A former top referee has admitted he wanted to congratulate Dion Dublin for nutting Robbie Savage.
Aston Villa and Birmingham City met in an explosive Second City Derby in March 2003, with the Blues winning 2-0. Either side of their second half goals, the host had two players sent, with strike Dublin first to see red.
The man in the middle that night was Mark Halsey, who knew he would have his hands full as Villa looked to avenge a 3-0 defeat at St Andrew’s earlier in the season. Experienced duo Dublin and Savage had already been going at it before their infamous confrontation early in the second half.
“I was doing Villa v Birmingham, a Monday night live on Sky. You know the players don’t like each other,” he told the Under The Cosh podcast.
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“Dion and Robbie had already had words with each other. Dion has gone straight through Robbie. That’s a yellow card all day long. Robbie gets up to confront him and Dion goes bang! Headbutts Robbie and I’ve gone ‘well done, Dion’.”
Despite his feelings towards Savage at the time, Halsey had no choice but to dismiss Dublin.
“Robbie, you’re a great lad, what you’re doing for Macclesfield [where he is director of football] is brilliant. But he was a bit annoying to us referees," he added. “Dion comes to me and says ‘Mark, I’m so sorry’. And I said ‘I’m just sorry I’ve got to send you off, Dion’.”
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Dublin and Savage are now friends, with the former subsequently admitting the Welsh midfielder had done nothing to upset him.
“I had a stinker getting sent off at Villa Park for violent conduct to my friend, Robbie Savage,” he told Villa TV in 2019.
“When you think about it now, it was very petulant and very stupid. Robbie did what he set out to do, which was get me sent off.
“I rose to the bait – but it was completely my fault. Robbie did nothing wrong. People ask ‘what did he say to you, what did he say to you?’ Was he racist? Not at all. He said nothing.
“It was all me. The red mist descended and Mr Dublin got sucked in. Robbie was smiling. I was grimacing. It happens. I’ve apologised to Robbie. We work on the BBC together. It’s not a problem. I’m a man.”
Following the headbutt, Stan Lazaridis and Geoff Horsfield then scored for Birmingham before Johannes Karl Gudjonsson was dismissed as Villa ended the game with nine men.
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