Former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Jermaine Jenas admits the London derby with West Ham United has always held some sort of special place.

On the final day of the 2005/06 Premier League season, Spurs needed to beat the Hammers at Upton Park to secure a spot in the Champions League for the following campaign.

However, almost the entire Tottenham squad was struck down with food poisoning after dining on lasagne in the team hotel the night before the clash which contributed to the North Londoners losing 2-1 and failing to finish in the top four.

Ahead of Wednesday night's meeting between the two clubs - which will be the last at the Boleyn Ground - Jenas recalled the incident which he described as 'carnage' in the Tottenham dressing room.

"As a member of the Spurs team beaten at Upton Park in the infamous 'Lasagnegate' match on the last day of the 2005-2006 season, when the bulk of our squad went down with food poisoning, you could say this derby will always have a special resonance with me - as it will for anyone who experienced that day,' the 33-year-old wrote in his column for Yahoo.

"The silly thing is that for a game against West Ham we would have normally just stayed at home because it was a local derby, but because it was such a crucial game the club put us in a hotel because they wanted us to be together.

"Lasagne and spaghetti Bolognese were on the menu, we ate, and then in the middle of the night we started dropping like flies. It was mayhem. The club tried to get the match called off, but in vain, so we just had to play through it feeling like death. A lot of the lads were running on empty - literally. Even while the gaffer Martin Jol was giving his team talk before the game, players were being sick in the toilets.

"Once the game started players were literally running off the pitch. It was carnage.

"By the end of it we felt so horrific that the fact we had just lost out on the Champions League, on the last day of the season, to Arsenal, with West Ham in the next room having the biggest party ever, was almost of secondary importance."