The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  CROATIAN FOOTBALLER WINS FLOCK OF SHEEP

  Ivica Supe, a footballer with Croatian Third Division team Zagora FC, turned up for training one day in 2007 to find 16 sheep waiting for him. He had been unaware of a deal made by the club’s sponsor, local shepherd Josko Bralic, who had promised a sheep for every goal scored by a defender.

  BOXER KO’S HIMSELF BEFORE BOUT

  Preparing for his bout in the New York Golden Gloves Championships in 1992, boxer Daniel Caruso was psyching himself up by pounding his gloves into his face prior to the introductions. Unfortunately he overdid it and scored a direct hit with one punch, breaking and bloodying his own nose. Doctors examining him ruled that he was unfit to box.

  MISPRINT INVITES BOWLERS TO DEFECATE ON GREEN

  Advertising a forthcoming lawn bowls tournament, the English magazine Where And When In East Anglia grandly announced: “Men’s and Ladies’ Singles, Pairs and Triples as well as Mixed Pairs are invited to the Yarmouth Bowling Green to compete for £5,000 ($10,000) of prize money at the Great Yarmouth Open Bowels Festival.”

  RACE STARTER SHOOTS HIMSELF

  A school’s athletics competition in West London was halted temporarily after the race starter accidentally shot himself in the leg with the starting pistol.

  COW WREAKS HAVOC ON GOLF COURSE

  Playing the 10th hole at Guernsey Golf Club, amateur S.C. King saw his ball land safely on the fairway while his partner, R.W. Clark, disappeared into deep rough. After helping Clark to locate his ball, King returned to his own – and found it being eaten by a cow. The following day, the pair played the course again and were on the lookout for a hungry cow when they reached the 10th hole. This time it was King who drifted into the rough while Clark hit the fairway. Remembering the events of the previous day, Clark took the precaution of placing a protective woollen hat over his ball before setting off to find his partner’s drive. On his return, Clark discovered that the cow had eaten his hat.

  INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY TEAM LOSES 82-0

  Bulgaria crashed 82-0 to Slovakia in a woman’s ice hockey qualifying match for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Conceding a goal on average every 44 seconds in the Latvian town of Liepaja, the Bulgarians trailed 7-0 after five minutes, 19-0 after ten, and 31-0 after the first period. Bulgaria has only 37 registered female players and had lost its previous matches 30-1 to Croatia and 41-0 to Italy.

  ANGRY MOTHER CHARGED WITH HURLING PIZZA AT UMPIRE

  Furious after her son’s team Concord lost a closely fought Little League baseball game in New Hampshire, Sherri Ferns, who had been working in the concession stand during the game, was charged with throwing a slice of pizza at one of the umpires.

  GREYHOUNDS CONFUSED BY STRAY CAT

  A black cat found its way on to Belfast greyhound track in the middle of a race in 1995. The dogs immediately focused on the cat rather than the hare but while the frightened feline managed to escape over a fence, the distracted greyhounds piled into each other and ended up in an unsightly heap on the track. The race was abandoned.

  HOCKEY FANS UPSET OVER 12-YEAR-OLD RERUN

  Bryan Allison suffered multiple injuries in 2001 when he plunged to the ground in the act of throwing a 25-inch TV set off the second-floor porch of his home in Niagara Falls, New York. He and his brother had been watching a video rerun of a 1989 hockey playoff game and decided to wreck the TV when they became upset about the result.

  PLAYER SCORES WINNING GOAL WITH BROKEN FOOT

  As his team strove desperately for victory in the last five minutes of a match, an injured soccer player threw down his crutches, ripped off his cast and hobbled on to score the winning goal with his broken right foot. Expected to be out of action for another month, Ian Williams was only on the substitutes’ bench to make up the numbers for Welsh village side Pontlliw against local rivals Pontarddulais Town, but with the teams drawing 1-1 in the 85th minute, he begged the coach to send him on. No sooner had he entered the battle than Williams lashed the ball into the net with that broken foot – and almost immediately limped off in agony. Speaking after Pontlliw’s 2-1 victory in 2008, Williams said: “When the ball hit the back of the net I couldn’t believe it, but it hurt really bad the minute I struck it. I threw up pretty much straight away and had to be substituted a couple of minutes later. It was good to score the winning goal, but next time I think I’ll wait until my foot’s properly healed.”

  “DRUNK” HIGH JUMPER FLOPS OUT OF COMPETITION

  Russian high jumper Ivan Ukhov was kicked out of a 2008 competition in Lausanne, Switzerland, amid suspicions that the 22-year-old former European Junior Champion was drunk. He was seen acting erratically during a series of failed attempts to clear the modest opening height. Unsteady on his feet, he had to hold onto a hurdle while struggling out of his tracksuit bottoms and then experienced difficulty tying his shoelaces. After pushing away a concerned official, he strolled towards the bar, hardly took off and collapsed on his back on the mat. At that point, officials at the Athletissima Grand Prix meeting asked him to stop competing. His fellow high jumpers later said that Ukhov had been drinking vodka and Red Bull during the competition. His manager, Paul Voronkov, said: “There’s no denying that Ivan was drunk but he had a fight with his girlfriend and was also upset at failing to qualify for the Beijing Olympics.”

  HOMING PIGEON ENDS UP 5,000 MILES OFF COURSE

  A homing pigeon taking part in a 600-mile race from Bourges, northern France, to Northumberland, England, in 2006 got hopelessly lost and ended up 5,000 miles away on a Caribbean island. Owner John Stewart believes Judy must have hitched a ride on a ship at least part of the way to the Dutch West Indies.

  TEAM SELECTS DEAD PLAYER

  Canadian Football League team Montreal Alouettes picked James Eggink in the 1996 draft – unaware that he had been dead for months. “I’m upset and embarrassed as an owner,” said Montreal boss Jim Speros. “The research process can be very difficult.”

  BOXER FLOORS HIMSELF IN SORRY DEBUT

  Rookie US boxer Harvey Gartley suffered the embarrassment of knocking himself out in his very first fight. Pitted against Dennis Outlette in a regional heat of the 1977 Saginaw Golden Gloves Championships in Michigan, Gartley sized up his opponent for the opening 47 seconds during which time neither man threw a punch. With the spectators growing restless, Gartley suddenly launched a wild swing in the vague direction of Outlette, missed by a mile, collapsed in a heap on the canvas and was counted out.

  UNFORTUNATE MISPRINT CHANGES THE SENTIMENT

  Previewing the 1954 Curtis Cup match against the United States at Ardmore, Pennsylvania, the women’s golf magazine Fairway & Hazard concluded with a patriotic message for Baba Beck, captain of the Great Britain & Ireland team. It should have read: “And so, Mrs Beck, Good Luck and bring back to Britain that coveted Trophy.” However, a typographical error meant that the final sentence began: “And sod Mrs Beck . . . ”

  WORLD’S SLOWEST RACEHORSE IS RETIRED

  In his six-race career between May 2005 and December 2006, on English grass and all-weather tracks, over distances from five to ten furlongs, African Blues beat just two out of 68 horses. The only race in which he did not finish last was when, having been sent off at a price of 150-1, he finished 15th out of 17 runners at Leicester, 37 lengths behind the winner. Not surprisingly he was given the lowest handicap rating in Britain and was described by the punters’ bible Timeform as “virtually unrideable”. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but with lead weights in his hooves. His sire, College Chapel, was one of the leading sprinters of the early 1990s, while his dam, Pearl Dawn, was a prolific winner in England and Ireland. Born at stud in Newmarket in 2003, African Blues inherited all of their looks but none of their speed. Trained by Mark Hoad at Lewes, Sussex, he was sent off at 66-1 on his debut at Folkestone and lived down to expectations by veering right as he came out of the stalls and virtually refusing to race before being pulled up. A distant last in his next two races, he hinted at improvement in his fourth race
at Brighton – at least in the eyes of his adoring owner, Jackie Taylor. “I thought he ran well that day,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he fully justified his odds of 100-1 by trailing in last of 13, beaten by a staggering 65 lengths. After his sixth flop, African Blues was finally put out of his misery and retired. “I still believe he was better than he showed,” insists Taylor. “I’m not sure whether he didn’t want to race, or couldn’t.”

  RUGBY TEAM CONCEDES 194 POINTS

  Coventry Saracens rugby union team were thrashed 194-3 by Alcester in 2009 after taking the field with only eight players because of selection problems. Alcester ran in 32 tries and afterwards praised Coventry for their sporting spirit. Nevertheless Alcester’s total was still well short of the score set by French Third Division side Lavardac against Vergt in 1984. Vergt were crushed 350-0, conceding no fewer than 66 tries, which were then valued at only four points each. However it seems that Vergt offered only minimal resistance to Lavardac in protest at having four players suspended. The previous week Vergt had been hammered 236-0 by Gujan Mestras in similar circumstances.

  RUSSIAN WEIGHTLIFTER BREAKS SNATCH RECORD

  A Russian woman set a new world record in 2009 by lifting a 14-kilogram glass ball with her vagina. Tatiata Kozhevnikova had been practising the little-known sport of vagina lifting for 15 years before becoming a world beater. Revealing how she first got into it she said: “After I had a child, my intimate muscles got unbelievably weak. I read books and learned that ancient women used to deal with this problem using wooden balls. I looked around, saw a glass ball and inserted it in my vagina. It took me ages to get it out!” For the uninitiated she went on to explain how the sport works. “You insert one of the balls in your vagina, and it has a string attached to it with a little hook at the very end. You fix a second ball onto this hook.”

  BAND LEADER ARRESTED AFTER FOOTBALL CLASH

  A band leader was arrested in 2007 for refusing to stop playing at the end of an American football game between two rival high schools in Newport News, Virginia. Previous meetings between Phoebus and Hampton had ended in violent clashes between fans, so the police were anxious to get the 10,000 spectators out of the stadium quickly and efficiently, but officers were unable to communicate with each other over their walkie-talkies because of the noise from the rival school’s marching band. The police said they asked the Hampton band director four times to stop playing and when he apparently failed to obey the request they arrested him on a charge of obstruction and hauled him away in handcuffs in front of his mystified musicians.

  COUNTING LAPS NOT SO SIMPLE FOR SIMON

  Spanish motorcycle rider Julian Simon threw away victory in the 2009 125cc Catalunya Grand Prix by celebrating his success a lap too soon. He was leading comfortably but as his trackside crew held out a sign indicating one lap to go, Simon, thinking the race was over, suddenly eased up on the gas and raised his hand in triumph. As he did so, a group of riders sped past him and his crew frantically waved for him to keep racing. A lap later, Simon trailed in a miserable fourth. “I should have known better,” he admitted, “when I didn’t see the chequered flag as I crossed the line.”

  TEMPER TANTRUM RESULTS IN HEAD WOUND

  Russian tennis player Mikhail Youzhny was so upset with his play against Nicolas Almagro at the 2008 Sony Ericsson Open in Miami that he whacked himself on the head three times with his racket. Following the outburst, he needed a timeout because he had cracked his head open. Appropriately the incident occurred on April Fools’ Day.

  CITY THREATENS TO BAN “DANGEROUS” WATER

  In 2004, an advisor to the Californian city of Aliso Viejo stumbled across a spoof scientific website that warned of the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide – a colourless, odourless substance known to be used as an industrial solvent and coolant, in nuclear plants, and even by a number of terrorist organizations. The site went on to warn the public about indicators of an overdose of dihydrogen monoxide – including neausea, vomiting, a bloated feeling and excessive urination – and added that dihydrogen monoxide can be deadly if accidentally inhaled. The advisor relayed these disturbing findings to the city council, blissfully unaware that dihydrogen monoxide was better known as H2O or water. The city council was so concerned about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that it considered banning foam cups after learning that the chemical was used in their production. It went so far as to announce that foam cups were made with a substance that could “threaten human health and safety”. When the hoax was finally revealed, there were red faces all round. “It’s embarrassing,” admitted the city manager. “We had a paralegal who did bad research.”

  THIEF HIDES PHONE UP HER BUTT

  Romanian police caught a female cell phone thief by dialling the stolen phone – and hearing it ringing from her butt. Police in Iasi stopped the 24-year-old woman as she tried to get off a bus in 2005 after other passengers said they saw her steal a cell phone. But after a search failed to find the phone, police decided to call the number and heard a muffled ring tone coming from under the woman’s dress. She was taken to a local police station where a strip search revealed she had hidden it up her bottom. A doctor extracted the phone and after being sprayed with disinfectant, it was handed back to its owner.

  GPS SYSTEM STEERS MOTORIST INTO SUPERMARKET

  An American tourist’s trip through Bavaria in 2003 ended with an unexpected visit to the supermarket when his car’s navigation system led him straight through the store’s doors. The car only came to a stop when it crashed into a row of shelves. The driver, who was celebrating his 68th birthday, told police in Schwarzenbach that he had relied solely on the automatic navigation system as he did not know the area. He added that he hadn’t noticed the doors of the supermarket looming before him until he had crashed through them.

  TEXAS TOWN IS SOLD ON EBAY

  The small, uninhabited town of Albert, Texas, was sold on eBay for $3 million in 2007. The online advert, which also offered the successful bidder the title of Mayor of Albert, boasted that the town was known for its “German heritage and laid-back attitude” and that its amenities included a schoolhouse, dance hall, bar, and tractor shed.

  INTERNET LOVE SOURED BY BODY IN FREEZER

  Yorkshireman Trevor Tasker announced that he had given up using the Internet after discovering that his new love was a pensioner with a corpse in the freezer. Tasker flew from England to South Carolina to meet Wynema Faye Shumate who had pretended to be in her 30s in the online chat room but was really 65. She had hooked him with sexy talk and by sending him a semi-naked photo taken 30 years earlier. Tasker’s shock at the airport turned to horror when he learned that Shumate had put her dead housemate Jim O’Neil in the freezer after first chopping off one of his legs with an axe so that the door would shut properly. She had kept O’Neil, who had died of natural causes, in the freezer for a year while she lived in his house and spent his money. In 2001, Shumate pleaded guilty to fraud and the unlawful removal of a dead body and was sentenced to a year in prison. Back home in Selby, Tasker vowed: “I’ll never log on again. When I saw her picture I thought “Wow!” But when she met me at the airport I almost had a heart attack.”

  CELL PHONE FOUND INSIDE FISH

  A businessman who lost his cell phone on a Sussex beach was amazed when it turned up a week later – in the belly of a giant cod. Andrew Cheatle thought he had seen the last of his phone after it slipped from his pocket and was swept out to sea but a week later he was shopping for a new phone with girlfriend Rita Smith when her mobile went off. “She said my old mobile number was calling her phone and when she answered it, she said some guy was going on about my phone and a cod. I thought he was winding me up but he assured me he had caught a cod that morning and was gutting it for his fish stall and that my Nokia was inside it.” When Cheatle got his phone back from fisherman Glen Kerley, he found that it was still in good working order – if a bit smelly.

  HI-TECH TOILET SWALLOWS WOMAN

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sp; A 51-year-old woman was subjected to a harrowing two-hour ordeal when she was imprisoned in a hi-tech public toilet. Maureen Shotton was captured by the maverick cyberloo during a shopping trip to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 2001. The toilet, which boasted state-of-the-art electronic auto-flush and door sensors, steadfastly refused to release her and resisted all attempts of passers-by to force the door. She was finally freed when firefighters ripped the roof off the toilet.

  JEALOUS HUSBAND ACCUSED OF SHOOTING WIFE’S COMPUTER

  A man was accused of shooting his wife’s computer after he caught her chatting to other men on MySpace. Jason Griffith, 23, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, allegedly fired a single bullet into her computer tower after an argument in the early hours of one morning in June 2007.

  WOMAN INVENTS RAPID ORGASM GADGET

  By connecting a sex toy to a vacuum cleaner, a Utah mother-of-three invented a device that can produce an orgasm in just ten seconds. Joanne Drysdale was cleaning her carpets when she came up with the idea for Vortex Vibrations. She saw how a piece of rubber that had caught in the nozzle of her vacuum cleaner was gently resonating in the air flow. She said she also experienced a soft stimulation to her fingertips as she tried to remove the rubber. At the time she had not had sex for 15 years.