Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Tim Harris
List of Illustrations
Dedication
Title Page
Introduction and Welcome
Epigraph
Giacomo Agostini – The dominant bike rider of the 60s and 70s. The first to fight for basic safety in racing and a shift from roads to circuits.
Charles Alcock – The first professional sports administrator. Inventor of the FA Cup, Ashes cricket, professional football and the County Championship; he also inspired the first international rugby matches.
Muhammad Ali – A boxing revolutionary and the first global sporting superstar.
Robert Barclay Allardice – The 19th-century strongman who first made athletics popular.
Jacques Anquetil – The cyclist who changed the style of his sport for ever.
Roone Arledge – The US broadcaster who created modern televised sport.
Arthur Ashe – The Wimbledon winner who led the US sporting boycott of South Africa.
Sydney Barnes – Cricket’s first master of spin.
Captain Martin Becher – The eccentric talent who inspired the Grand National.
Franz Beckenbauer – The World Cup-winning player and coach who created the ‘attacking defender’ role.
Lord George Bentinck – The Jockey Club steward who created the modern racecourse and today’s rules of racing.
Carlos Bilardo – The anti-footballer and World Cup-winning creator of 3-5-2.
Jack Blackham – The inventor of modern wicketkeeping.
Fanny Blankers-Koen – The Olympic star who highlighted the restrictions on women’s sport.
Jan Boklöv – The ski jumper who became the first to out-jump the hill.
Bernard Bosanquet – The inventor of the googly.
Jean-Marc Bosman – The midfielder who inadvertently brought massive salaries into soccer.
Don Bradman – The supreme batsman who inspired bodyline, changed the laws of cricket and created the one-day international.
James Braid – The champion golfer who created the PGA.
Michel Bréal – The inventor of the marathon.
Mike Brearley – The creator of the cricket helmet, saver of the bat, captain extraordinaire.
John Broughton – The Champion of the Ring who killed his rival and invented the first boxing rules.
Avery Brundage – The scheming IOC leader who tried to kill off both women’s sport and the Winter Olympics.
Frank Bryan – The inventor of modern table tennis bats and footballs.
Phil Bull – The creator of the Timeform system, which revolutionised betting.
Sir Charles Bunbury – The man who oversaw and won the first classic horse races.
Beryl Burton – The first female endurance cyclist to beat the men.
Walter Camp – The player and coach who created American football.
Tullio Campagnolo – Cycling’s pioneer of the quick-release hub and derailleur gear.
Francis Maule Campbell – The man who split football from rugby.
Federico Caprilli – The cavalryman who rewrote the rules of jumping.
Amadeo Carrizo – The first modern-style goalkeeper.
Don Catlin – The headline-grabbing detector of drug scandals.
Vic Cavanagh Snr – The inventor of the ruck.
‘Cavendish’ – The creator of modern tennis scoring.
Neville Chamberlain – The inventor of snooker.
John Graham Chambers – The true creator of boxing’s ‘Queensberry’ rules.
Colin Chapman – F1’s inventor of the fibreglass monocoque, in-board suspension, side-mounted radiators, ground-effect bodies, active suspension and much more . . .
Herbert Chapman – The man who created modern football management.
William Clarke – The one-eyed Nottingham brickie who made cricket a national game.
Harry Clasper – The man whose designs changed rowing for all time.
Brian Close – The teak-hard England captain behind cricket’s over rate rules.
John Cooper – The creator of the rear-engined racing car.
Henry Cotton – The first golf pro to make it into the clubhouse.
Pierre de Coubertin – The Olympic founder whose ideas still rule the Games today.
Danie Craven – The number 8, centre and scrum half who invented the dive pass and ruled South African rugby.
Alfred Critchley – The hyperactive businessman who brought greyhound racing to Britain.
Hansie Cronje – The biggest name in cricket’s betting scandals.
Johan Cruyff – Football’s most original star.
Stan Cullis – The Wolves manager who inspired the European Cup.
Adi Dassler – The German shoemaker who supplied the stars, helped Germany win a miracle World Cup and founded an empire.
Horst Dassler – The puppetmaster behind modern sport.
Herman David – The Wimbledon boss who opened up tennis.
Joe Davis – The player and promoter who ruled snooker for 20 years.
Michael Davis – The ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ of rowing, inventor of the sliding seat and much more.
Ron Dennis – The perfectionist who brought carbon fibre into motor racing.
Henri Desgrange – The scoundrel who ran the Tour de France.
Peter Dimmock – The founder of Grandstand who captured the world’s sporting treasures for the BBC.
Reggie and Laurie Doherty – The tennis-playing brothers who saved Wimbledon.
Basil D’Oliveira – The great South African all-rounder who helped bring about the boycott of apartheid sport.
Dickie Downs – The inventor of the sliding tackle.
George Eastham – The mercurial winger whose transfer changed British football.
Bernie Ecclestone – The man who transformed Formula One from a hobby into a multinational business.
Eclipse – The 18th century’s superhorse, father of three Derby winners, ancestor of most successful thoroughbreds today.
Arthur Elvin – The wheeler-dealing tobacconist who saved Wembley stadium.
Manfred Ewald – The joint mastermind of the GDR’s hugely successful doping policy.
‘Felix’ – Cricket’s pioneer of pads, caps and gloves.
Enzo Ferrari – The racer turned team manager turned constructor who became racing’s most famous (and dangerous?) character.
Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk – The inventor of the Group system of racing and the man who lifted the lid on racehorse doping.
Dick Fosbury – The high jumper who went from 48th to 1st in the world by going backwards.
William Foulke – The heavyweight goalie who inspired the ballboy and the penalty rules.
C.B. Fry – The man who killed off lob bowling.
Masaru Furukawa – The human submarine who changed the rules of swimming.
Dave Gallaher – The all-conquering All Black who created modern rugby tactics.
Mike Gatting – The England captain who brought us neutral umpiring the hard way.
Spencer Gore – The inventor of the volley.
E.M. Grace – W.G.’s brother, who flouted convention with his leg-hitting.
W.G. Grace – The cricketing legend who broke almost every record and every rule.
Clarrie Grimmett – Slow bowler who created the flipper.
Walter Hagen – Golf’s first international star.
Wyndham Halswelle – The 400 metre runner whose walkover helped create the IAAF.
F.E. Hancock – The English Welshman who invented the tree-quarter line.
Alan Hardaker – The creator of the League Cup, play-offs and multiple gaffes.
David Harris – The first master bowler.
Lord Harris – The MCC’s pioneer of imperial cricket.
Coburn Haskell – The inventor whose new ball transformed golf.
João Havelange – The FIFA boss who transformed sport’s finances.
Lord Hawke – The aristocrat who made Yorkshire the dominant county.
Howard Head – The aeronautical engineer whose inventions transformed both skiing and tennis.
Sonja Henie – The skating star who first danced to music.
Helenio Herrera – The Argentine coach who perfected the sweeper system and created the Italian style of squad management.
George Rowland Hill – The man who split rugby into league and union.
Jimmy Hill – The man who transformed footballers’ wages, ran ‘The Team of the 1960s’ and became UK sport’s first media star.
Bernard Hinault – The ferocious Breton cyclist who won and controlled the Tour de France.
Roy Hofheinz – The creator of the Houston Astrodome.
Jimmy Hogan – The pioneering Europe-wide football coach, promoter of the short-ball game and co-creator of the Austrian Wunderteam.
Nettie Honeyball – The Victorian pioneer of women’s football.
George Horine – The high jumper who created the western roll.
Len Hutton – The man who broke the professional/amateur divide in cricket.
Ludwig Jahn – The German secret serviceman who created gymnastics.
Carwyn James – The pioneering coach who transformed British rugby’s fortunes.
John Jaques – The wood-turner whose company equipped Britain for sport, invented table tennis and much more besides.
Douglas Jardine – The inventor of bodyline.
Sanath Jayasuriya – Cricket’s first pinch-hitter.
Knud Jensen – The Olympic cyclist whose death started drug testing.
Ben Johnson – The athlete who (briefly) smashed the Olympic 100 metre record.
Jack Johnson – The first great black boxing champion and sporting rebel.
Robert Trent Jones – The architect who made golf massive.
Bobby Jones – The amateur sporting star who reinvented the golf course.
Michael Jordan – The basketball star whose name is still worth millions.
Duke Kahanamoku – The inventor of the crawl who took surfing to the world.
Annette Kellerman – Australia’s outrageous (for her times) swimming star.
Billie Jean King – The creator of women’s professional tennis.
Don King – The ex-con who made boxing global.
John Barton King – The man who created swing in cricket.
Phil Knight – The creator of Nike.
Bill Koch – The creator of the skating style in skiing.
Alvin Kraenzlein – The multiple Olympic winner who became the first modern hurdler.
Jack Kramer – The mastermind behind professional tennis.
George Lambton – The aristocratic trainer who blew the whistle on doping.
Marie-Reine Le Gougne – The judge who revealed the Winter Olympics’ greatest scoring scandal.
Archibald Leitch – The man who built Old Trafford, Twickenham, Ibrox, Hampden Park and most of the rest.
‘Cecil’ Leitch – The lady golfer who first took on and beat the men.
Greg LeMond – The first scientific cyclist.
Suzanne Lenglen – The pioneer tennis pro who transformed women’s tennis, created the professional game and took it out of the Olympics.
Walter Lindrum – The man who killed off billiards.
Ray Lindwall – Cricket’s unbeatable bowler who prevented the ball size changing.
Per Henrik Ling – Sweden’s founder of gymnastics.
Clive Lloyd – The boss of all-out cricket.
Greg Louganis – The hard-as-nails multiple gold-winning diver who became US sport’s first openly gay star.
Joe Louis – America’s first black sporting hero.
Spiridon Louis – The marathon runner whose questionable triumph launched the Olympics.
Hank Luisetti – The basketball innovator.
Arnold Lunn – The British founder of Alpine skiing.
Mark McCormack – The ‘big daddy’ of sports promotion.
Bill McCracken – The man who created the modern offside rule.
William McCrum – The inventor of the penalty.
William McGregor – The Scotsman who created the English Football League.
Alister MacKenzie – The golf architect whose Augusta course changed the way golf was played.
Jem Mackie – The rugby player who actually first picked up the ball and ran with it.
Graham McNamee – The first ball-by-ball commentator.
Ray Mancini – The man who shortened boxing matches.
Oubass Markötter – The improver of the scrum.
Leonard Maton – The sturdy Wimbledon Hornet who first wrote the rules of rugby.
Raymond Mays – The founder of the British racing car industry.
Gus Mears’s Scottish terrier – The dog that created London football.
Ian Meckiff – Cricket’s sacrificial victim.
Eddy Merckx – The ‘Cannibal’ who tore up 60s and 70s cycling.
‘Dally’ Messenger – The union star who first made rugby league international.
Rinus Michels – The inventor of Total Football.
Mick the Miller – The canine star who made the dogs more popular than football.
Alice Milliat – The rower who opened up sport for women.
François Mingaud – The man who perfected the cue.
Sheikh Mohammed – Transformer of racing, and now ruler of Dubai’s Sport City.
Old Tom Morris – The golf pro who inspired the Open.
Young Tom Morris – The first modern golf pro.
Ed Moses – The 400 metre hurdler who ruled his sport for a decade.
Max Mosley – The barrister who became F1’s leader.
Albert Mummery – The Victorian rebel who invented modern mountaineering.
Muttiah Muralitharan – Sri Lanka’s greatest and most controversial cricketer, creator of the ‘doosra’.
James Naismith – The inventor of basketball.
Patrick Nally – The inventor of modern sports marketing.
Sarfraz Nawaz – The creator of reverse swing.
Miklós Németh – The reinventor of the javelin.
Jack Nicklaus – The golf star and creator of the ‘TV age’ course.
George Nissen – The inventor of the trampoline.
Sondre Norheim – The inventor of modern skis and skiing.
Henry Norris – The arch-schemer who created London’s ‘soccer map’.
Northern Dancer – The undersized mischievous horse who became racing’s greatest sire.
Tazio Nuvolari – Motor racing’s brake-hating master driver.
Vincent O’Brien – The first trainer to transport horses by air and to winter them abroad.
Kerry Packer – The Australian TV mogul who transformed cricket.
Arnold Palmer – The golfer who became one of TV’s first sporting stars.
Adriaan Paulen – The creator of athletics’ World Championships.
Pelé – Football’s first global star.
Fred Perry – Britain’s first modern sports star.
Jim Phillips – The crusading umpire who ‘saved’ cricket.
Lester Piggott – The master jockey who changed the style of race riding.
Martin Pipe – The Henry Ford of horse training.
Dick Pound – The IOC and WADA boss who funded the Olympics and confounded drugs cheats.
William Prest and Nathaniel Creswick – The pioneers of the Sheffield clubs, arguably the men who founded football.
Ferenc Puskás – The man who destroyed British football’s ‘invincibility’.
Sonny Ramadhin – The West Indies’ unreadable spinner.
Alf Ramsey – England’s first and most successful manager.
Ranji – Britain’s first non-white sporting captain and inventor of the leg glance.
Karl Rappan – The soccer coach behind the Swiss bolt.
John Rattray – The man who wrote the rules of golf.
Willie Renshaw – Tennis’s inventor of the serve and volley.
Carlos Ribagorda – The basketballer who blew the whistle on disability sport.
Viv Richards – The batsman who turned the tide in cricket.
Jackie Robinson – The sporting all-rounder who got black players back into US sport.
Leigh Richmond Roose – The man behind the goalkeeping rules.
Admiral Rous – The creator of modern handicapping in horse-racing.
Stanley Rous – The man who wrote the rules of football, pioneered coaching and took the FA into FIFA.
Arthur Rowe – The Spurs manager behind ‘push and run’.
Clive Rowlands – The man who kicked rugby into a new era.
‘Babe’ Ruth – The Sultan of Swat. Holder of 56 separate baseball records.
Samuel Ryder – The St Albans seed merchant who invented the golf contest.
Jarno Saarinen – The motorcycle champion who won by getting off the bike.
Arrigo Sacchi – Football’s last big thinker.
Juan Antonio Samaranch – The man who killed off amateurism and kept the Olympics alive with ‘pork barrel’ politics.
G.H. Sampson – The first footballer to head the ball.
Robert Sangster – The man who turned racehorse owning into a profession.
Hannes Schneider – The father of modern skiing and creator of the Arlberg method.
Irving Scholar – The Spurs owner who first took UK football to market.
Ayrton Senna – The driver whose life and death transformed racing.
Joseph Sherer – The British officer who helped bring polo to a wider world.
Tom Simpson – The cyclist whose death prompted routine drugs testing in sport.
Matthias Sindelar – Soccer’s first playmaker.
Tod Sloan – The jockey who changed the way all jockeys ride.
O.P. Smith – The creator of greyhound racing.
Tommie Smith – The 200 metre record smasher who became an icon.
Edward Smith Stanley – The creator of the Oaks and Derby.
Karsten Solheim – The man who turned golf design on its head.
Albert Spalding – The baseball pitcher who ran the league, founded an empire and rewrote the game’s history.
Frederick Spofforth – The Aussie fast bowler no batsman could live with.
Lumpy Stevens – The inventor of length bowling.
Jackie Stewart – The champion who made racing a test of skill not bravery.
Adrian Stoop – The man who changed rugby back play.
William Sudell – The Preston manager who made football professional.
John L. Sullivan – The boxer who became the US’s biggest sporting star.
Michael Sweeney – The master of the scissors style of high jumping.
Madge Syers – The skating star who took on and beat the men.
Maurice Tate – The first seamer.
J.H. Taylor – The golfer who created the PGA.
Peter Taylor – The judge whose report changed British football grounds for ever.
Edward Thring – The headmaster who created modern school sports.
John Thurston – The creator of the billiard table.
Bill Tilden – The tactical master of tennis who transformed the image of the game.
Harry Vardon – Golf’s first international star.
Harry Vassall – Rugby’s pioneer of inter-passing.
Willy Voet – The man behind the Tour de France’s greatest scandal.
Wavell Wakefield – The British rugby captain who brought new skills into the game.
Frederick Wall – The FA secretary who drove women from the game.
Shane Warne – The man who brought back leg spin.
Maud Watson – The tennis player who became Britain’s first female sports star.
James Weatherby – The man whose family have run British horse racing for 200 years.
Johnny Weissmuller – The perfector of the crawl (and Tarzan).
John Willes – Cricket’s pioneer of round-arm bowling.
Frank Williams – The man at the heart of British GP racing for 30 years.
J.P.R. Williams – The first attacking full back.
Tom Wills – The creator of Aussie Rules.
Edgar Willsher – Cricket’s pioneer of overarm bowling.
Walter Wingfield – The inventor of lawn tennis.
Katarina Witt – The skater who was too smart and sexy for her sport.
Tiger Woods – Golf’s mega-earning master of distance and control.
Babe Zaharias – The extraordinary sporting all-rounder who created the Ladies’ PGA.
Emil Zátopek – The triple gold medal winner who stood up to governments.
Mathias Zdarsky – The inventor of alpine skis, steel bindings and the steep descent.
John Bosley Ziegler – The ‘god-damned nut’ who brought steroids into Western sport.
Picture Section
Notes and Thanks
Bibliography
Index by Sports/Profession
Copyright
It may be natural to play games, but the sports we love aren’t natural at all. Each and every one of them has been invented, tweaked, pushed and pulled to come up with better rules, cleverer tactics and more effective techniques. There are no prizes for guessing who invented the Cruyff Turn or the Fosbury Flop – but who invented the header or the sliding tackle? The dive pass or the scrum? The lob or the smash? The sand wedge or the tee? The googly or the flipper?
This book introduces 250 men, women and animals, each of whom has transformed at least one major sport. Famous or infamous, remembered or forgotten, god-like or god-awful, the game was never the same after them.
In making his selection, Tim Harris, author of Sport, has drawn on years of passion, argument and research to produce a list that is at once personal and authoritative, provocative and challenging: the rogues, rulers and revolutionaries who shaped the games we play today.
Author Tim Harris is a former advertising copywriter and creative director who became increasingly obsessed by sporting history after a pub argument about why football shirts tend to be striped and rugby shirts hooped. He is the author of Sport: Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know.
SPORT: Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know
1 Muhammad Ali posing in front of the Alvin Theatre, 1968 (courtesy of Getty).
2 Charles Alcock, 1872; Jimmy Hogan demonstrating headwork to RAF troops stationed in France, 1940 (both courtesy of Getty).
3 Bill McCracken, 1912; Diego Maradona celebrates with manager Carlos Bilardo at the end of the 1990 World Cup Quarter Final (both courtesy of Getty).
4 Mike Brearley, 1979 (courtesy of Getty); Don Bradman, 1948 (courtesy of PA Photos).
5 Dick Fosbury clears the bar, 1968; Wyndham Halswelle crosses the finishing line, 1908 (both courtesy of Getty).
6 Judge Roy Hofheinz standing in the newly completed Houston Astrodome, 2007; Jack Kramer, 1949 (both courtesy of Getty).
7 Jacques Anquetil during the twenty-first stage of the Tour de France, 1959; Fanny Blankers-Koen at the 1948 London Olympic Games (both courtesy of Getty).
8 Joe Davis, 1950 (courtesy of Getty).
1 Ben Johnson on the cover of Sports Illustrated, 1988 (courtesy of Getty).
2 Jan Boklov at the 1988 Winter Olympic Games; Tiger Woods hits his tee shot at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, 2008 (both courtesy of Getty).
3 Air Jordan XX Launch Party, 2005; Greg Louganis hitting the diving board during the 1988 Olympic Games (both courtesy of Getty).
4 Ray Mancinni, 1982 WBA Lightweight Title; Ayrton Senna crashes at the San Marino Grand Prix, 1994 (both courtesy of Getty).
5 Johan Cruyff in the World Cup semi-final, 1974 (courtesy of Offside); Jonah Lomu at the graveside of All-Black captain Dave Gallaher, 2000 (courtesy of Getty).
6 Martin Becher in the Grand National Steeplechase, 1839 (courtesy of Getty); Lester Piggott at Newbury racecourse, 1985 (courtesy of PA Photos).
7 Billie-Jean King relaxes before a match, 1980; Ed Moses at the 1984 Olympic Games (both courtesy of Getty).
8 Muttiah Muralithara delivers a ball during a training session, 2009 (courtesy of Getty).
1 Illustration of Suzanne Lenglen, circa 1920 (courtesy of Getty).
2 Mick the Miller receiving a massage, circa 1930; Tom Morris, 1880 (both courtesy of Getty).
3 Johnny Weissmuller, circa 1924–1928; Mildred Didrikson wins gold in 1932 (both courtesy of Getty).
4 William Renshaw and H.F. Lawford playing for the Men’s Singles title at Wimbledon, 1881; Harry Vardon, circa 1920 (both courtesy of Getty).
5 Kerry Packer, 1978 (courtesy of Getty); Pelé’s final match, 1977 (courtesy of PA Photos).
6 Jarno Saarinen, 1972 (courtesy of Action Library); Tazio Nuvolari, circa 1930 (courtesy of Getty).
7 Jackie Stewart in hospital with his wife Helen, 1966; Clive Rowlands talking to his team during a match, 1966 (both courtesy of Getty).
8 Emil Zatopek wins the 10,000 metres in Switzerland, 1954 (courtesy of Getty).
For my parents, Sidney and Susan Harris.
‘I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren’t any rules, how could you break them?’
LEO ‘THE LIP’ DUROCHER
It may be natural to play games, but the sports we love aren’t natural at all. Each and every one of them has been invented, tweaked, pushed and pulled to come up with better rules, cleverer tactics and more effective techniques. There are no prizes for guessing who invented the Cruyff turn or the Fosbury flop – but what about the header or the sliding tackle? The dive pass or the scrum? The lob or the smash? The sand wedge or the tee? The googly or the flipper?
This book introduces 250 men, women and animals, each of whom transformed at least one major world sport. Famous or infamous, remembered or forgotten, god-like or god-awful, the game was never the same after them.
At the top are the ‘Rulers’ – extraordinary talents such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan or Suzanne Lenglen, who achieved new levels of skill and drew the eyes of the world. Some of them, like Don Bradman in cricket or Babe Ruth in baseball, were so good that the rules or equipment had to be changed to give others a chance. One or two were so brilliant that they even killed off their sport as a genuine contest. Most are attacking players, but not all. Footballer Bill McCracken and cricketer Jack Blackham both changed their sports through their defensive skills.
Next are the ‘Rogues’, the schemers and scammers, duckers and divers who dreamt up new cheats, dodges and ruses to win. Some of their inventions, such as reverse swing in cricket, the single-handed shot in basketball or the modern racing eight, have become part of the game – but there are some out-and-out villains too. Dopers, cheats and crooks have also played their part in sport’s rich pageant, and here we salute their rat-like cunning.
The third group are the ‘Revolutionaries’ – the inventors of new rules, tactics and techniques that we all take for granted today. A few are geniuses who dreamt up massively popular sports such as tennis, basketball or greyhound racing. Some suddenly turned years of sporting orthodoxy on its head and found different ways to ride horses or motorbikes. Most simply found a new way to win the game. The one-two punch, the three-man defence, the four-wheel drift . . . they’re all here.
Writing this book has been a lot of fun. For a start, there’s been finding out how and why the great sports stars became so successful. Then the digging out of the more obscure characters and the stories behind the creation of the penalty, the scrum or the marathon. And finally there are the often surprising connections between them all. These links are indicated by underlining in the text and I hope they encourage you to jump around and get thoroughly lost.
In choosing these 250 names, I’ve tried to strike a balance between the blinking obvious and the deliberately perverse. I hope you have as much enjoyment disagreeing with my choices as I did coming up with them.
Deciding which names to include and which to exclude has meant making a few tough choices. Just being a great player in a major world sport and leaving behind a stack of records wasn’t enough. Neither was simply taking a sport from one place to another – so there is no entry for the first man to play soccer in, say, Bulgaria (sorry, George de Regibeaus). Although there are entries on everything from snooker to mountaineering, most names have come from the more popular world sports: football, cricket, rugby, golf, tennis, athletics, cycling and motor sport. I have also tried to favour sportspeople over the promoters, businesspeople and PR men who cluster around them. They’re just more interesting.
Cramming 250 biographies into one book – or one author’s lifetime – won’t go, so I have limited myself to introducing these men, women and animals and how and why they changed the world of sport, rather than providing blow-by-blow descriptions of their careers. If you want to dig deeper, the bibliography contains a number of sources. Covering so many different sports and their stars has often meant relying on secondary sources rather than original materials and I apologise for any myths, lies and half-truths I have fallen for. God knows there are enough of them in sport.
Each entry contains a brief summary of a character’s major sporting achievements – if any. In the interest of keeping them short and relevant, different sports and stars have been treated differently. Thanks to the Internet, far more detailed statistics on appearances and scores are just a click – or possibly a frustrating pause – away. In terms of career statistics, all averages are presented in brackets. In the case of baseball, which has its own statistical language, it may help to know that batting averages are the ratio of hits to bats (anything over .300 is something to be very proud of) while RBI – runs batted in – refers to all the runs achieved while that player was ‘at-bat’.
Particular thanks go to David Barber at the Football Association, Peter Clare at Snooker Heritage, Adrian McGlynn at Weatherbys, Bill Miller at rowinghistory.com, Ron Palenski at Otago Rugby Football Union and Neil Rhind at Blackheath Football Club. My thanks also to Tim Waller, Mark Stanton at Jenny Brown Associates, Tristan Jones, Juliet Brooke, Zoe Hood and Jenny Rowley at Yellow Jersey and Lucy, JJ and Al at home.
Finally, my apologies to all those sportspeople who are remembered for a one-off ‘rush of blood’ rather than a lifetime of honest sporting toil. As the story of John the Goat-shagger reminds us, it’s not the hundreds of goats you don’t shag that get remembered.
Giacomo Agostini, motorcyclist and team manager, born Brescia, Italy 16 June 1942. Career: MV Agusta 1964–74, Yamaha 1974–7, world champion 350 cc 1968, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 500 cc 1966, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75. Overall record: 186 Grands Prix, 122 wins, 117 fastest laps. Motorcycle Hall of Fame 1999.
DESPITE A RECORD number of Grand Prix wins, the most significant race in the world-beating career of Giacomo ‘Ago’ Agostini was one in which he didn’t take part.
With 122 GP victories between 1964 and 1977, Agostini was motorcycling’s first superstar. The handsome and wealthy Ago tricked his family into allowing him to race – by implying that he meant to become a cyclist – and soon became the undisputed king of the sport. He very rarely crashed and only Jarno Saarinen’s ‘hanging-off’ style ever really threatened him. In 1974, Ago’s move from MV Agusta to Yamaha signalled the final takeover of 500 cc racing by the Japanese manufacturers – but the race that made the biggest difference to the sport had taken place two years earlier.
On the morning of 9 June 1972, the 125 cc British Grand Prix took place around the Isle of Man TT course in heavy rain, low cloud and mist. The course was dangerous enough in perfect conditions – long and hard to learn, with narrow twisting roads, flanked by buildings and stone walls covered by only the most basic padding. Here, on the multiple bends known as Verandah, Agostini’s friend Gilberto Parlotti crashed into a concrete post and wire fence and was killed.
After Agostini threatened to withdraw from that afternoon’s senior race, conditions improved enough for him to compete and win his tenth TT, but afterwards he declared a personal boycott of the course, and got the backing of other stars, such as British champion Phil Read. The effect was electric – a sport’s greatest hero turning his back on its totemic event. Although some changes were made to Verandah, the boycott remained in force and by 1976 the Isle of Man was no longer a Grand Prix course. Other boycotts followed – of Monza, the Nürburgring and the Yugoslavian Grand Prix – and the sport slowly followed the example of motor racing by switching from races on public roads to purpose-built tracks. Despite this, the TT course remains in use today, having claimed over 200 lives so far. There were seven deaths in 2005 alone and in a health and safety conscious age, question marks hang over traditions like ‘Mad Sunday’, in which any member of the public can race over a section of the course.
Since retiring, Agostini has managed a number of successful riders including Kenny Roberts. Although in 2008 Valentino Rossi overtook Ago’s record of 67 premier class wins, he is still well short of his total of 301 victories in all competitions.
Charles William Alcock, footballer, cricketer and sports administrator, born Sunderland 2 December 1842, died 26 February 1907. Football career: Forest FC 1859–63, Wanderers FC 1863–75 (FA Cup 1872); England 1875, 1 cap, 1 goal (captain). First-class cricket career: Middlesex 1867, MCC 1862. Administrative career: FA honorary secretary 1868–70, FA secretary 1870–95, FA treasurer 1877, FA vice-president 1896–1907, Surrey CCC secretary 1872–1907. Editor Cricket 1882–1905, editor James Lillywhite’s Cricketers Annual 1872–1900, editor Football Annual 1868–1907.
A HYPERACTIVE SPORTSMAN, promoter, administrator, lawmaker and journalist, Charles Alcock is probably the single most influential figure in British sporting history. As well as being the pioneer of football as a national and international sport and the creator of the FA Cup, he also set up the first English Test match and was the spark for international rugby.
Just as a player Charles Alcock is worth a note. Although he wasn’t a great sporting star at Harrow School, he founded the Forest football team in Epping in 1859, which re-formed as the Wanderers four years later and won the first FA Cup final, during which Alcock had a goal disallowed for offside. Robust and tall for his day, Charles was a dribbling forward with a high work rate, a hard shot and a fierce tackle. Team-mate W.G. Grace – a pretty physical player himself – recalled Alcock sending rivals ‘flying off like catherine wheels’, and he even threw opponents like G.H. Sampson to the ground. Alcock was also one of the first to ‘back up’ or deliberately ‘combine’ with other players, and after he persuaded a reluctant FA to visit the North to play Sheffield, his interplay with fellow forwards Chenery and Viney impressed all who saw it – ‘as near to perfection as possible,’ said the Sheffield Independent. As a cricketer he was considered a good fielder, a steady batsman and a fair ‘change’ fast bowler. As well as captaining Middlesex in their very first match, he played for the MCC and various other gentlemanly sides. (He once even led a ‘France’ side against ‘Germany’ at a match in Hamburg.) Alcock also played rugby for the prestigious Blackheath team, umpired when injured and was the first president of the Referees’ Association, overseeing two FA Cup finals. However, he didn’t just play our big three team sports – he also helped create them.
When Alcock began his sporting career in the 1860s, football was pretty much like fives or rackets today – a minority sport played by a small number of ex-public schoolboys like himself. The rugby style was more prestigious and popular and the FA was simply the London-based organiser of a handful of teams, playing poorly attended, under-strength meetings in Battersea Park and a few other open spaces. Rules varied from team to team and place to place – although this hardly mattered, as there were no national competitions. During the 1860s it was simply a matter of keeping the game alive, but within ten years of Alcock taking over as the FA’s secretary, soccer would be well on the way to becoming Britain’s favourite sport.
Alcock’s brother John had already proposed the ‘anti-hacking’ motion that first divided soccer from rugby, and at 23 Alcock took over from him as Wanderers’ rep. Two years later, as honorary secretary, he oversaw the ending of all handling – except by the goalie in his own half – and hastened the final split with rugby. Unlike other more hidebound footballers, Alcock was open to new ideas, and in December 1871 he persuaded the London FA to play William Prest and Nathaniel Creswick’s Sheffield Association – who, although they played to different rules, had more clubs, more players and a longer history than the FA itself. These early matches raised football’s profile at a time when the Daily Telegraph still felt it necessary to explain that in the FA’s version of football, players didn’t catch the ball. During the return match in January 1872, Alcock established the idea of half-time – at first to allow matches to be played to different rules in different halves – and the half-time turnaround. Gradually, the FA would adopt the Sheffielders’ ideas of free kicks, corners and crossbars, until by 1877 they were willing to merge their rule books and join the FA, making it a truly nationwide organisation.
The Sheffielders’ own Youdan Cup competition may also have inspired Alcock’s other great scheme – the FA Cup – although another influence was the old Cock House tournament he had played in at Harrow. After mooting the idea in 1871, Alcock hosted the first 1872 final at Wanderers’ home ground, the Oval, where he became the first winning captain. The idea of a nationwide knockout competition took a while to catch on. At first only two teams north of Hertfordshire entered and both scratched during the knockout stages. Even by the mid-1870s the Cup was still only attracting about 40 teams – but the number of entrants soon rose and then soared, and by 1893 spectator numbers at the Oval had increased to a 32,000 lockout. By now, football had become the number one game in Britain and was spreading across the world.
As well as making football a national game, Alcock also staged the first ‘internationals’. Without a Scottish FA in existence, he used his press and personal contacts to stage a series of five unofficial matches, starting in 1870. While these might not have included many genuine Scots, they did stir up interest and led to the formation of a Scottish FA. However, they also provoked another group of Scottish footballers into staging the first rival rugby international and setting up a Scottish RFU. When the first official soccer international was staged in 1872, Charles was injured and unable to play, but this ‘jovial companion’ still travelled up overnight on hard seats to umpire a goalless draw at Partick. The following year he received a single England cap at centre forward.
At the same time, Alcock was also masterminding the development of the nation’s summer game. From 1872 he was the secretary of Surrey CCC – which made him Britain’s first professional sports administrator. At this time Surrey’s membership was just 650 and the club had only recently stopped staging poultry shows to pay the rent. Nationally, the game was pretty anarchic, with players like James Southerton popping up all over the place, random touring parties visiting from abroad and a chaotic County Championship that was decided by the newspapers.
From his base at the Oval, Alcock organised the other county secretaries to agree rules for player qualification – even standing up to the MCC when they threatened a rival tournament with looser rules to suit their aristocratic members. The Oval soon became the first national sporting centre. As well as cricket, it staged the first England v Scotland rugby international south of the border, the first rugby match against the Irish and half of the first 14 internationals – until 1879, when the damage to the pitch became too great. As for football, 20 of the first 21 FA Cup finals were held there, until the crowds grew too huge to manage. Lawn tennis, cycling, lacrosse, baseball and Australian rules football were also staged – although a plan to flood the pitch to create an ice rink was, perhaps fortunately, abandoned. By the time of Alcock’s death in 1907, Surrey’s membership had grown to 4,000 and the club’s new pavilion – the best in the country – even boasted hot baths. After his death it remained usual for the Surrey secretary to take the lead in arranging the playing schedule for touring cricket sides, and even today the concluding Test in a full series is still played at the Oval.
Despite all this activity, Charles Alcock considered himself first and foremost a journalist. In 1868, he became editor of the first Football Annual, as well as the ‘Red’ Lillywhite’s Cricketers’ Annual – while also working as assistant editor of The Sportsman, at whose offices FA meetings were often held. It was the press that enabled him to operate so effectively – deliberately needling the Scots into a football match by enquiring in the Glasgow Herald whether there was a ‘spark left of the old fire’. He also published Football and Cricket – the first weekly magazines devoted to the sports.
By 1880 Alcock was using his powers of persuasion to create cricket’s first great international sporting rivalry. At this time the touring Australians in Billy Murdoch’s team were in bad odour. A riot in Sydney during Lord Harris’s tour had soured the MCC towards the Australians and Lord’s wouldn’t entertain them, so their tour was limited to just three county matches. Having managed to get Sussex to postpone their fixture, Alcock persuaded Lord Harris to put together a side and from 6 to 8 September he staged the first English Test match, which proved a huge hit. (After printing 40,000 scorecards they ran out of paper altogether.) With the Aussies’ lethal weapon – bowler Frederick Spofforth – out of action and two great catches by Fred Grace, England needed just 57 to win, but fiddled pointlessly with the batting order and lost half their wickets for 31 before they were rescued by W.G. Grace. After these heroics the 1882 Test was even more of a thriller. The tension was so high that one spectator was said to have died of excitement, while another gnawed through his own umbrella handle. After Fred Spofforth had ripped through the English batsmen, the stunned Alcock was found with his head in his hands. These two Tests would inspire another 19 England v Australia tours before the end of the century and the creation of Test cricket as we know it – although the term wasn’t in general use until the 1890s. Alcock also organised the schedule for the first Indian touring side – a Parsee team that visited in 1886.
If all that wasn’t enough for one man, in 1885 Charles Alcock played yet another crucial role in sporting history, managing football’s transition to professionalism. At the time, it seemed that this might tear the game in two, with 36 teams threatening to set up a rival British Football Association. With his cricket background, Alcock saw no harm in professionalism, as long as it was properly controlled. Backed by other progressives such as Lord Kinnaird, he successfully argued for rules that would allow professionals to play in open competition, provided they lived within six miles of their club and had been resident for two years. (Though they were to be banned from FA meetings and committees.) While not very democratic by modern standards and not very long-lasting, Alcock’s move was enough to keep soccer together and prevented the kind of ruinous split that divided rugby into union and league.
Alcock’s other great footballing idea was the creation of a selectorial system, which he introduced in 1887. This paid off immediately as England dominated the home internationals. Though it became outdated, it was a definite advance on the old trials system, in which up to 90 players would jockey for inclusion in the national side. Another impact on the game was the suggestion that vertical Harrow stripes be the basic footballer’s costume – ever since stripes have predominated over Rugby School-style hoops.
For all his innovations, Alcock was not a revolutionary. Although he was a keen ‘backer up’, as late as 1879 he still doubted that ‘a wholesale system of passing pays’. Off the pitch, his successes were based on diplomacy, persistence and energy. A businessman rather than an idealist, he paid his star Surrey professionals well, but paid himself far better and stood out against their demands for £20 per Test in 1896 – roughly the same as the already wealthy ‘amateurs’ received. When the MCC, in a rare fit of energy, suggested a cricket cup – just like the FA Cup he had founded – Alcock was determinedly against the idea, as he didn’t want a rival to the County Championship.
Exactly how important Charles Alcock is in sporting history depends on whether you believe that he was a far-sighted genius or, like W.G. Grace, that he was simply ‘the right man at the right time’. He was certainly the right man at a crucial time. It was only after he created an open nationwide contest with clear universally accepted rules that football began to boom, and by smoothing the way to professionalism, he helped the sport avoid the split that left rugby in second place as Britain’s winter sport. Though not a visionary in the style of Olympic founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin, it was Charles Alcock, a practical man of action, who created the first truly global game and much else besides. No wonder his wife complained that she hardly ever saw him.
After his death in 1907, few seem to have had a bad word to say about Charles Alcock. He was buried in West Norwood – where his grave was recently restored. Today it is estimated that all the lines on all the world’s football pitches would stretch around the planet 11 times. That is perhaps his real monument.
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jnr, boxer, born Louisville, Kentucky 17 January 1942. Olympic light-heavyweight champion 1960, world heavyweight champion 1964–7, 74–8, 78–9. Overall record: 61 fights, 56 wins, 37 KOs, 5 losses. BBC Sports Personality of the Century.
‘I AM THE King! I am the King! The King of the World! Eat your words! Eat your words!’
Voted the Greatest Sportsman of the 20th century by both Sports Illustrated and the BBC, Muhammad Ali dances into any list of sporting greats and revolutionaries. A global icon, it is easy to lose sight of just how extraordinary he was and in how many ways. For a start, his first heavyweight championship victory, celebrated with these words, came as a total, numbing surprise to everyone – especially his opponent, the feared Charles ‘Sonny’ Liston.
Ali was an unusual boxer from the beginning, coming from a more comfortable background than most fighters – even though as a black man in racially segregated Kentucky he was still a second-class citizen. (Ali’s attempts to be ‘blacker than thou’ didn’t play well with fighters like Joe Frazier, who had come from a far tougher background, and this helped turn ‘Smoking Joe’ from an Ali supporter to an Ali hater.) Whatever his history, there was no doubting Ali’s extraordinary dedication, speed and reflexes, or his unusual coolness in a crisis. From the age of 12, as Cassius Clay, he put together a series of amateur victories, including the Golden Gloves, which he won after first being knocked down, before taking the gold medal at the Rome Olympics – a medal that, for a while, he wore continuously. After turning pro, he put together 19 victories, including 15 KOs, but his light weight, lack of any kind of guard and neglect of body punches all suggested a sacrificial victim for the feared Liston. Craziest of all, Ali pulled back to avoid punches rather than ducking from side to side in the usual way. This was a basic boxing ‘no-no’ that only he and fellow champion Jack Johnson got away with. To quote light-heavyweight champion José Torres, ‘the train never caught up with them.’
At the time of the Liston fight there was little to suggest that Ali was a serious threat, having scored inconclusive victories over Doug Jones and Henry Cooper, who, like Sonny Banks, had even put him down. At the weigh-in Ali was like no boxer ever seen before. In place of the usual ritualised posturing, he began taunting Liston and deliberately freaked out to unsettle him. Even so, Liston was still 7–1 on for victory before Ali defeated him, dancing, dodging punches and in round five withstanding the pain of having his eyes burned by a liniment-like substance on Liston’s gloves. (Not the first time the champion’s corner had used this trick.) Having survived all this, Ali came back so strongly that Liston quit on his stool, claiming a shoulder injury – which was later proved to be genuine.
As Ali leapt about, yelling at a hostile press, it was clear that this was no meek and deferential black star in the Joe Louis/Floyd Patterson mould. In fact, the very next day Ali spoke of his membership of the Nation of Islam – then also known as the ‘Black Muslims’ – a separatist political group that eventually took over his management, protecting and promoting him as the Mafia had Sonny Liston. Later, Ali would speak out against mixed marriages and in favour of the separate development of the races, while the Nation would rename him and fictionalise parts of his history – for example, the incident in which, terrorised by a white gang and refused service in a diner, he threw his Olympic medal in the Ohio river. (It seems more likely that it was simply lost.)
Having defeated Liston a second time with a punch so fast that few saw it properly, Ali went on to make eight defences in rapid succession, often predicting – with some accuracy – in which round he would win. As a fighter he was unique. Not only was he genuinely funny – claiming Liston was so ugly that his tears ran down the back of his head – he was such a kidder that opponents didn’t know whether he was faking injury or not, an approach that more than once got him out of jail. Though he was not the first boxer to make up verses about his opponent – William ‘Bendigo’ Thompson had done so in the 19th century – Ali was certainly a ‘rapper before rap’. As he gained size and power, he also became one of the most talented champions in history – a ‘four-way fighter’ able to move in, back or side-to-side with ease. The third biggest and tallest heavyweight champion to date, his speed, anticipation, reflexes, timing and power were irresistible. Above all, he was his own man and his fiercest fights were also the most political. When