"I'm going to f****** flatten you" - Anthony Gerrard gives his account of Ian Evatt incident when Chesterfield played Oldham Athletic in 2017

Gerrard, then playing for Oldham, was angry that he had not been awarded a penalty after he felt Spireites defender Evatt fouled him in the box from a corner.

His frustration led to a heated exchange with Evatt which carried on into the tunnel at the break and resulted in Gerrard being shown a second yellow card.

“We were playing them and it was a proper relegation six-pointer,” Gerrard told Undr The Cosh podcast.

“We’re playing and it’s 0-0 and just before half-time it’s a corner and I’m getting away and he (Evatt) has just clawed my neck and pulled my shirt as I’ve got a chance.

“I’m already on a yellow card at this point and the referee didn’t give it (the penalty).

“After the whistle blows for half-time, I go to the ref ‘look at my ******* neck’. I had finger marks (down my neck). I said ‘you’ve f****** s*** yourself, give the penalty’.

“So he (Evatt) comes over and starts giving me loads and leans in and nuts me. But the referee hasn’t seen him come into me. So I’m like ‘******* get in here now, I am going to ******* flatten you’.

“We went into the tunnel. The referee doesn’t know what is happening. He just sees a bit of a melee. I’m trying to get at him (Evatt) and all of the lads are all in the middle and the referee sends me off.”

Gerrard, who later joined Chesterfield in 2019 but has since left, said he then went into the changing room and punched the tactics whiteboard and put his hand through it.

“My head had just gone,” he explained. But I wasn’t thinking about Ian Evatt, I was thinking I have been sent off and it’s a six-pointer. There was blood spurting out of my hand.

“I went outside and there was all young lads outside and I said to them ‘tell him I’m going to f****** flatten him after the game’.”

Gerrard said he then inadvertently made his way up to the directors box to watch the second half.

Unfortunately for the Spireites, but much to the delight of Gerrard, Oldham scored a last-minute winner through Peter Clarke to win 1-0.

“It was a great game and Clarky scores at the near post where our fans are and I’m jumping up going absolutely crazy in the directors box,” he said.

“I looked at the scoreboard and there were a couple of minutes left so I go down into the tunnel to wait for the lads and there’s stewards right down the middle of the tunnel.

“So when all the lads come in I’m kissing them all and all the lads from Chesterfield start chirping up and I go ‘down to 10 men you couldn’t do it, that shows your mentality you s*** bags’. I was giving Evatt loads. Obviously he has gone on to great things as a manager but at the time my head has just gone.”

According to Gerrard, both sets of players were involved in a melee which resulted in something being said and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake being “slapped” in the face.

A few days later, a video emerged of Evatt in the pub calling out Gerrard, which was filmed by Gerrard’s then teammate, Ollie Banks.

Gerrard said: “One of the lads, Ollie Banks, is his (Evatt) good mate, and they are sitting there in the boozer and Ollie decides to film him saying ‘Gerrard you are this, you are that’ and ‘come and see me’. This is when we are fighting relegation and he (Ollie) has got this on his phone.”

Fuming that Banks did not immediately tell him about the video, Gerrard decided to get his own back.

“I had a hammer and I put it in my kit under my clothes,” he laughed. “I said to one of the lads to film it when he comes in and I confront him.”

Gerrard said he pretended to hit him with it while Banks was “cowering,”, adding it was “hilarious.”

Despite the incident with Evatt, Gerrard insists what happened is “done and dusted.”

“What he has done as a manager, fair play to him,” he added. “I don’t have to like him as a person but you have got to respect what he has done as a manager.”