Melbourne pub fight that started 46-year feud

Ian Chappell says he was threatened with an empty beer glass.

Ian Botham says that's "bullshit".

In many ways, the 46-year feud between the two cricketing legends boils down to that disputed fact, which goes back to a bar fight at the Hilton Hotel in Melbourne in 1977.

At that time Chappell was 33 and was one of the world's most famous cricketers, having captained a great Australian team that included his brother Greg, fast bowler Dennis Lillee and wicket-keeping great Rod Marsh to name a few.

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Botham was yet to make his name on the world stage but possessed a rare talent and the brash personality to back it up.

What brought the two together on that fateful night was a club cricket match between Botham's Melbourne University, who he was playing for after accepting a scholarship, and Chappell's North Melbourne.

University was batting when Chappell formed his first impression of the Englishman.

"Botham played a crap shot, hit it straight up in the air, and got caught," Chappell says on The Longest Feud, which will premiere on Nine at 7.30pm on Tuesday night.

"And about 45 minutes later I look up on the front of the stand and there was Botham with his right arm in a sling. And I'm thinking 'Jeeze, what's happened here?'

"And then I found out from someone that in playing that crap shot he'd injured his shoulder."

Botham takes up the story.

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"It was pretty painful on the end of the shoulder here, the point," he says.

"They had a first aid and a doctor there and he came and had a look at me and he said 'We've just got to immobilise it, so we'll immobilise it in a sling and you'll be fine to play next weekend."

"So anyway, we bowl university out and we had one over to face," Chappell said.

"And we had an opening batsman called Robertson, and Robbo came down the stairs after facing the over and I said 'Who did you belt around' and he said 'The Pom'. I said 'What, Botham?' He said 'Yeah'. I said 'hang on, I saw him a while ago with his arm in a sling'. He said 'Mate, he opened the bowling.'

"My first instinct was 'hello, might be a little bit of a pea-heart here'."

Six days later they came together at the Hilton, with Chappell overhearing Botham talk down Australian beer.

"The first thing I can recall about Botham was he was going on about how weak Australian beer was, in a very loud voice," Chappell recalls.

"And I think I said to him 'You seem to be talking rather loud about a beer that doesn't have any affect on you'. 

"And then Botham says 'I know why you're not going to England because all the fast bowlers in England want to knock your block off'.

"So, the conversation's starting to go downhill."

Botham says Chappell was "goading" him and had approached him to "deliberately" take him down a peg.

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"Eventually enough's enough," Botham said. "And I said, 'Look mate, I'm 21, I'm here to play cricket, learn the game, seriously, leave it out."

"Then he was denigrating the Australian batsmen, and I said 'You're a typical County player aren't you'," Chappell says.

"The only blokes you think can play are blokes who play County cricket … and I said, 'well you don't know what you're talking about".

It's at this point, says Botham, that "the red mist had come down".

"I'm only going to take it for so long," Botham adds.

It's at this point that the two versions of the story veer drastically away from each other.

"He comes up with an empty beer glass and says 'I'll cut you from ear to ear'," Chappell claims.

"Well that's just a nonsense," retorts Botham. "What would I need a broken glass for? I don't need a glass to look after myself."

Chappell claims he then tells him: "If you cut me with a cricket ball tomorrow, that'll mean something to me. But if you bowl me a beamer I'll come down the other end and I'll hit you over the head with a bloody bat.

"Then he pushes me in the chest and I fell over backwards."

Chappell claims that the altercation continues with Botham keen to fight but Chappell declining because "I don't fight because you finish up in one of two places, in the police cell or in the hospital."

"And I chased him around the little corridor in the Melbourne Hilton, that pub used to have a corridor out to the road and I chased him down there and I was just about to have a go when around the corner came the police car," Botham says.

"So I dispersed, end of [story]."

The two men have been sworn enemies ever since, with The Longest Feud exploring the twists and turns in their relationship in pursuit of one question: why in the past 46 years have they never patched things up?

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