Craig Brakewell and his friend Nobby were enjoying a quiet drink in The Flying Horse one evening in January 2010, when the pair were approached by a drunken Steve McDonald. Initially pestering them about a football headline in the local newspaper and boasting that he was the owner of the Rovers, Steve soon left their table when it was established that Craig was a former employee of Newton & Ridley and it was common knowledge that a drayman had been "seeing" Steve's mum. The pair also declined an offer of going to a club in town with him.