Great Sporting Wisdom: Legendary Quotes from the World of Sport

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 out, “Captain Bligh” turns into Casanova and is all ready to play deck coitus.’

In 1890 Samuel Butler observed: ‘It is bad enough to see one’s own good things fathered on other people, but it is worse to have other people’s rubbish fathered upon oneself.’ Received wisdom is often incorrect. Cary Grant boasted: ‘I improve on misquotation.’ This book may also serve as an arbitration facility for long-standing disputes about who said what. The target audience is any reader with a sense of humour, or an eye for the eccentric or simply ridiculous, but obviously this will mean more to the sports enthusiast. One preliminary warning – the truth is often funnier than fiction.

John Scally

Rathmines, Dublin

PART ONE (#ulink_41d31e21-e6c6-507b-b9f3-b1a3902b6fbd)

THE GOOD, THE GLAD AND THE WORDY (#ulink_41d31e21-e6c6-507b-b9f3-b1a3902b6fbd)

1 (#ulink_04cd6e23-c4de-5c21-aa21-93ce7123b21c)

Athletic Aberrations (#ulink_04cd6e23-c4de-5c21-aa21-93ce7123b21c)

Robert Burns once stated: ‘I like to have quotations ready for every occasion … they save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one’s feelings.’ At its best, athletics has the power to make the pulse miss a beat. Whatever your sporting fancy, this collection of quotations recreates the unique excitement, drama and unpredictability of athletics in the words of the sport’s practitioners. Anyone who’s anyone in the athletics game may find themselves quoted here in their scurrilous, unguarded, rude and humorous moments. A newspaper is rather caustically defined by George Bernard Shaw as a device ‘unable to distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.’ Hence it is no surprise that the media presence in this section is very strong.

1. On the track

Misplaced Confidence

The difference between me and other athletes who go to the Olympics is that I go to win and they go to compete.

David Bedford, long-distance runner, before the Munich Olympics. He only came sixth!

Heavy Breather

The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

Erma Bombeck

Fall Of The Titans

The most famous collision since the Titanic and the iceberg.

Pat Butcher on Zola Budd’s tripping of Mary Decker in the 1984 Olympics

Amongst Women

My secrets? I don’t know – maybe ladies?

Mexican marathon man Dionicio Ceron on the key to his success

Health-Conscious

Go jogging? What, and get hit by a meteor?

Robert Benchley

The Power Of Love

I never jog. Love is still a better and more pleasurable sport.

Cary Grant

Race

We should be thankful to lynch mobs. I’ve got a brother who can run a half-mile faster than any white boy in the world.

Dick Gregory

Handicap

My leotard got twisted and stuck right up my bottom just as I was getting to the hurdle. It was a bit of an unwanted distraction, really.

Sally Gunnell, unhappy at encountering unexpected problems in her 1993 World Championship semi-final

You Don’t Say

Early rounds of an athletics meeting are called heats, because that is when the competition begins to heat up.

Colin M. Jarman

A Racing Certainty

The race is not always to the swift, but that is where to look.

Hugh E. Keough

Close Shave

Italian men and Russian women don’t shave before a race.

Eddy Ottoz

Bias

The decathlon is nine Mickey Mouse events and the 1500 metres.

Steve Ovett

Incentive

I’m Jewish. I don’t work out. If God wanted us to bend over he’d put diamonds on the floor.