Ossie Ardiles and Tony Woodcock at the Sir Richard Steele pub in Belsize Park

TWO football rivals came face to face for an evening of discussion ahead of England’s World Cup game on Tuesday evening.

Ossie Ardiles, the Tottenham Hotspur legend and 1978 World Cup winner, and Tony Woodcock, former Arsenal forward and two-time European Cup winner, spoke to a crowd at the “Beyond the Shirt” event in the Sir Richard Steele Pub in Belsize Park, ahead of England’s clash with Ghana.

Both footballing greats, drawing on their experience, predicted a 3-0 victory for England, only for the match to end in a 0-0 draw.

The evening began with a meet and greet with the football legends, followed by a Q&A session hosted by film producer and sports presenter John Warrington.

There were plenty of insider stories, including Mr Ardiles discussing his move from Tottenham Hotspur to Paris Saint-Germain following the outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982.

He said: “It was a terrible, terrible time for me, in 1981, 1982, that was the best year of my life in terms of playing football. I was playing so well then.

“And then this happened in the country in which I was born. You can imagine it was awful – being in the middle of it.

“At the end of the day I went to PSG – but there I played the worst football of my life. It was embarrassing, so after a year I came back to the UK. England for me was never a problem so I had no issues when I returned.”

Mr Ardiles said that the three greatest players in football history were Pele, Maradona and Messi.

He added: “Every single game – Maradona you’d worry he would break your leg or take you out. Messi doesn’t play that game. We used to call Maradona James Bond, because he had a licence to kill the bastards.”

The Arsenal and Spurs icons shared the pitch many times in the north London derby, while Mr Ardiles was playing for Spurs and Mr Woodcock for Arsenal, including the fiercely contested Boxing Day clash of 1982 played at the Highbury Stadium. Speaking about their Tottenham-Arsenal rivalry, Mr Woodcock said: “Ardiles has silky moves moving across the pitch, he glides like he has no problem whatsoever, but what I do remember is in that game I had been hit from the side by some beast – it was him.

“I had to go off and get my ankle strapped up and at that moment we scored.

“This guy is a World Cup winner and for that you have to have some steel inside of you – he’s the perfect footballer.”

The event was organised with support of the Steele’s pub and its manager Poppy Stewart.

Joe Sear-Myles, Ms Stewart’s assistant, said: “We hope to have a second ‘Beyond the Shirt’ evening at the Steele’s at the later stages of the World Cup and thereafter, a monthly sporting entertainment event for our regular customers and the people of north London.”