Former Celtic defender Dedryck Boyata remembers nothing about last year’s Betfred League Cup win over Aberdeen after his sickening head clash with Gary Mackay-Steven.
The former Aberdeen winger revealed the news as he recalled the incident during last year’s final at Hampden Park when he was felled by the Belgian international.
While the 29-year-old was rushed to hospital and suffered headaches for two months afterwards, pal Boyata returned to the action after treatment for a cut head as Celtic went on to win the match 1-0.
The defender later limped out of the final with a hamstring injury and Mackay-Steven, now starring for New York City in MLS, insisted that saved the centre-half from anything more serious given his memory blank.
He said: “I’m good, good pals with Boyata but he has the hardest head ever!
“The cross came in, I’ve headed it and he has tried to clear but when I’ve headed it to the side he has come full force into the side of my head. I bounced my head when I landed.
“He actually continued and had to go off later with a hamstring injury. But he says he can’t remember the game!
“He was concussed as well as he can’t remember anything about the game, whereas I can. He was lucky he had to come off.
“My girlfriend was taking all my messages and he was pestering her for so long asking if he could come and see me. He had won the game but was really worried and wanted to come to see me.”
Mackay-Steven added: “Ultimately every concussion is a brain injury and it was the strangest thing to go through. I wasn’t allowed to train or go on a bike or do anything.
“It was a scary thing to be honest. One of the worst injuries I had.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel