Harper Non-Fiction
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in 1996 by CollinsWillow
Copyright © John Scally 1996
John Scally accepts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780002187336
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2016 ISBN: 9780008193263
Version: 2016-06-20
To Sheila, Aine, James,
Liam and Fiona Finneran
Contents
The Good, The Glad and The Wordy
Chapter One: Athletic Aberrations
Chapter Two: Baseball Bloomers
Chapter Three: Basketball Babel
Chapter Four: Board and Card Games
Chapter Six: Pedal to the Metal
Chapter Seven: Cricket Classics
Chapter Eight: Football’s Fun and Frolics
Chapter Ten: Horse Racing Hoots
Chapter Twelve: Snooker from the Lip
Chapter Thirteen: Tennis Theatricals
Chapter Fourteen: Sporting Miscellany
Great Sporting Supermouths of our Time
Chapter Fifteen: Walker the Talker
Chapter Sixteen: The Lowe-Down
Chapter Seventeen: On the Great Vine
Chapter Eighteen: The Golden Foot in Mouth Award
In 1906 Ambrose Bierce defined quotation as ‘the act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.’ Down through history much has been said and written about the people and events that have shaped the sporting world. This book assembles some of the most commonly misquoted and misattributed of those sporting quotations.
Humour is a difficult thing to define. What reduces one person to helpless laughter may leave another indifferent. And what makes a funny quote? The context can be crucial.
In normal circumstances the following would not be of great interest: ‘Sharp are currently working on bringing 3D TV into your living-rooms. Mr Koshima hopes it will be so realistic that viewers will have to duck when Eric Cantona takes a shot.’
However, what makes this press release from Manchester United’s sponsors such a gem is that it was issued just before Cantona’s flying kick at a Crystal Palace fan. Of course, Cantona has carved a special niche for himself in this field with the immortal ‘When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.’ No doubt this remark will be the subject of PhD theses in years to come in such disparate disciplines as philosophy, Anglo-French literature and sporting psychology.
The quote ‘Because we are dressed in black and white, the red, yellow, green, brown, blue and pink of the balls appeal to us’ may not seem very noteworthy. It becomes interesting when the source is revealed as Mother John Baptist of the Benedictine Order of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, who pray for the one hundred martyrs of the Reformation, during a snooker competition among the sisters to raise funds for their London convent.
Innuendo is another favoured verbal weapon in sporting quotes. An example is a remark, often attributed to Jilly Cooper, about a different form of sailing game: ‘I never liked sailing men. They yell blue murder at you all day, but then, when the boat is moored, the whisky comes