A football star who "bottled" another youth at an 18th birthday bash was jailed for two years.

Crawley Town striker Allan Tait, 18, a Spurs under-19 player at the time, smashed a lager bottle in his victim's face during a dance floor bust-up.

The incident left Nicholas Beckingham needing stitches to facial wounds around his left eye which have left him permanently scarred.

Tait, who joined Crawley after being released from his Spurs contract, intervened in an argument at East Grinstead Hockey Club in October 1999 between his friend and a friend of the victim.

Mr Beckingham, who had drunk about five pints of lager, told a jury that he tried to break up the row to stop the party being ruined.

He said Tait, of Colchester Vale, Forest Row, then became aggressive and that he pushed him with one arm to move him away from himself.

He said: "I pushed him in the chest to tell him to leave it out. It didn't have any effect. I was feeling at that point that a fight could break out.

"His arm rose up in the air and the glass came down across my head. He hit me with it and it smashed and then he threw the remainder of it at me."

When interviewed by police Tait, now 19, denied holding the bottle while smashing it against his face.

He claimed he threw the bottle after a bottle was thrown at him and he had been pushed by Mr Beckingham, saying: "It was just an accident, that is all it was."

Tait, who has bagged a string of goals for Crawley reserves, was cleared of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

But Tait, of previous good character, was convicted of unlawful wounding after a three day trial at Hove Crown Court last month.

Keith Goodhand, defending, said: "This is a young man who made a big mistake in the heat of the moment. It was a momentary loss of control.

"He has let himself down and more importantly he has let his parents down. This offence was over very quickly with no pre-meditation."

Sentencing, Recorder Jeffrey Blackett told Tait: "It is quite clear that your actions were no doubt fuelled by the amount of alcohol you had consumed.

"You went looking for trouble on that dance floor and you found it."