“One of the most horrible men around. He wasn’t very PC.”
That’s how former Liverpool goalkeeper Tony Warner introduces Steve Harkness before telling the Magic Sponge podcast a truly gruesome tale about his ex-Reds teammate.
Left-back Harkness, who was at Anfield for a decade between 1989 and 1999 “was always messing around with shit”, Warner explains.
Taken back, podcast co-presenter Rob Beckett asks: “Human shit?”
Warner replies: “Yeah, his own shit.
“He put it on the door handles in the hotels, especially with the foreign lads.”
It’s a horrible prank, but it’s far from original.
Harkness, however, is not your average poo prankster. And he raised the stakes after Liverpool checked into a Waltham Abbey hotel one afternoon.
Setting the scene, Warner says: “When you go in there, there’d always be sweets and three or four chocolates next to the bed.
“I’d always fly in and scoff all the chocolates dead quick.
“So, one day I’ve walked in and I’ve grabbed the chocolates. Bang! One goes in. Bang! Another goes in.
“Then there was another one. They usually come wrapped in paper like cupcakes, but this one looks like it had kind of been smeared in.”
Warner recalls how he proceeded to grab the third threat, but as he raised it to his mouth he spotted something which stopped him in his tracks:
“Do you know what gave him away? An arse hair. Just an arse hair hanging out the shite.
“At the same time, I’ve picked up on the smell.
“So, I’ve seen it and thought ‘imagine if that went in my mouth’. I’ve turned around, looked at the door and Harkness is there with his head poked around the corner.
“He’s burst off laughing and I’ve legged it after him, shouting ‘I’d have f***ing killed you had I have eaten that, I’d have f***ing destroyed you’.
“I was thinking to myself afterwards that if I’d eaten that shit, that story would’ve followed me around forever. I remember saying to him afterwards: ‘The f***ing hiding I’d have had to give you to appease myself…’
“I’d have been ruthless.”
Warner revealed the dirty details above during his second appearance on the Magic Sponge.
Both episodes are available on iTunes.
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