Neil Lennon v Ally McCoist- Alan Thompson reveals why it all kicked off

It’s the question that Neil Lennon and Ally McCoist are constantly asked, and resist answering.

During an explosive Scottish Cup tie at Celtic Park in March 2011 the two men famously clashed on the touchline after the final whistle.

A goal from Mark Wilson has almost been forgotten by many with three Rangers players red carded, a Scottish Government summit called in the aftermath with Lennon and McCoist writing the headlines afterwards.

Lennon was in his first season as Celtic manager with Walter Smith trusting his assistant with  cup ties as he was groomed to take on the big job.

At the final whistle most eyes were on the pitch for further flare ups after three red cards had been dished out but down on the touchline an incident blew up that is still speculated over more than a decade later.

Giving his ring-side view in his book A Geordie Celt, The Sun reports Thompson’s version:

The Scottish Cup fifth round replay was back at ours and if the first had been ill-tempered, then this was to be known as ‘the shame game’ — with players almost getting locked up by the police off the pitch and a few red cards thrown in for good measure.

Rangers defenders Madjid Bougherra and Steven Whittaker both saw red with Diouf getting up to his old tricks and he saw red also. The game from start to finish was absolute mayhem. It’s not as if these games are normally good-tempered but this was extra spiteful.

McCoist at the time pointed the finger at Lenny regarding what happened between them. He said Lenny acted over- aggressively, which wasn’t the case in my opinion, and I broke them up.

What really started it off was Diouf gave our physiotherapist a hard shoulder and it escalated from there. Brown took a few kicks and Kris Commons got clattered in front of our dugout, which sent our emotions sky high.

All the way through the game Diouf was dishing out verbals on everyone in a hooped shirt and even directed a few to myself and Lenny on the sidelines.

Don’t forget it was Lenny and me opposing him exactly eight years previously when Celtic played against Liverpool in the Uefa Cup match at Parkhead — and he infamously spat at Celtic fans.

You look at Diouf and he was pretty decent. The guy had been with some good clubs but in my opinion the only reason Rangers brought him in on loan was to wind the Celtic fans up. He was brought in by Rangers for the shock value.

Diouf was ‘on one’ that night and I told him many times to ‘do one’ away from our area as he was constantly trying to sneak in closer to our area to noise us up.

When the final whistle blew, and we had won the game, all the staff went over to shake hands with the opposing team as you do, and Lenny went to shake Coisty’s hand.

I was stood so close that I clearly heard Ally tell Lenny, ‘And don’t you be speaking to my f&&%g players like that’, only for Lenny to tell him, ‘They’re not your f*&^&g players, they’re Walter’s.

It’s never been disclosed what was actually said in over a decade now — but I’m telling you that was the spark that lit the fire and Hell was hot.

Lenny was right because Walter was the gaffer and Ally was only the No?2 at that time. Ally didn’t take well to that. The Rangers boys were all trying to say it was our fault but any team who receives three red cards in one match need to have a long hard look at themselves.

Diouf was red carded at the final whistle with team-mates Richard Foster, Steve Davis, John Fleck and Kyle Hutton booked. Dan Majstorovic, Wilson and Scott Brown of Celtic were booked.