1) In 1992 professional footballers would race 100m down the side of the Wembley pitch in their respective club’s full kit and boots before the League Cup final, for the not-inconsiderable prize of £10,000. Back then the final was known as the Rumbelows Cup, and so the Rumbelows Sprint Challenge was the perfect warm-up to the main event, hosted by John McCririck and with cameos from Steve Cram and a dodgy-looking bookie. After six regional heats only eight sprinters remained, the fastest players from Hull, Notts County, Reading, Swansea, Sheffield United, QPR, Bournemouth and Mansfield taking their marks on the start line. Swansea’s John Williams – aka the Flying Postman, having recently given up the day job – prevailed, and afterwards revealed he had bet hundreds of pounds on himself. If it all sounds a bit crazy, that’s because it is.
2) More post-match interviews like this, please, from the German striker Marvin Pourié of the Danish side Randers, who manages to bring himself to the verge of tears in his second language, effing and blinding with rage at his team’s performance after they threw away a half-time lead. Get that man a ice bath. However, Pourié’s post-match analysis pales in comparison with the Michigan Wolverines women’s basketball head coach Kevin Borseth – particularly his entrance: “that’s how I feel” – who was just a little bit upset about the game’s offensive rebounds.
Back in 1993, an interview with the Kansas City Royals head coach Hal Mcrae started off calmly enough, but by the end of it journalists left his office looking bloodied after the former left fielder had performed a perfect 360° spin move in launching a telephone across the room. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy did a pretty good job of defending his players in 2007. But you have to go through a long YouTube wormhole before finding a better quote than this from Allen Iverson: “We talking about practice. What we talking about? Practice? We talking about practice, man!”
3) It seems outrageous that Shahid Afridi had never hit a T20 century before. He put that right this week in the T20 Blast for Hampshire, reaching his ton in only 42 balls. Boom. Boom.
NatWest T20 Blast
(@NatWestT20Blast)📢 PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! 📢@SAfridiOfficial‘s 1st T20 💯 in all its glory… pic.twitter.com/VlTTPnpRTq
4) It’s the Judo World Championships next week in Budapest, and so to celebrate, gorge yourself on the best moves from the last world championships in Astana, Kazakhstan.
5) Wednesday marked Kobe Bryant’s 39th birthday. Of course he is no longer doing his thing on the court but luckily we’ve plenty of footage of when he was. Here are the top 10 plays of his career (as selected by the NBA), his favourite H-O-R-S-E shot, his best play of each of his seasons in the league and take a look at his 81-point (bettered only by Wilt Chamberlain) scoring performance for the Lakers in 2006.
6) Fernando Álvarez sacrifices his race at the Fina World Masters Championships in tribute to those affected by the recent terror attacks in Spain. Álvarez stood alone on the blocks after his request for a minute’s silence before the race was denied, he claims.
1) Aaron Gwin can’t have fancied his chances of making it all the way down a muddy, rain-soaked track at the UCU Downhill MTB World Cup in Canada – never mind winning the thing.
2) Red Sox fan and cancer survivor Jordan Leandre had the honour of throwing out the first pitch at a game – and caught a watching cameraman where it hurts.
3) Another snapper in the wrong place at the wrong time has a narrow escape during a rally in Italy. Rally isn’t a pursuit for the faint-hearted, as this 229kph jaunt through a forest shows.
4) And finally, the kind of thing you come here for – a 1970s German TV documentary on the Old Firm.
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