Gerry Taggart on that Dennis Wise throttle as he ‘saw chance and thought bingo’
Gerry Taggart was a huge influence during his time at Stoke City and got involved in a memorable altercation with former Leicester teammate Dennis Wise
Gerry Taggart recalled the time he half-strangled Dennis Wise in one of the most memorable, best loved and naughty incidents in modern Stoke City history.
Fans’ favourite Taggart is fondly remembered for a one-sided tussle with unpopular Wise in October 2003 – with referee Uriah Rennie watching on with a smile at close range before showing the defender a yellow card.
The two players had been teammates who clearly hadn’t always got on at Leicester just a year previously – there was an infamous altercation between Wise and Callum Davidson during a pre-season trip to Finland – but while that might have been the underlying reason for Taggart’s grievance with Wise, it wasn’t the spark on that day in Stoke. Taggart would later give his version of events to former Stoke striker Jon Parkin for an episode of the podcast Undr The Cosh.
“In the corridors of Leicester, I was one of the people who felt (a line could have been drawn under everything) if Wise had say sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to see anyone sacked – but he had to own up, he had to own the situation and for whatever reason he didn’t.
So there was probably a bit of that – but the main reason for what happened was that when the ball was going out for a goal-kick and I was shielding it, he’d seen an opportunity to do me, came down the back of me and scraped his studs all the way down my calf. Anyone will tell you, that doesn’t tickle. It’s not a sensation where you turn around and say, ‘Oooh, thanks very much.’
“So I thought, ‘Here we go, Mr Wise is at it again.’ It would have been easy to turn around and run after him but I thought, ‘Leave it, something will happen…’
