‘I’ll have you all, footballer Gary Madine told police as they arrested him for assault’

Madine, 23, said he was normally “quite polite” but was “raging” after officers put him in a police van in Sheffield city centre on suspicion of attacking Sheffield United fan Reece Hall.

Madine told a jury at Leeds Crown Court he did not punch Mr Hall on March 11 last year and was extremely agitated because he had been arrested .

He said one of the officers told him “we’re all Blades” which, the footballer told the court, means “we’re all Sheffield United”.

Madine said: “I was raging, to be fair. Me and the lad (Mr Hall) had no reason to have trouble. To say that to me and then arrest me. I was very, very mad.”

The footballer told the jury he tried to record the officers’ United sympathies on his phone despite being handcuffed in the police van, but said the comments were not repeated.

Madine said he was agitated because members of the public were taking his photograph on their phones and he was concerned about what his manager would say about the incident and whether it would get into the newspapers.

He admitted he told the custody sergeant to “f*** off” when he got to the police station and agreed he was “bang out of order” in his behaviour towards the police.

Madine was arrested after Mr Hall was attacked in the Viper Room club and left with a shattered eye socket and cheekbone.

Mr Hall picked out Madine in the bar but, weeks later, told police he had got the wrong person.

Madine told the jury he had been talking to Mr Hall in the toilets of the club and saw him being hit after they left the gents.

But asked whether it was him who hit Mr Hall, Madine said: “Definitely not.”

He said: “I don’t have a clue who it was.”

Mr Hall has told the jury how Madine asked him in the toilet: “Wednesday or United?”

But, in the witness box, the Gateshead-born footballer said he did not remember the conversation. He told the jury: “I do not think I would have asked that. I am neither. I just work for them. I’m a Newcastle fan.”

Asked about a separate incident four weeks before, Madine admitted he punched Sheffield Wednesday fan Daniel Beresford in the Paris Bar, also in Sheffield city centre.

But the striker told the jury he panicked after Mr Beresford threw a drink in his face. He said: “I didn’t know if he was going to hit me with a bottle or a glass. I just panicked.”

Madine admitted he must have hit Mr Beresford hard because he broke his nose. Mr Beresford has told the jury he has no idea why Madine hit him.

Madine, who said he is 6ft 2in tall and weighs 14st, gave his evidence in a softly spoken, North East accent, and was wearing a blue shirt, a gold patterned tie and blue trousers with no jacket.

He told the jury he was first associated with professional football when he was about 12 or 13 with Middlesbrough and spends any time he is not playing for Sheffield Wednesday with his family in Newcastle.

He said he had played around 200 professional games but had only been sent off once, for two yellow cards.

Asked to explain his job by Alison Dorrell, defending, he said: “I’m just there to score goals.”

He said he had not been available for selection for Sheffield Wednesday in the run-up to the court case. Asked how he felt about this, he said: “It breaks my heart. Football is all I have ever known.”

Miss Dorrell asked Madine about a previous conviction he has for knocking a man out in a Carlisle bar when he was playing for Carlisle United. Asked to sum up his feelings about that incident, he said: “Embarrassing.”

He added: “It’s laughable when you look back on it now. I was just a young kid being a clown really, immature.”

Madine denies causing grievous bodily harm and the alternative charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Mr Beresford.

He also denies causing grievous bodily harm with intent and the alternative charge of causing grievous bodily harm against Mr Hall.

The trial continues.