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Dave Jones has claimed he 'wouldn't p*** on Jeff Stelling if he was on fire' after the presenter criticised him during his time in charge of Hartlepool United.
Jones, once an Everton player and Cardiff City manager, took over at Hartlepool in January 2017 with the club languishing dangerously close to dropping out of the Football League for the first time in their history.
He endured a torrid spell in the north-east, winning just four of his 18 matches in charge before losing his job in April of the same year, just 48 hours after being the subject of an impassioned rant from Stelling on Sky Sports.
After Hartlepool succumbed to yet another home loss, then honorary club president Stelling pleaded on Soccer Saturday: 'We've lost at home, we're in the relegation places. This is not personal but Dave Jones, for god's sake, for the good of the club walk now. Go now.
'You've got 13 points from 51. This is not your level of football. If he won't walk, sack him. If it means me resigning and retiring as president, I do so happily. Do it now, do it today.'
Despite Jones's sacking, Hartlepool failed to avoid the drop that season.
Dave Jones has claimed he 'wouldn't p*** on Jeff Stelling if he was on fire' on a new podcast
Stelling was hugely critical of Jones during his time in charge of Hartlepool United (Jones pictured as Pools manager in 2017)
Stelling later apologised for his rant, telling The Times in 2017: 'I apologised if I'd gone too far. I should have stopped when I said, "Please walk away Dave", and not gone any further.'
But it seems Jones, now 69, is yet to accept that apology. Appearing on the Under The Cosh podcast this week, the scouser didn't hold back in expressing his opinion of the presenter.
'He (Stelling) reckons he's a Hartlepool fan,' Jones said, 'he had the club at his heart and everything else.
'Probably when I went in, I tried to change it too quickly. Didn't have the players to do that, a lot of good pros there and a lot who could have done better.
'I don't think Stelling understood that. I think he was acting like a fan. I ain't got time of day for him.
'I wouldn't p*** on him if he was on fire. I'd just walk away from him. Got no time for him. I think it was totally wrong what he did.
'I've never spoke about it until now. It was all for show and I spoke to a lot of people afterwards that were really annoyed at him. I don't think there was one person who agreed with him. They just thought it was a disgrace.
'He doesn't mean anything to me. He's got a show but to do what? Not to criticise other people. We can all criticise him when he was mumbling or didn't do this or do that but what's the point?
Stelling pleaded with Jones to leave his post back in 2017 after winning just four of his 18 matches in charge of the club
Hitting back some eight years later, the scouser has claimed he wouldn't pick Stelling up if he drove past him in the desert
'I'm bigger than that. Put it this way, if we're in the desert and I drove past him, I wouldn't pick him up.'
Stelling resigned from his post as Pools president earlier this summer over the club's owner Raj Singh's failure to sell the club.
Singh had put the club up for sale in April 2023 after their relegation from the Football League and resigned as chairman in March of this year.
He'd previously promised the club would be sold by the end of the 2024-25 season but a buyer is yet to be found.
Stelling, a shareholder, accused Singh of hypocrisy, writing on X: 'I have not met the would-be buyers but I do know they have been trying to buy this club for over a year - not the actions of time wasters.'
Hartlepool currently sit ninth in the National League.
