A football player has denied deliberately driving into a group of teenage boys after they called him “fatty”.

Lee Taylor said his car’s stereo was on so loud he did not hear their screams.

The 36-year-old said he was confronted by the group after breaking up a confrontation between them and one of his teammates for Margam Football Club in Port Talbot.

Taylor’s side had just lost 5-0 to fellow south Wales team Cornelly United, and the group of 15-20 Cornelly fans are said to have confronted him outside the changing rooms.

Taylor told Newport Crown Court: “I said ‘Look lads, if there’s going to be a fight, it’s one-on-one’. The mood was intense.

“The boys said to me: ‘We’ll batter you. F*** off, fatty.”

The boys then followed Taylor to his car, with one of them jumping on the bonnet and punching his windscreen, he said.

“I felt scared that the boys were going to get me,” he said. “I can’t really remember what happened after that.”

Prosecutors previously told the jury that Taylor drove straight at the boys after revving his engine during the incident in April last year.

One witness said his BMW went through them “like a video game”.

It is also claimed that Taylor got out of the car and assaulted some of those who had confronted him.

Mobile phone footage played to the court allegedly shows Taylor swinging punches at the teenagers.

Christopher Rees, prosecuting, said it was “sheer good fortune” that none of the boys suffered anything worse than cuts and bruising.

Mr Rees asked Taylor: “Are you saying that when you got back home, you had no idea you had collided with 11 of those young boys who were outside the changing rooms?”

Taylor answered: “Not until the police arrested me.”

Asked by Mr Rees whether he heard the boys’ screams after driving into them, he replied: “No. I had my radio on loud. I was listening to dance music.”

Mr Rees added that a man out walking his dog “said he came across a scene of carnage”.

Taylor, from Port Talbot, denies dangerous driving, 11 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent, and 11 alternative counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The trial continues.

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