WINNIPEG -- Most fathers just toss a football to their son. This dad pitched a shotgun at his.

The elder half of a father-son robbery team pleaded guilty yesterday to a beer heist that ended with the dad being accidentally shot in the chest by the son.

Court was told the 41-year-old father and his son, who was a youth at the time, were walking along a Winnipeg street, the dad carrying a hidden a sawed-off shotgun in his clothing.

The two planned to sell the weapon.

Instead, the pair ran into three people who had just come out of a hotel carrying a case of beer.

The dad decided to rob them of the booze, but ``the complainant didn't want to let go of his box of beer.''

In the ensuing tussle, the dad threw the gun to his son, and the boy fired it toward the man fighting with his father.

Instead, the bullet hit his pop in the chest.

The father has been sentenced to four years in jail and his son received 18 months probation.