Jamie Carragher opens up on his spitting incident in 2018 when talking to Gary Neville on Sky Sports’ The Overlap show on YouTube.
The former Liverpool player admits that it ‘knocked me for six months’ after being suspended as a pundit by Sky, before revealing that he saw a psychologist to help him deal with it all.
Carra had been returning from Old Trafford after Liverpool were beaten 2-1 by Manchester United in March of that year when he was goaded by a rival fan in a nearby car. Carragher then spat towards the man and his daughter, who had their window wound down.
There were widespread calls for him to be sacked after his spit hit the teenager, but he left his role at Sky briefly before returning six months later having reached out to the two involved to apologise.
He said he ‘wasn’t himself’ during his period out of work and ended up visiting former Liverpool and England psychologist Steve Peters.
‘Coming home from Old Trafford and then when I lost my job at Sky – I’m someone who’s quite on the front foot, if someone attacks me,’ he told Gary Neville on his YouTube show The Overlap.
‘But that knocked me for six months. For a good six months I wasn’t myself. I’d get up in the morning and just have that pain in my stomach, oh that did happen.
‘I went to see Steve Peters after it. I felt really bad, embarrassed, my family, my Mum or Dad. And the kids. I remember getting back to the house that night when I’d been at Sky. I haven’t seen the kids, they’re at school, and you just get back and we all sat together and it was tough.
‘Even though we’re in the public eye, we’re not the royals, Beckham, big stars. You read them on the front page. When it’s you, everywhere I went it felt like people were looking at me.
When G Nev asked him if he lost his confidence, Carragher said it had been dented – but used his experience as a player to ‘own’ his mistake.
‘It’d come back to me,’ he added. ‘But it was done. I owned it. I didn’t blame anyone else. I accepted it. I took my medicine. Whatever s*** is thrown at me I’ll take it. And that’s the way I was as a player.’
Carragher – who made 737 appearances for Liverpool and picked up 38 caps for England – went on Sky News in an interview to explain his actions and apologise as he looked to make amends, and was eventually reinstated around five months after the incident.
‘A moment of madness which is difficult to explain,’ he said during the TV appearance – having been shown the video on air.
‘Watching those clips back it feels like an out of body thing – just that moment of madness for four or five seconds. No matter what the circumstances for anyone you can’t ever behave like that. That is just unacceptable.
‘My biggest regret is for the 14-year-old girl to be caught in the middle of it. That devastates me more than anything.
‘I have a young daughter exactly the same age and if somebody had done that it’s difficult for me to find the words to how I would react.’
Three years later Carragher remains one of Sky’s biggest name pundits and regularly appears alongside former Premier League rival Neville – who at the time had pleaded with the broadcaster not to sack him.
‘I’ve just watched Carra23 say sorry. No excuses he’s made a big mistake,’ He wrote on Twitter. ‘He’s massively passionate about football and he’s overstepped the mark and shouldn’t have reacted.
‘I’ve been on TV for 3 years with him and imo this isolated incident shouldn’t stop us working together.’
Watch what Carra had to say below…
Twitter users reacted as Jamie Carragher opens up on his spitting incident in 2018 to Gary Neville, others also had something to say on Sky Sports’ The Overlap trailer…
@andygreenwood9: Should have been sacked, spitting in a child’s face, abhorrent behaviour end of
@JamesKelly2398: Interested that of all the moments in Jamie Carragher’s career, the worse that he mentioned in #TheOverlap was the Spit gate
@TonyTCClark: Skysports should’ve sacked him!!
@rccardwell: Absolute brilliant hour of a watch 👏 both talk so much understanding of the game we all played and love and give so much insight into it ✊ As a United fan it makes us realise how similar we all are as fans of whoever! 🇾🇪 Both lads are pure class and loved the political passion 👍
@CraigGregory91: Great watch that. Can see how much the incident after the United game meant to you at the time, speaking openly and honestly about it and fronting it. Not many people do that in everyday life, never mind in the public eye. MNF is the best show about too
@DeiBryn77: That was a good watch. You’re actually ok aren’t you Carra! Interesting to see Liverpool like that. My gran was born there and evacuated to Gwynedd during WW2 so will always have an affinity with the city. Support United though and you definitely didn’t break Gary… 😂
@rockonnicely: The Overlap is one of the greatest things to hit the Internet!
@phughes7: As much as they can do ya head in, it’s good this.
@RyanCoupe83: Fair play with Carra mentioning the Old Trafford incident. Was the obvious answer but didn’t think he would bring it up. Good watch
@PalletAntGaffer: Another brilliant watch on this series. Very personal questions and open/honest answers so can really get to understand the person. Plenty of banter on this one as well as always.. 😂👍
@rccardwell: Absolute brilliant again both of you 👏👏 passion about the game politics and just pure enjoyment to watch 👍🇾🇪
@dunc020987: That was brilliant. Fair play chaps, great work. Some great discussion
@Reidster123: Love him or loathe him (I personally love him) Gary is the best pundit of his generation and has become a fantastic commentor on many subjects not just football. Great footballer but an even better pundit/journalist! Keep doing what you’re doing Gary 💪🏻👍 #TheBest
@paul_winginit: Good to see it’s subtitled.
Great episode , all the passion and live for football and lots of honest talk with some revealing vulnerabilities on Jamie’s part.. class act v well done . Hour well spent. Any football lover will get a kick out of this show .. check out the Roy Keane episode and others too
— Ken Revel Up Liverpool (@ken_revelations) October 22, 2021
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