IT is not only his nationality - born and raised in Iceland - that has earned Gudni Bergsson the reputation of being Wanderers 'Ice-man'.

The Reebok skipper is famed and respected for his unflappable nature but, by his own admission, he came within a whisker of 'losing it' during the controversial Play-off defeat at Ipswich in May 2000.

The match will be forever remembered for the three penalties, two red cards and 12 yellow cards referee Barry Knight awarded against Wanderers, who lost 5-3 on the night and missed the promotion boat.

Sam Allardyce's criticism of Knight's handling of the game cost him a disciplinary rap but Bergsson could have been in even deeper trouble than the manager, if he hadn't managed to pull back from the brink.

"I was as close to lashing out at a referee as I have ever been," he recalls. "It was unbelievable, I just completely lost it!"

Bergsson accepts now, as he did at the time, that Wanderers did not help their cause by reacting badly in the heat of the action but says of Knight: "He just somehow lost the plot and seemed to be over-eager to punish us and give yellow cards and penalties or whatever. The statistics tell their own story in that respect.

"We have to admit we lost our cool and contributed to our own downfall by losing our heads. But he certainly made things very difficult for us and, if another referee had been in control of the match, the outcome might have been different."