Gabriel Agbonlahor says he received death threats from teenage girls after 'shoulder-barging' One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson.
Back in 2013, the former Aston Villa striker was involved in a charity match between a Celtic XI and a Stiliyan Petrov XI at Parkhead, where some well-known celebrities and former footballers featured to represent The Stiliyan Petrov Foundation.
Petrov, who was forced to retire from football due to a battle with Leukaemia, was joined on the pitch by Roy Keane, Robert Pires, Chris Kamara and John Bishop, amongst many other big names, as they helped raised money for victims of the illness.
Petrov's team would claim a 5-3 victory against the Celtic XI after Dimitav Berbatov bagged a trademark hat-trick but in terms of incidents during the game, it was a heavy challenge on One Direction's Louis Tomlinson that is remembered most.
Advert
In the 52nd minute, Tomlinson picked up the ball on the outside of his area when, out of nowhere, the pacey Agbonlahor clattered into his opponent and sent him crashing to the ground.
Around 60,000 supporters attended the charity game at Parkhead that day - and a large section of those were Tomlinson's fan base. You can actually hear the screams as he tumbled over.
Eight years later and Agbonlahor has revealed that former Celtic striker Henrik Larsson was fuming about the moment - and even asked him to apologise to Tomlinson after the full-time whistle.
Advert
He reflected on the incident in a recent chat with talkSPORT, saying: “It was a game for Petrov’s charity. It was just a normal shoulder barge and because he’d been drinking the night before in the hotel he was a bit hungover.
“He was sick on the side of the pitch and Martin O’Neill wasn’t happy. After the game I got a telling off of Henrik Larsson.
"He was like ‘you have to apologise, come on. You don’t do that’.
“I was like ‘sorry mate I didn’t mean to’. It was a charity game yes but you don’t lose that edge do you?
Advert
“He wasn’t happy and I was like ‘calm down Henrik'."
He continued: “I was getting death threats off teenage girls. They were going ‘how dare you touch my Louis Tomlinson’ and I was just like ‘get me out of here’. [I was off to] Glasgow Airport, [thinking] let me escape in one piece.”
Topics: Celtic, Aston Villa, Premier League, Scottish Premiership
