A FORMER football apprentice who alleges he was physically assaulted by an ex-player has been accused of lying “for financial gain”.

Warehouse supervisor George Blackstock, 44, is claiming damages against Stoke City and former goalkeeper Peter Fox, alleging he was twice subjected to “the glove” during the 1980s.

Mr Fox was a Blackburn Rovers academy coach when the allegations were first made against him.

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Mr Blackstock said alleged abuse, which involved Mr Fox and saw the finger of a goalkeeping glove smeared in Deep Heat being applied to the bottom, had caused him to turn to drink.

The former apprentice midfielder told Preston County Court that the two alleged assaults, between 1986 and 1988, occurred while he was held down by up to three other first-team players.

And he claimed the alleged incidents led to a deterioration in his form on the football pitch and caused him post-traumatic stress.

But during cross-examination, Joseph Mulderig, representing Mr Fox, said logs of Mr Blackstock’s performance kept by youth-team manager Tony Lacey showed that in the weeks after the alleged assaults, Mr Blackstock was noted as playing “his best football” and showing “further improvement”.

Mr Blackstock spent just over two years at the club before returning home to Belfast after then-Stoke manager Mick Mills released him because at 5ft 4in he was too small. Mr Blackstock told the court the alleged abuse made him turn to drink to “deal with the intrusive memories”.

The court was previously told that a large, hot, metal teapot was applied to Mr Blackstock’s buttocks by an unidentified first-team player and that apprentices were treated as skivvies to first-team players.

Mr Blackstock said that as an 18-year-old scouted by the club two years earlier, he would buy Jack Daniels and vodka from an off-licence and drink it outside. He said: “I drank to forget and drank excessively to forget.”

Mr Mulderig suggested Mr Blackstock was “willing to lie for financial gain” and embellish to “bolster his claim”. The court heard that Mr Blackstock failed to disclose his alleged heavy drinking in life-insurance policies and that his claims in court about his drinking were “very different” from what he told his GP.