Former Tottenham Hotspur striker Bobby Zamora has recalled the time when his team-mate Stephane Dalmat walked off the pitch during a match so he could catch a flight back to his native France.
Dalmat made the move to North London on a season-long loan switch from Inter Milan during the 2003/04 campaign while Glenn Hoddle was in charge of the club.
The traffic on the Tottenham high road is notorious for how busy it can be after a match in N17 and Dalmat was not prepared to take any risks.
Dalmat was on the field during the second half of a match at White Hart Lane when he headed down the tunnel without notifying any of the management and headed to the airport to return to his home in France before heading back to the club two days later.
Zamora told Jimmy Bullard’s Off the Hook podcast: “We played a game at Spurs. In the first five minutes of the second half he just walked off the pitch.
“The ball wasn’t out of play or anything and he just starts walking off the pitch. I think I was on the bench and I thought he has pulled his hamstring or something.
“He walks down the tunnel. Doesn’t say anything to anybody. We played the game and then came in and he had shot.
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“So we are like ‘Where is he, where is he? I don’t know. Not sure’. He was supposed to come in for the warm down – but he doesn’t come in for two days.
“I find out in the end that he has got a plane to catch and he can’t get to the airport after the game because of the traffic and all that so he has gone off the pitch, walked down the tunnel ‘off I go I’m going to get my plane’.
“He went back to home to France. He was just one of those players that just didn’t care.”
Zamora revealed that despite there being questions over the French Under-21 international’s attitude he did praise the talent which Dalmat possessed.
He added: “He was an absolute player. He was strong, quick, powerful, you could not get the ball off him.
“He had that sort of French arrogance.
“He played for some mad big clubs but just nobody could manage him. He was just an absolute loon.”
The midfielder made 28 appearances during his season at Spurs, scoring three goals and providing two assists (transfermarkt).
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