Most appearances by a dead Soccer player Infographic

This is an old favourite of mine. I'm surprised I haven't put it in until now.

©2015 James Mathurin

The most disfiguring self-inflicted injury sustained in a sharp-shooting contest Infographic

Sooner or later, people are going to realise that guns are potentially a bit dangerous.

©2015 James Mathurin

Most fights in a pre-match boxing press conference Infographic

Is boxing the beautiful game? That's football, right? Boxing has a nickname, doesn't it? It completely escapes me right now.

©2015 James Mathurin

Most Lenient Referee Infographic

I did have this on here before, but I've found some errors in the original version, so this is more historically accurate now.

©2014 James Mathurin

The most disfiguring self-inflicted injury sustained in a sharp-shooting contest Infographic

I steer clear of firearms myself, and this is just one reason why.

©2014 James Mathurin

Longest Goal Celebration Infographic

Getting this one in before the World Cup Final.

copyright © 2014 James Mathurin

The Most Boring Town in the World Infographic

This one is originally from 2009, and is most definitely not a place I'm ever planning on visiting.

©2014 James Mathurin

The most drawn-out day of Association Football Infographic

Now that I live in Australia, I have to clearly differentiate between the various codes of football. This is about the real one.

©2014 James Mathurin 

World's Worst Ball Boy (tennis) Infographic

A quick note: I chose to specify tennis in the title, because there are, of course, ball boys in other sports, all with their own brands of awfulness, which I will probably attempt to document in the future. Here, though, is tennis' representative.

©2014 James Mathurin

The First Football team to be managed by a computer (infographic)

A story of football, Artificial Intelligence and (rumoured) robot wives.

©2013 James Mathurin

Infographic - Youngest Case of Steroid Abuse

The infographic of this 2003 record.

©2013 James Mathurin

The most drawn-out day of Association Football

The most drawn-out day of Association Football was in Poland, on Saturday 30^th November 1946. Due to the effects of war-time rubber rationing, only 5 balls were available for the whole of the national league, comprised of 19 teams. To cope with this, a one-off ruling was made that every time the ball went out of play at one match a ball-boy was chauffeured, with the ball, to the nearest stadium, so that that game would continue. After kicking off at 8am, the final whistle of the last game was sounded at 10:53 that night. The shortest game of the day had lasted 5 hours and 23 minutes, and one game had had a 42 minute half-time break, waiting for the next ball.

Karol Casimir, captain of Pelikan Radom, a club which does not exist now, but was the first club to kick off on this day of football. they actually managed 15 minutes before the ball was removed to be taken to anoher match. Speaking later, Casimir said,

"I was worried at first, as I knew other teams were waiting for our ball. One of my teammates, I won't name them, asked if we should kick the ball out deliberately, in order to allow other teams to start, but I told him that was not in the spirit of Pelikan, or the spirit of the game."

Photograph by Von Aisaider.

 ©2013 James Mathurin 

The first football club to be managed by a computer

The first football club to be managed by a computer was Worksop Town, whose chairman, Terrence Mawinney, insisted on installing the Artificintellimac 5.1 as manager after the club fired Peter Jacksmith from the position in the 1988/89 season. The computer, built my Mawinney’s company, Winneyworks, guided Worksop to third place in the Shamois Leather East Division, their highest position for 7 years, until it was corrupted by a virus, and substituted the left-winger for a cashier from the club shop, and sold the stadium’s goal-posts to hire a new physio. The Artificintellimac was removed as manager with five games of the season left, after being given the chairman’s “complete support.”

Terrence Mawinney is pictured here conducting a tour around Winneyworks' factory for potential investors. Many fans have suggested that Mawinney only installed the Artificintellimac as manager as a publicity stunt, but Mawinney's daughter suggested, in an interview with Techslice magazine, that Mawinney had, over his lifetime, developed an obsession with Artificial Intelligence, and sought out any opportunity to place computers into traditionally human roles. She also intimated that a "restricted area of the factory was devoted to an ultimately failed attempt to construct an "artificial wife" for Mawinney, according to his stipulations, one of which was an appreciation of football. Photograph by NRCgov.

 ©2013 James Mathurin

The youngest case of steroid use

The youngest case of steroid use in a sporting event was when Anwar al Hadat was found to have used the banned steroid Nandrolone, in the three-legged race at his Turkish school’s Sports Day in 2003. He was aged 6 years and 122 days at the time.

Hasim Uyger, father of one of the other boys at the sports day, who lost out to al Hadat. Interviewed when news of the doping came out he said,

"How do I feel? I felt excited at first, that maybe I had seen a great athlete of the future. Now I feel disappointed that my boy was robbed of third in the sack race."

 Photograph by bgrimmni.

 ©2012 James Mathurin 

The most disfiguring self-inflicted injury sustained in a sharp-shooting contest

The most disfiguring self-inflicted injury sustained in a sharp-shooting contest was sustained by Phillip ‘Panama’ O’Grady, in the ‘Jones’ Regal Annual Shoot-Off’, held in Kaiserslauten, Germany in March 1984. After hitting a bulls-eye in the main event, O’Grady habitually blew the smoke off of the barrel of his gun. However, this time the gun fired, blowing off the middle of his top and bottom lips, and taking off the end of his nose. O’Grady went on to collect Bronze in the competition, but refused to get cosmetic surgery, insisting, “This may be my chance to become a mainstream media celebrity. My Agent is already in talks with Thames Television about the possibility of starring in my own Comedy-Western series.”

'Panama' O'Grady, pictured in training for the Jones' Regal event in 1984. Picture by Augie Schwer.

©2011 James Mathurin

The World's Worst Ball Boy (Tennis)

The world’s worst ball-boy (tennis) was Pierre Gussette, a ball boy at the 1921 Lyon Open tournament. In the first match he was involved with, he managed to topple the Umpire’s chair twice, tried three times to run through the net, threw nine balls into the crowd, one of which hit the visiting King of Norway, and blinded one of the players, Gustaf Smick, who he had completely ignored until the fifth game of the second set. His ‘attack’ on the King of Norway almost caused a diplomatic incident, for which the French government was forced to imprison him for 7 years.

A ball-boy at a local Parisian Tennis Association match, fulfilling the role of 'Gussettier', an honorary position bestowed to the most 'sinister' ball-boy at some matches. Photo by pupismyname.

©2011 James Mathurin

Most boring town on the planet

The most boring town on the planet is Pinterville, a “planned community” in Colorado, USA. Founded in 1989 on a principle of housing “The affluent and morally-concerned”, its council has banned any activity that could be linked to poverty or depravity, eventually including music (“Lots of poor people make music, and lots of popular musicians set very morally lax examples,” said council member Ely Smithsonian. ”Even classical music can be a ‘gateway hobby’ to more questionable stylings, so we were forced to ban that as well.”), comedy (“Most comedians talk endlessly on subjects we’d rather not think about”) and art (“Too many naked people.”). Currently, the only permitted pastime in the town is competitive calligraphy, and the town’s team, the Pinterville Penmans, have reached the Colorado state semi-finals for 3 years running.

This pair of chairs was confiscated in 2000 from the house of Mason Goodroot and his wife Mindy, on the charge of being 'designed in a style that is potentially a source of visual discord," by the Pinterville Municipal Council, who found it to be in violation of at least 17 town ordnances. Photo by A gregglesworth.

©2009 James Mathurin