Ex-Portsmouth skipper Arjan De Zeeuw: El Hadji Diouf never apologised for spitting in my face - but Bolton fans did

And while the former Senegal striker never apologised for the November 2004 incident, Pompey’s ex-skipper was touched by the classy reaction of Bolton supporters.

Diouf was handed a three-match ban after spitting at De Zeeuw in the Reebok Stadium encounter, a fixture in which the Blues central defender scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory.

However, in a 2015 interview for Played Up Pompey, De Zeeuw revealed it wasn’t just Pompey fans appalled by Diouf's actions.

And he has kept the letters sent to him by Bolton supporters apologising for their striker's disgusting actions.

‘Football fans in general still associate me with the El Hadji Diouf spitting incident at Bolton and, funnily enough, it has really been good for my image as a player considering I didn’t react in a way everybody would expect,’ De Zeeuw told Played Up Pompey.

‘Diouf got even more criticism because of my actions – and to this day has never apologised.

‘I remember four years later being approached in an airport by a teacher from Northern Ireland leading a school trip.

‘He wanted to shake my hand and asked if I would be willing to have my photograph taken with his class. Obviously I agreed but enquired why.

‘The teacher replied: “I’m a football fan and I have used the way you dealt with Diouf that day as an example to my class how violence does not have to be retaliated with violence”.

‘From that point of view I had done something really outstanding!

‘If it happened again you might turn round and smack him, but, at that time, there was too much riding on it, we needed three points to help in our relegation battle.

‘Besides, we had a manager who asked me to be responsible for the team because he was struggling big time.

‘Velimir Zajec had been a big player in Yugoslavia, captaining them in the 1982 World Cup, but he wasn’t managerial material. He didn’t like speaking in front of the group, so instead asked me to carry the team.

‘I had scored the goal just before half-time to give us the lead and, with five minutes to go, the scoreline was still 1-0, so you are thinking how important these points could be to us. And then it happened.

‘Diouf tried to get a penalty and there was absolutely nothing happening. He had run into the box, I was next to him, and all of a sudden he fell down. It was just ridiculous.

‘My response was asking him if he should pack football in and work in theatre in the West End, something like that, I didn’t even swear at him.

‘Then I turned and walked away and all of a sudden he was stood next to me and made a noise and spat straight into my face – and ran off.

‘I was angry, really angry, the ball was somewhere else so I chased him initially to try to smack him, yet while I was doing that it occurred to me I shouldn’t allow myself to be sent off by this fool. He was not going to get what he wanted.

‘Even now there are moments when I’ve thought “I should have smacked him” but I didn’t – and I’m glad.

‘A few months after it occurred, I was still receiving letters from Bolton fans apologising – and I have kept those letters.

‘Many of them were saying they were ashamed of Diouf and thought the way I reacted was brilliant. That meant a lot to me, they weren’t even Pompey fans.

‘The return fixture was played in May 2005, our last Fratton Park match of the season, and the fair play thing had just started where the players lined-up and shook hands with the opposition before the game.

‘I refused to shake his hand. Diouf never apologised, even before the game he hadn’t come up to me, and the one thing I wasn’t going to do was shake his hand.

‘Why should I shake somebody’s hand who doesn’t know the meaning of fair play? It turned out quite a few of my team-mates wouldn’t do it either, not that I had asked them to, it was up to them how they felt about it.

‘That turned out to be my last-ever Pompey league appearance at Fratton Park – three months later I had joined Wigan for a second spell.’

Arjan De Zeeuw made 118 Pompey appearances and scored five goals from June 2002 until August 2005.

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this story on portsmouth.co.uk. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to portsmouth.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to local news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit our Subscription page now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.