A FORMER Hampshire Sunday League footballer has been warned he will go to prison for punching a man so hard he was left with a fractured skull.

Craig Lyons left his victim Gareth Jones with a bleed on the brain and an injured cheekbone when he hit him once as violence flared following a night out in Southampton.

Southampton Crown Court heard how 30-year-old Lyons was captured on camera and a DVD of the attack had been produced as part of the prosecutions’s case against him.

Lyons, who used to play for Sholing Celtic in the City of Southampton Sunday Football League before it was disbanded, was due to stand trial.

But he appeared in court yesterday where he pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm when the charges were read to him once again.

Judge Gary Burrell QC was told how Lyons, of Heathfield Road, Sholing, had watched the DVD evidence “with a degree of horror on his part” before coming in to court to change his plea.

As previously reported, the assault took place on the night of July 19 when he and his co-defendant Mark McMullan, 29, were on a night out and trouble flared near Bedford Place.

The court was told how for about 20 seconds on the footage McMullan, who has pleaded guilty to charges at an earlier hearing, was seen “facing up” to three men. A punch was thrown but didn’t connect, the court was told.

Lyons then can be seen throwing a single punch at Mr Jones which Judge Burrell described as “quite a punch.....it is very serious”.

The court was told Lyons had previous convictions which were “largely minor” except for one when he committed grievous bodily harm as a juvenile ten years ago.

Judge Burrell told Lyons, who works full time, that he was “looking at immediate custody” and he should put his “affairs in order” for what he had done but praised his “courage” for pleading guilty.

McMulland and Lyons, who was bailed, will be sentenced together in January.