Two of the most legendary Ashes players of all time have traded barbs as they face off to settle one of sport’s longest running feuds.
Ian Botham and Ian Chappell sat down for the Channel 9 documentary The Longest Feud, looking back on the 1977 biff at the Hilton Hotel in Melbourne that sparked an almost lifelong hatred.
Stream Over 50 Sports Live & On-Demand with Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
Chappell, who scored over 5000 Test runs, with four centuries against the old enemy, said it was a “terrible” incident.
“I’ve had mates say ‘why don’t you just make up’ and I say ‘well, firstly, if he wants to apologise for the lies he has told I would accept that, but why would I make up and be friends with a guy who I have nothing in common with, I think his commentary is the worst of the long term commentators, I have no interest in his interests and I have nothing to talk to him about,” Chappell said.
“In other words, if I sat down with him it would be boring as hell to me and why do I want to put myself through that?
“So that probably gives you an indication of how much fun it was sitting down with him. I would have preferred the dentist’s drill to sitting down there.
“I have nothing in common with the bloke apart from the same first name and, OK, we probably both played right-handed.”
Chappell told News Corp that the pair had words in the bar, with Botham putting a glass to his face and wanting to fight.
“When he put the beer glass to my face and said ‘I’ll cut you from ear to ear,’ we were actually playing against each other the next day, because I was playing for North Melbourne in club cricket,” he said.
“I said to him, ‘mate, if you cut me with a beer glass it will confirm what I already think of you, that you are a coward, but if you cut me with a cricket ball tomorrow that would mean something. But the ball had better bounce first because if you do it with a full toss, if I am capable, I am coming down your end and I will hit you over the head with the bat.”
Chappell said that he ended up on the floor of the bar, having been pushed by Botham off his chair.
Botham’s version of the story is that Chappell was speaking negatively about the English players, and after telling him to pull his head in, flattened him and chased him out of the pub.
Botham has previously spoken out on the incident, and said he gave Chappell “three official warnings.”
“I gave him three official warnings, all of which he ignored, so the next time he started, I just flattened him,” Botham told Wisden in 2020.
During the 2010/11 Ashes series, with the Sky Sports and Channel 9 broadcast trucks parked next to each other in Adelaide and the pair working at each, Chappell at Nine and Botham at Sky, they reportedly got into another heated exchange.
David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd told Wisden in 2020 that his recollection of the “conversation” involved a floor manager stepping in, and Botham taking two days to calm down.