Meet ex-Chelsea bad boy who spent night in a cell and filled team-mate's car with manure

Former hard man Dennis Wise packed a lot into his 21-year professional career.

There were plenty of positives to take from his nearly 800 senior appearances for the likes of , Wimbledon, and . A pair of triumphs with the Blues also gave Wise a small haul of silverware to look back on with pride.

But it was not always smooth sailing for the London-born midfielder. In fact, an incident in 1994 opened Wise up to 'the most terrifying one hour and fifty minutes' of his life.

Wise was facing jail time when he spent the night in custody on suspicion of assault and criminal damage. "I started crying - lots," he wrote in his autobiography. "I see nothing wrong in owning up to that."

It started when he had a disagreement with a London taxi driver who, according to Wise's account, suddenly braked, sending him and a friend shooting forwards.

The friend then tried to get out, at which point the cabbie is said to have driven on while the door was open.

"I screamed at him to stop and banged on the partition window," Wise wrote. "I thought there was a real danger she would be hurt. The window smashed and I got him round the neck because I was so furious at what he had done."

Wise was found guilty on both counts and sentenced to three months in prison, although his lawyers later won an appeal to overturn the punishment.

He was briefly stripped of the Chelsea captaincy by then-manager Glenn Hoddle as a result of the incident. "I never want to go through anything like it again, and believe me, I won't," Wise wrote in his book.

The former England international, 57, also had a reputation as a prankster during his playing days. Andy Townsend joined him at Chelsea in 1990, and it wasn't long before the new boy was initiated in the most brutal fashion.

"The worst prank I've ever had played on me was when I bought a new car at Chelsea," Townsend explained on . "When I put my jacket on after training, I immediately knew the keys weren't in my pocket. I didn't want to say anything because then I'd be biting.

"I walked out of the changing room knowing my car wasn't there. It was gone. I walked towards the gates and didn't look at them. Then I saw it. It was in a field next door which had cows, sheep and God knows what else in there, as well as you know what all over the floor.

"It was a soft-top, they dropped the top down, left the engine on, lights on, music blaring, and they filled it with hay and all the waste product you would imagine. Wisey was unbelievable. You've just got to take it and bide your time. You make it worse for yourself if you bite."

Wise hung up his boots after brief spells with Coventry City and Swindon Town in 2006. His foray into management lasted only five years, and his most-recent venture took him to Italian club Como, where he worked in various rules until July this year.