IRELAND AND PORTSMOUTH player Ronan Curtis has felt the need to set the record straight and defend his character.

Manager Danny Cowley previously defended the player, saying: “People don’t really know Ronan Curtis, he has a good heart.”

On the field, the 25-year-old winger enjoyed a good season last year, with 40 goals scored since joining the club from Derry in 2018 seeing him linked with Championship clubs Cardiff and Blackburn.

Yet rumours of off-field issues have threatened to undermine this progress and in an interview with The News, Curtis elected to give his side of the story.

On the evening of Portsmouth’s end-of-season drinks, a 21-year-old man suffered a suspected concussion.

Police were called but no further action was taken, nor was a complaint received, while the club also carried out an internal investigation.

“It does look bad, it does reflect on me, but if you see the footage then you’ll know I didn’t do anything wrong,” he explained

“People are going around saying ‘he’s done this, he’s done that,’ but they don’t have a clue what happened. It’s rumours, one person starts it and loads of people jump on it.

“But I can hold my head high because I know what really happened.

“That night outside Astoria, there was loads of smashed glass on the floor and this man didn’t have any shoes on. He was very drunk, we were all drunk at the end of the day.

“I said to him: ‘Where’s your shoes, mate? You’re going to hurt your feet, your feet are going to be cut to pieces’.

“I was looking out for him, but he took it the wrong way. He must have thought I was mugging him off or making him out to be small or something. He took it badly.

“He came into my face and I just pushed him away. That’s all I did, I moved him out of my way.

“The police know the truth, they’ve got the cameras on their chest and there were cameras by Astoria. It was outside, so there were people also around.

“The police took my phone number and said they’d let me know, I replied ‘fine’. I knew in my heart that I had done nothing wrong. It would be different if I had whacked him with my fist, but I didn’t hurt him in a malicious way. I didn’t do anything wrong.

“Some people seem to think I had beaten him up or all the players jumped on him, but it was nothing of the sort. If the CCTV got out then fans would see what actually happened.

“It was a stupid incident, I hold my hands up, it was my fault. Yet the police didn’t take action and Pompey didn’t fine me, which says everything.

“The club know the truth. If a player does anything wrong, they will chuck him out and sack him straight away. I am still here — they know I’m telling the truth and have done nothing wrong.

“People can have their opinions, but they’re just not right, they are talking rubbish. One person says one thing, the next says another and then they hop on the bandwagon and copy each other.

“I’m a grown man, I can handle it. I’ve been brought up hard by my family, so it didn’t bother me really because I didn’t do anything wrong.

“I know what was right, but it was harsh on my family when people started slagging them off, that’s a no-go. That is crossing the line.

“And for what reason? Over something I didn’t do.”

Curtis also defended the squad’s decision to go on a night out, after a 1-0 loss to Accrington saw them just miss out on a place in the League One play-offs.

“We had planned that evening for three or four months before.

“When we were in lockdown, we said we needed to do a team bonding session at the end of the season.

“Should we get promoted, we’d go away to Vegas or somewhere like that. If not, and with loads of players out of contract and leaving, we would have a good jolly up and a laugh.

“That’s all it was, it was planned. We weren’t celebrating not getting into the playoffs.

“There were connections with some of these players for three years and they were leaving, we wanted to say goodbye. It was the last time we would all be together as a group.”