FORMER Rangers winger Gregg Wylde has revealed Kyle Lafferty set off a firecracker in the Murray Park changing room.
The Northern Irishman spent four years in Light Blue after Walter Smith paid £3.5million to sign him from Burnley in 2008.
Lafferty was no stranger to a dressing room prank in his time and Wylde has recalled the occasion when the striker forced the Gers' training base to be evacuated.
Wylde told the FourLadsHadADream Podcast: "Bonfire night was coming up and Lee McCulloch knew a guy who could get us fireworks.
"So he came in one day and said ‘does anyone want fireworks or rockets for your family at home?’ Some of the boys said aye and, to cut the story short, he brought fireworks in.
"There were these firecrackers. Have you ever seen Home Alone when he puts the firecrackers outside the back door? Lee McCulloch brought them in, the session finished in the morning and, I don’t know how, Kyle Lafferty got into his locker.
"The boys were in the shower and the place was steamed up because of the water. Kyle thought it was funny to put a couple in a water bottle and lit it. He lit the firecrackers, put it in a water bottle and chucked it into the showers. We couldn’t see what was in it because of the smoke. A minute later, this bottle explodes and cracks everywhere.
"I couldn’t believe he had set a firework off in the changing room. The fire alarm goes off so we all had to get changed and leave Murray Park.
"We were like ‘what the hell was that?’ Lafferty thought it was funny to let off a firecracker, put in in a bottle and put it in the showers."
The firework incident wasn't the only Lafferty prank that Wylde found himself involved in during his Ibrox career.
But another moment of madness had more severe consequences for the striker ahead of a Champions League clash with Manchester United.
Wylde said: “We were playing Man Utd and it was Kyle Lafferty again. It was United at home and Kyle Hutton made his debut.
“We were staying at Mar Hall and we were coming into train at Murray Park on the morning of the game just to shape up.
“Kyle Lafferty came off the bus and, I don’t know why, suddenly decides he wants to jump on my back. So he jumps on my back and slips and falls and breaks two of his fingers.
“We were like ‘what is he doing?’ His finger was actually back to front.
“I said ‘what did you jump on my back for?’ and thought ‘oh no, I am going to get criticised here by the gaffer’. Kyle popped up and said it was his fault for jumping on my back and falling off and breaking his finger.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here