SELF confessed big mouth Barry Fry has revealed how he was responsible for a dust-up between Nat Lofthouse and Bill Ridding during his ill-fated and easily forgotten spell as a Bolton Wanderers player.

Rejected by Manchester United after showing promise in the era of the Busby Babes, Fry was eventually unloaded to Bolton where Ridding was manager and Lofthouse was in charge of the reserve team.

A run-in with the authoritative Ridding led to him being dropped after a three-match stint in the first team and a misunderstanding caused him to incur the wrath of the Lion of Vienna - something he instantly regretted.

In his recently-published autobiography 'Big Fry' (published by Collins Willow at £16.99) Fry reckons Ridding accused him of feigning a groin injury as an excuse not to play.

He'd just scored his one and only goal for Wanderers at Cardiff and suffered the injury when he slipped on the steps of the plane as the team arrived back in Manchester.

"When I told him I'd done my groin, he said: 'I used to use that excuse to get out of things when I was in the Army'.

"Fuming, I jumped out of the bath and set off in the nude in pursuit of Ridding. Of course the floor was slippery and I doubled or trebled the damage that had already been done to my groin, but there was no stopping me."

A colourful, expletive-littered attack on the Bolton boss was witnessed by a variety of Wanderers' staff and players and led to the inevitable conclusion. "He never picked me again," Fry recalls.

Undeterred at the time though, the cocky Southerner thought his performances in the Reserves, encouraged and praised by Nat Lofthouse, should have earned him a first team recall so again he decided to go head to head with the manager.

Ridding's explanation that he was getting bad reports led to Fry accusing Lofthouse of being two-faced - a big mistake!

"In life you realise sooner or later that there are some people you say that to and some you don't. Nat was the in the latter category.

"Before I could flinch he had me in a vice-like grip around my throat, dragged me into the manager's office and threw me to the floor!"

Ridding ordered Fry to leave but the dishevelled player eavesdropped and recalls: "Nat had a right go! 'Don't use me as an excuse!' he thundered. 'You tell him you don't like him. You tell him he isn't good enough. You tell him anything, but don't tell him that I have been giving him bad reports when I have not."

Fry, a journeyman player who gained a reputation as a 'has-been that never was', now manages Peterborough and is known for his passionate love of the game and his cheery nature. But he looks back on the incidents with a measure of regret.

"Two spats with the manager completely finished me," he admits.

"I have often wondered whjat would have happened if I had just sat in the bath that day and said nothing to Bill Ridding but the fact remains that after just a year I was on my way again."