Former Tottenham defender Gary Mabbutt has said a rat ate part of his foot as he slept while on holiday in South Africa.
Mabbutt, 57, had been in the country to visit his daughter, who is working at Kruger National Park but then had to return to the UK for surgery following the incident which caused him to spend a week in hospital -- and has left him needing daily treatment.
"All the opponents that I've played against and I finally get taken out by a rat," Mabbutt told BBC Radio 5 live. "I've gone to sleep and during the night a rat has come into the bedroom, climbed into the bed and has decided to chew on my foot.
"It's made quite a big hole in my toe, going down to the bone, and ate underneath my foot.
"It bit my daughter's thumb first in the other bedroom, and then she came into me and said 'Dad, something's bitten me'. Being in Africa, you think of snakes and scorpions."
Mabbutt, who has type 1 diabetes, has little feeling in his foot and woke up to find it was covered in blood after being bitten.
"Unfortunately the rat had had a nice meal and I hadn't been able to feel it," he added.