After ex-Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger came out as gay, a notorious incident between Robbie Fowler and Graeme Le Saux reemerged into the spotlight.

Back in 1999, Fowler taunted the former Chelsea defender by waving his backside at him.

While Le Saux is not gay, he had been on the end of vitriolic, homophobic abuse from the terraces throughout his career.

Tonight on the Off The Ball Roadshow at McHugh's Drogheda, Fowler - who has long since apologised to Le Saux - addressed the matter. 

"I apologized again not long ago because something else got brought up again. I'd apologized many years ago but just felt I needed to again just to tell people that I was sorry. It was a stupid thing to do [to LeSaux]. I think as a player, you try to get the better of the opposition by any means. I was a mischievous lad and I was a mysterious player. I was trying to belittle him and get on the wrong side of him to make him have a bad game. There was no malicious intent. I swore at my Mum once but I didn't mean it."   

Fowler also had a couple of stories about former Reds team-mate Neil 'Razor' Ruddock's weight. But he also got the Drogheda crowd in tears (of laughter) about the time the defender punched him.

"Neil Ruddock was the culprit and he used to leave a few presents in players' toilet bags. He got the toilet bit right! You know what I was saying about Razor leaving presents? I was a YTS when Razor came in and as YTSes we used to clean the first team boots and showers. One of my jobs was cleaning the toilets and believe me, you don't want to go near a toilet after Big Razor has been in there!"

Fowler also discussed this "eating the grass" goal celebration ©INPHO/Allsport

Ruddock would punch Fowler after a revenge prank. Razor had cut up Fowler's boots and bag on a trip to Russia and was incensed by Fowler's response.

"I narrowed it down to Neil Ruddock. At the time, he was having a little problem with his wife or actually his wife was having a problem with him. His wife had bought him a brand new pair of Chelsea boots. I went up to the air stewardess and asked for scissors. She gave me the scissors and Razor had gone to sleep. By the time I'd finished with the Chelsea boots, they were like a pair of Jesus sandals. Razor just knew it was me. We got off the plane and all of a sudden he just lamped me. I've been lucky enough to score goals for Liverpool but my claim to fame, is that I never went down from a Razor punch."  

Fowler also talked about the qualities of strike partners like Emile Heskey, Stan Collymore and Michael Owen and why the latter in particular was not beloved by the fans to the same extent.

But he also had a funny story to illustrate why the joint-manager experiment between Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier was pointless. Listen to the full interview above.