GOLFER HITS 42-MILE DRIVE
An unnamed member of the John O’Gaunt Golf Club at Sutton, Bedfordshire, produced what must surely be the longest drive in the history of British golf – one of 42 miles. His tee shot sailed out of bounds and instead of landing on the green, it landed on the greens – or to be precise a box of cabbages being transported on a passing vegetable truck. The truck was on its way to London’s Covent Garden market and when the cabbages were unloaded there, the golf ball fell out.
DEATH ANNOUNCEMENT PROVES PREMATURE
More than 2,000 soccer fans held a minute’s silence for one of their favourite former players, only to discover that he was still alive and well. Tommy Farrer had starred for County Durham amateur team Bishop Auckland in its glory years after the Second World War but in 2009 word reached the club that the old stalwart had died at the age of 86. The sad details were noted accordingly in the match day programme and a minute’s silence was held before the team’s next game. The club also arranged for a tribute to appear in a local newspaper. Bishop Auckland chairman Terry Jackson then telephoned Farrer’s “widow” Gladys at the family home in Maidstone, Kent, to offer the club’s condolences, but she told him she could pass them on to her husband himself, adding: “He will be back in a minute. He’s only popped out to get a paper.”
PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL
Australian motorcyclist Kevin Magee was delighted to have finished fourth in the 500cc United States Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, California, in 1989. But while waving to the crowds on his lap of honour, he fell off his machine and broke a leg.
BASEBALL PLAYER TRADED FOR TEN BATS
Minor league baseball player John Odom moved from the Calgary Vipers to the Laredo Broncos in 2008 for the price of ten bats. The 34-inch maple bats retail at $69 each, discounted to $65.50 for purchases of six or more, making Odom’s value as a player a paltry $655. Nevertheless he insisted that he was not offended by the cut-price deal.
SOCCER STAR’S GRANNIES COME BACK TO HAUNT HIM
When Manchester City and Republic of Ireland footballer Stephen Ireland pulled out of a 2007 international match because his maternal grandmother had died, he received widespread sympathy. The Football Association of Ireland spent $100,000 hiring a private jet to fly him home from Slovakia so that he could attend the funeral of Patricia Tallon. However the news came as a shock to Mrs Tallon herself, who was alive and well and living in Cork. After the FAI discovered the truth, Ireland said that in his grief he had accidentally given the wrong name and that it was actually his paternal grandmother, Brenda Kitchener, who had died. So the association put out a new press release clarifying the situation, only for Mrs Kitchener’s family to react angrily. For she, too, was alive and well. Eventually Ireland was forced to admit that neither of his grannies had died and the real reason he had wanted to come home was to be with his girlfriend.
WRONG CALL COSTS $1.5 MILLION
With contract negotiations between the two parties having stalled, McLaren Formula One boss Ron Dennis suggested to his Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna that they settle the matter on the toss of a coin. Senna called wrong – and lost $1.5 million.
STUDENT SUES SCHOOL OVER EXPOSED GENITALS
A New Jersey student sued the local board of education, his teachers, five of his fellow students and the printing company after the 2001 Colts Neck High School yearbook showed him in action in his basketball uniform with part of his genitals visible. Claiming that the photo had caused him “psychological harm”, Tyler Bennett said: “I was shocked, embarrassed and upset. I remember a student taunting me and asking: ‘How’s it hanging?’”
PLAYER KILLED DURING GAME OF BOULES
In what is thought to be the first death in the sport’s 100-year history, a Frenchman was killed after being hit on the head with a metal ball during a game of boules. Franck Hourcade, 39, was bending down to examine the jack in the course of a game at Adé in 2008 when another player threw his heavy steel ball towards it. Despite the sport’s genteel image, the French authorities have been concerned by a worrying rise in incidents of “bouliganisme” – physical and verbal abuse caused by prize money, alcohol and generally uncivil behaviour.
FAKE TAN PUTS PLAYER OUT FOR NINE GAMES
Baltimore Orioles baseball player Marty Cordova missed nine games in 2002 after burning his face on a sun bed at a California tanning salon. Doctors ordered him to stay out of direct sunlight until his wounds started to heal.
JOCKEY SWITCHES RIDES IN MID-RACE
Confusion reigned in a 2009 steeplechase in New Zealand after five of the six runners fell, two jockeys broke collarbones, a horse was treated for stress and one jockey started on one horse and finished on another. Stewards took more than 30 minutes to unravel the events surrounding the race at the Canterbury Jockey Club meeting before declaring Nana the winner by an extraordinary 128 lengths. Three horses fell at the last fence, including Mala Strana who was battling for second place at the time. Mala Strana’s jockey, George Strickland, inexplicably remounted Ice Pack, which had fallen earlier in the race, and claimed fourth place but was eventually disqualified. Steward Stewart Ching described Strickland’s swap as “a bit weird”, adding: “It was one of the more bizarre races I have had to deal with.”
FEMALE FAN FLASHES BOOBS TO PUT OFF PENALTY TAKER
After the 2003 Somerset Morland Challenge Cup final between soccer teams Wookey FC and Norton Hill Rangers ended in a 0-0 draw, the ensuing penalty shootout was decided in the most bizarre manner. As the first Norton Hill player ran up to take his kick, Wookey fan Cheryl Laws, positioning herself behind the goal, lifted her top to expose her breasts, whereupon the distracted player ballooned the ball into the car park. The miss decided the match as Wookey went on to win the shootout 3-2. Losing captain Lee Baverstock said: “I couldn’t believe it when she started flashing. It definitely got to the lads. With all that flesh on show they couldn’t concentrate.”
JOCKEY HEAD-BUTTS HORSE
Jockey Paul O’Neill received a one-day ban in 2006 for head-butting his horse after it threw him off before a race. O’Neill lowered his crash-helmeted forehead onto the nose of City Affair before a two-mile hurdle race at Stratford. Apologizing for his aberration, O’Neill said: “When I got to the start he headed straight for a car with me, stopped five feet from the car, whipped round and dropped me. I landed on my feet, but awkwardly for my knee. I was a little bit angry.”
GOALKEEPER IS SHOWN YELLOW CARD FOR RESCUING CAT
When a cat wandered on to the pitch during a 2009 Croatian First Division soccer match in Sibenik, Medjimurje Cakovec goalkeeper Ivan Banovic picked up the animal and deposited it in a safe place near a scoreboard. However the referee took a dim view of his action and promptly issued him with a yellow card for leaving the pitch without permission. The referee was roundly booed by spectators for the rest of the match.
CHAMPION ANGLER USED PRE-CAUGHT FISH
A professional fisherman was disqualified from a major tournament in 2005 and banned from future events after being found guilty of cheating by using pre-caught fish. Competing in the Red River Bassmaster Central Open in Louisiana, Paul Tormanen, from Lees Summit, Missouri, tied bass that he had already caught to a tree stump before the event. However a fellow competitor spotted the hoard and persuaded officials to mark the fish. When Tormanen then presented one of the marked fish at the weigh-in, his sharp practice was exposed.
ANGRY NASCAR FAN SENDS TV STATION HALF A MILLION EMAILS
When Fox Entertainment aired a Boston Red Sox baseball game instead of the NASCAR race he had been eagerly anticipating, Michael Melo, of Billerica, Massachusetts, voiced his displeasure by sitting down at his computer and devising a programme calculated to bombard the Fox network with emails. Over a few days in late April and early May 2001, Fox received more than 530,000 emails from Melo, forcing the company to shut down part of its website. Melo’s lawyer explained: “He was just very upset that the Red Sox would pre-empt NASCAR.”
SOCCER FAN WATCHES MATCH THROUGH HOUSE FIRE
A Beijing soccer fan refused to let the small matter of his house burning down spoil his enjoyment of a 2006 World Cup match between France and Spain. After their home was completely gutted in the blaze, the man’s wife told reporters: “When the neighbours shouted ‘Fire!’, I took my little baby and ran out in my nightclothes. My husband paid no attention to the danger, just grabbed the television and put it under his arm. After getting out of the house, he then set about finding an electric socket to plug it in and continue watching his game.”
PLAYER SENT OFF AFTER THREE SECONDS
Soccer player David Pratt lived up to his name over Christmas 2008 by managing to get himself sent off after just three seconds of a match. The 21-year-old Chippenham Town striker received the world’s fastest-ever red card for a lunge at Bashley’s Christopher Knowles straight from the kick-off of their British Gas Business Premier League fixture in Hampshire. The Chippenham secretary said: “You could normally not meet a milder man than David, but he lost it on this occasion.”
BOWLER DIES AFTER PERFECT GAME
A ten-pin bowler collapsed and died in 2008 after recording his first perfect score. Don Doane, 62, belonged to the same Ravenna, Michigan, bowling team for 45 years and finally managed to rack up the maximum 300. But as he was high-fiving his teammates, he suffered a fatal heart attack.
COUPLE LOSE DESPITE BETTING ON EVERY GREYHOUND
A couple who went greyhound racing managed to lose $20,000 despite betting on every dog in every race. The pair travelled hundreds of miles from the south coast of England to Sheffield’s Owlerton Stadium in 2009 in the hope of scooping the $150,000 jackpot. Carrying $70,000 in cash in a supermarket carrier bag, they devised what they thought was a foolproof plan by placing bets to cover every possible placing of all six dogs in all six races. However they had not reckoned on two other punters also backing all six winners, as a result of which the jackpot was split three ways and they finished $20,000 out of pocket.
PIGEON DROPPING HITS HURDLER IN THE EYE
Boyd Gittins was eliminated from the 1968 US Olympic 400-metres hurdles trials when a pigeon dropping landed on his eye and dislodged his contact lens just as he was about to jump the first hurdle.
PLAYER KNOCKED OUT – THEN AMBULANCE CRASHES
Universidad de Chile soccer striker Juan Manuel Olivera was knocked out during a 2009 match in Rancagua, but shortly after he regained consciousness the ambulance taking him to a Santiago hospital crashed. The team doctor described it as “a tragicomic situation”.
HEAD TENNIS PRANK PROVES A KNOCKOUT
Croatian tennis player Goran Ivanisevic needed stitches when he tried to head the ball over the net, only to bang heads with his doubles partner Mark Philippoussis, who was himself concussed.
DRUNK CHESS PLAYER FALLS ASLEEP AT BOARD
A chess grandmaster lost a game in a 2009 international tournament after turning up drunk and falling asleep in his chair. Frenchman Vladislav Tkachiev – ranked number 58 in the world – was already in an inebriated state when he arrived for his match against India’s Praveen Kumar in Calcutta. He could hardly sit in his chair and after just 11 moves he dozed off, his head resting on the table. When officials were unable to rouse him, Tkachiev forfeited the match on the grounds that he was unable to complete his moves within the stipulated time of 1 hour 30 minutes.
“FATHER KILLS SON FOR BLOCKING FOOTBALL GAME”
According to newspaper reports, a 60-year-old man from St Louis, Missouri, was watching a football game in 1997 between Missouri Tigers and the Colorado State Rams when his 26-year-old son “deliberately stood in front of the TV”. Reacting angrily, the father fired at him with a pistol and when the shot missed, the son grabbed the gun and began hammering his father over the head with it. So the father went to a closet and grabbed a shotgun. This time he hit the target, killing his son. The Rams won 35-23.
BASEBALL UMPIRE EJECTS ENTIRE CROWD
An umpire emptied the stands at a high school baseball game in 2009, ejecting the entire crowd of more than 100 for being unruly. Don Briggs took the drastic action during a game between Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington in Iowa because he claimed fans were yelling and arguing. The unrest began when Winfield-Mount Union coach Scott McCarty came out to argue a call. Briggs then decided to throw everyone out and even called for police backup. There were no arrests and the police said they saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless the game was delayed for 40 minutes and was only resumed on condition that nobody present said anything negative about the umpiring. Afterwards both managers accused Briggs of overreacting.
FILLY BUSTER: RACEHORSE IS A HERMAPHRODITE
Following an impressive win in a race at Bankstown, Australian mare Tuscan Abbe was tested on suspicion of doping – but the tests showed that the horse is actually male, at least some of the time. For although Tuscan Abbe was found to possess the Y chromosome of a stallion and produced a large amount of testosterone, when she was re-tested shortly afterwards the results were negative. Two weeks later, however, the same tests showed her testosterone levels going “through the roof” again. Bewildered trainer Les Kosklin wasn’t sure whether to race her as a mare or a stallion in future.
GOALKEEPER DROPS AWARD
Voted Leicester City’s 1995–96 Player of the Year for his safe hands, soccer goalkeeper Kevin Poole was presented with a cut-glass rose bowl . . . which he promptly dropped.
GOLFER AIMS FOR THE CUP
During a 1973 US tour event, American golfer Hale Irwin saw his shot land in a spectator’s bra. Rather than retrieve the ball personally from its unusual lie, Irwin graciously allowed the lady to do it herself.
RUGBY PLAYER CRIES AFTER HANDBAG ATTACK
When a brawl broke out in a Christchurch, New Zealand, bar in 2006, Wellington Hurricanes player Chris Masoe had to be restrained by his captain, Tana Umaga, who smacked him so hard with a woman’s handbag that Masoe was left in tears.
DEFENDANT PLEADS GUILTY IN ORDER TO SEE SUPER BOWL
Appearing in a Texas court on murder charges, football fan Robert William Greer Jr agreed to plead guilty if he was allowed to remain in the county jail until the end of the month because he thought he would have a better chance of watching the 1999 Super Bowl on TV there than in the state prison. Accordingly the District Judge sentenced Greer to 18 years – but asked the county sheriff to delay his transfer to prison until after the big game.
BOXER KNOCKED OUT BY TV CAMERAMAN
When boxer Adolpho Washington was being treated for a cut eye before the final round of his WBA light-heavyweight title bout against Virgil Hill in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1993, a TV cameraman crowded into his corner to get a close-up of the wound. In doing so, he accidentally hit Washington’s eye with the camera, causing it to bleed profusely and forcing him to retire.
SINGER MAKES ANTHEM BLUNDER
The British singer who sang the Croatian national anthem before the 2007 soccer international between England and Croatia at Wembley accidentally sang “My penis is a mountain.” Tony Henry was performing the anthem in Croatian but instead of singing “mila kuda si planina” (“You know my dear how we love your mountains”), his words came out as “mila kura si planina” (“My dear, my penis is a mountain”).
YACHT COMES UNDER FRIENDLY FIRE
To mark her progress in the 1974 Round the World Yacht Race, the Adventurer was given a nine-gun salute by HMS Endurance as she rounded Cape Horn. Unfortunately the sixth shot hit the Adventurer, severely denting her chances of adding to her victory in the previous leg of the race.
BOY WEARS SAME FOOTBALL JERSEY FOR 1,581 DAYS
A young American football fan from Ridgefield, Connecticut, wore his favourite player’s jersey for 1,581 consecutive days – nearly four and a half years. Green Bay Packers fan David Witthoft was given the Brett Favre jersey for Christmas 2003 and wore it every day until his 12th birthday on 23 April 2008.
MARATHON RUNNER FINDS STADIUM LOCKED
Trailing almost 39 minutes behind the previous finisher in the marathon at the 1979 Pan American Games at San Juan, Puerto Rico, plucky Wallace Williams of the Virgin Islands approached the stadium expecting a sympathetic round of applause from the spectators, only to find that the place was locked. Everybody had forgotten about him and gone home.
REFEREE DROPS SHORTS DURING WOMEN’S MATCH
A referee who dropped his shorts during a women’s rugby match in 2007 was suspended for 18 weeks. The Rugby Football Union for Women said Robert Tustin bared his bottom in the closing stages of a match in Peterborough. Amanda Walker, captain of opponents Thetford, said: “We were waiting to restart after Peterborough scored when the referee walked off the pitch and took his boots off. He then walked back on to the pitch and pulled his shorts down.”
“WIFE OFFERED BASEBALL CARDS TO HITMEN”
Georgina Thompson, 37, was charged in Wellington, Kansas, in 1992 for allegedly offering two men her common-law husband’s prized collection of baseball cards in return for them murdering him. Instead the pair reported her to the police and handed over the down payment she had made of ten of the cards. Referring to the unusual payment, the deputy sheriff remarked: “That’s about as mean as a wife can get. The only thing lower would have been if she offered his hunting and fishing gear.”
The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books) Page 20