As far as Blackburn Rovers are concerned, their one and only season in the Champions League was one that will never be looked back on with great fondness.
The 1995 Premier League champions lost their group opener to Spartak Moscow at Ewood Park, before further losses followed against supposed minnows Rosenberg and Legia Warsaw, the latter of whom then collected a point courtesy of a 0-0 draw in the return fixture next time out.
It meant that when Rovers made the trip to Moscow on matchday five 19 years ago today, they did so having just one goal and one point to show for their efforts, while the home side had already qualified for the quarter-finals of the competition.
With their chances of securing a place in the last eight hanging by the slenderest of threads, it was expected that Ray Harford's men would come out fighting, which they did - literally!
Not long after the start of the encounter, Graeme Le Saux and David Batty collided when having gone for the same loose ball. Yet, rather than try to atone for their collective error as Moscow broke forward, the Blackburn duo exchanged words and then a punch was thrown by full-back Le Saux.
Captain Tim Sherwood jumped in swiftly to split up his warring teammates, who between them had summed up their side's European campaign.
With regards to the altercation, it had long been suggested that it was sparked by Batty taunting Le Saux about his sexuality, but in his autobiography Left Field: A Footballer Apart , the defender insisted that those claims were false.
"It was still the first half when I set off after a loose ball. I was running up the touchline, the ball in front of me. I was going to intercept it. David was coming across the pitch to try to get there as well. We arrived at the same time and ran into each other," he wrote.
"I hit the deck and, as I got up, he came at me very aggressively. He was being threatening and screaming things. His face was contorted with anger, as if he was going to rip my head off. Hitting him was more of a pre-emptive strike than anything. If I had not hit him, I felt he was going to hit me.
"It is a myth that he was hurling a stream of homophobic abuse. It wasn't the words that got to me, but a combination of four or five things. I was upset at what he said and that he was accusing me of being selfish again. I was upset that we were not doing well as a team and I reacted because of the way he behaved."
Despite having been the one to throw the punch, Le Saux went on to reveal that it was him that came out of it with the more serious injury.
"I swung at him, connected and knew immediately that I had broken my left hand. I am not a fighter. I hadn't closed my fist properly. I was in a lot of pain, which just made me feel more ridiculous," he added.
To compound a truly miserable night for Blackburn, goals from Dmitri Alenichev, Yuriy Nikiforov and Ramiz Mamedov sealed a 3-0 victory for the home side - a result that eliminated the English club from the competition.
MOSCOW: Cherchesov; Khlestov, Kulkov, Mamedov, Nikiforov, Onopko; Alenichev, Tikhonov, Tsymbalar; Shmarov (Kechinov), Yuran (Pyatnitskiy)
BLACKBURN: Flowers; Kenna, Berg, Hendry, Le Saux (Holmes); Warhurst, Sherwood, Batty, Ripley (Sutton); Shearer, Newell
Liam Apicella
