I was a Tottenham player during lasagne-gate - players were sick everywhere vs West Ham

Former Tottenham Hotspur player Jermaine Jenas has recounted his horrendous memories of the infamous 'lasagne-gate'. Jenas spent eight years in north London and was part of the Spurs team that nearly managed to win a spot in the Champions League for the first time in the club's history back in 2006.

On the last day of the 2005-06 season, Spurs took on West Ham at Upton Park. All they had to do was match or beat Arsenal's result against Wigan to secure their top four place. However, the night before the game caused major upset as many of the first-team players fell ill, with speculation that a hotel lasagne was the cause of the food poisoning.

Spurs did not fare well because as they lost 2-1 to their London rivals and ended up finishing lower than the Gunners in the Premier League table, meaning they missed out on Champions League football. It was later discovered that a norovirus outbreak was behind the incident. Almost 18 years after that day, Jenas believes that the game added a layer to the rivalry between the two sides, who faced each other at the London Stadium on Tuesday night.

«The moment [the rivalry] hit me, from a Spurs perspective, that there's a dislike now, was when we apparently got poisoned with lasagna,» Jenas said, via the Daily Star. «Last game of the season, we've got Arsenal on the ropes. We've just got to beat yourselves [West Ham] and we're in the Champions League for the first time.

»The game was what it was. I think we went 1-0 up and you ended up beating us [West Ham in fact took the lead]. There was this moment where we were sat in the dressing room and there were eight, nine, 10 people being sick everywhere. One is in the toilet, one's in the sink, one's in a bucket, everyone's just being sick