s wife’s hair on fire just to see what would happen.
The former right-back – who turns 63 today, December 11 – played at a time when it was completely normal for top footballers to drink plenty during the season, rather than the fine-tuned athletes of today’s Premier League. And after missing the 1990 FA Cup semi-final clash with Crystal Palace thanks to injury, he did just that.
Nicol took the coach down with the rest of the Liverpool staff and WAGs to watch the match, where he started drinking at 10am. And, after defeat, they all went back to Liverpool on the coach for a post-match meal.
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That, of course, was intended to be a celebration for reaching another Wembley final under the leadership of Kenny Dalglish. But instead, Nicol says things soon took a turn.
An absolutely bladdered Nicol, who admitted he could barely stand up by the time he reached the Chinese restaurant, ended up causing havoc, at the expense of a fellow defender’s wife.
“I was absolutely annihilated,” the Scotsman said. “It actually worked out because everybody was devastated – but I was so drunk it loosened up the mood a little bit. We’re sitting having a meal and Gary Ablett’s wife Debbie was sat next to me with the big lion’s mane hair – it was like a big bush on top of her head.
“I’m sitting smoking and looking at it, and for some reason I’m thinking, ‘I wonder what would happen if I lit that on fire’.
“I put my lighter next to her rather large mop and WOOOOOOFFFFF!!!”
Nicol, who won four league titles with the Reds and the European Cup, ended up repeatedly bashing Debbie on the head in an attempt to subdue the flames, which by that point had engulfed her.
He added: “Gary was screaming, ‘What are you doing?!’ and putting his jacket on her head. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t one of the smartest things in the world.”
Nicol, the Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year in 1988-89, revealed how Debbie was not harmed in the incident, though her hair “might have taken a few years” to recover.
