Chelsea legend: Tottenham Hotspur fan wouldn’t have hurt me with that punch

In 2007, a Tottenham Hotspur fan ran on to the pitch at full time and swung a punch at Frank Lampard, but missed. The Chelsea star has told FourFourTwo magazine how he might have reacted differently if the fan had made contact.

“The way he threw the punch I don’t think it would have done much even if it had made contact,” he said. “He was a bit worse for wear. How would I have reacted? I was surrounded by my team-mates, so I think I would just have tried to pin him down.”

A nickname that has stuck with Lampard is “Fat Frank” but the player insists that it doesn’t bother him, although it used to upset him when he was younger.

“I’m fine with it now; it actually makes me laugh,” he said. “But when I was younger it used to upset me, it was a stick to beat me with. It started at West Ham, and I can remember going back to Upton Park about seven years ago and a really overweight woman stood up in the chicken run and shouted “Fat Frank” at me. That was the moment where I realised this was getting ridiculous, so I just laugh at it now. There are a lot of really nasty things fans say to players, stuff about personal and family issues, and I don’t like that at all, but I am more than happy with “Fat Frank”.”