Gary Neville was brilliantly stitched up by Jamie Carragher during an episode of The Overlap featuring Ronnie O’Sullivan.
The Rocket joined the panel of Neville, Carragher, Ian Wright, Roy Keane and Jill Scott to discuss his life, snooker and his battles with addiction.
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Although O’Sullivan was the main focus during the episode, a segment involving Neville certainly upstaged the snooker legend.
Carragher reached deep into the archives to find some old dirt on his broadcast colleague and could not wait to deliver a stinging tale on Neville and his past experiences with snooker.
The discussion drifted from O’Sullivan to the former Manchester United defender resulting in him declaring his love of snooker.
But that only enhanced Carragher’s need to wind Neville up with his undercover tactics.
The ex-Liverpool defender whipped out a 1990s football magazine clipping showing a fresh-faced Neville alongside brother Phil.
The magazine copy claimed Neville had attended a snooker final with former Manchester United teammate David Beckham.
The pair watched on as O’Sullivan battled Steve Davis in 1997 masters final at Wembley.
Despite Davis going on to win his third title, the match was famously interrupted by a female streaker with Carragher claiming Neville’s interest in the sport stemmed from that moment.
Carragher could be seen chuckling as he read the magazine copy: “Snooker may seem like the most way-boring sport in the whole wide world, but Man United stars Gary Neville and David Beckham saw its better side when they went to watch a recent final between Steve Davis and Ronnie O’Sullivan.
“How could snooker possibly be good? Because the game was interrupted by a female streaker, that’s how.
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“And Gaz for one was pretty chuffed. ‘That was a bit different’, he said. ‘Does that happen at all snooker matches? I really enjoyed it’.”
The panel were left in hysterics as Neville tried to play down any notion of the copy before swiftly moving on.
O’Sullivan is widely regarded as one of the greatest snooker players of all time having scooped a whopping 41 ranking titles including seven World Snooker Championships and eight Masters titles.
His triumph in 2024 was his last Masters success after being forced to pull out of this year’s edition on medical grounds.
O’Sullivan had set his sights on a record-extending ninth title and was scheduled to play John Higgins in the first round at Alexandra Palace last month.
But fatigue stemming from his inclusion in a number of exhibition events in the Far East coupled with game pressure, led to an outburst during a 3-2 Championship League defeat to Robert Milkins.
The Rocket proceeded to break his cue before throwing it in a bin. He subsequently pulled out of his final group game later that day.
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O’Sullivan then made the ‘nightmare’ decision to pull out of the Masters where he was replaced by Neil Robertson.
“It was a nightmare decision really to make,” O’Sullivan told Eurosport.
“If you had asked me on Sunday if I was ready to play, I’d probably have been OK. It is such a massive tournament.”
“I’ve obviously been on this three-week trip, away playing, and I think I just exhausted myself,” O’Sullivan added.
“There was a lot of pressure while I was away and the build-up of all that kind of got too much. I lost the plot on Thursday and snapped my cue so that’s unplayable, so I just knew at that moment in time, the right decision was not to play.
“It’s such a big tournament I felt whoever was going to come in should at least have a couple of days’ notice.”
