Manchester City's Stephen Ireland has revealed to the Daily Telegraph the full story behind the infamous 'Grannygate' affair.

"What I'm going to say now has never come out before.

"But I feel it is maybe time to say something because I'm getting a very bad press in Ireland, with hate mail being sent here to the training ground."

Ireland received a call from his distressed girlfriend last September just hours before the Republic's clash in Slovakia.

"She was crying like mad, saying she'd had a miscarriage," said Ireland, who kept the news to himself and scored in the 2-2 draw.

But the then Republic boss Steve Staunton had heard something else on his return to the dressing room.

The 22-year-old continued: "The boss said there'd been a death in my family. My girlfriend had rang Steve's secretary and told her that.

"She just wanted me home and she didn't want to tell a complete stranger that she'd had a miscarriage."

So Ireland flew home to find that media reports were saying that his grandma had died.

He added: "I thought 'Oh, no!' They'd dug a hole for me. A big hole. Steve said I should have just told him the truth. At the time, though, it was just chaos.

"My girlfriend was young. I was young. I didn't want to tell everyone my private business.

"Not only that, I couldn't turn around and say my girlfriend was lying. I had to stand by her."