When Sporting Idols Were Human

Today when Real Madrid can spend 80 million pounds on a Portuguese footballer and 56 million on another Brazilian and can afford to pay them weekly wages on top that most of us can't dream of in a lifetime of working its almost hard to imagine that sport didn't always have such superstars. In sport there has always been athletes that have excelled above the rest but not all got the lifestyle that today's top athletes can expect.


I was just reading the story behind a new song written by Blair Douglas, a founding member of Runrig, the song is about a man named Giovanni "Johnny" Moscardini, who though born in Scotland in 1897 who went on to have a successful football career in Italy during the 20s and 30s. He became the top scorer for his club Pisa, before playing for the Italian national team where he was capped 9 times only to give it all up to help run his Uncle's ice cream shop back in Scotland. Somehow I just don't see Ronaldo or Kaka doing likewise. They might well send a cheque back home to a relative that needed some help but I doubt they'd be willing to give up their priviliged lifestyle to physically help the family business.

Yet sporting history is littered with interesting stories. Around the same time when Giovanni was playing football for Italy a Scottish runner was refusing to run his best event at the 1924 Olympics, the 100 meters, because it clashed with his religious beliefs. The heats were to be run on a Sunday so Eric Liddell, a devout protestant, felt that with it being the day of the Sabbath he could not compete. Instead he decided to train for the 400 meters, another event he was good at but was only expected to come 3rd in. A lot of today's 100 meter sprinters will double up on the 200 meters but it takes a special athlete to be able to compete at both 100 and 400 meters such is the differences in the discipline of the two events.

As it turned out, he not only won the race but set a new world record.


After his athletics career was over he continued his Missionary work in China, staying on to carry his work in 1941 when the British government advice was to leave due to the war between China & Japan. The Japanese later overtook the mission station with its members interned at the Weifang Internment Camp. Liddell died of a brain tumour hastened by malnourishment and overwork in 1945, months before the Japanese surrended. An unfortunate end for a man that was so admired by his peers for not only his athletic ability but for the man he was.

Its not only the athletes of the distant past that have interesting life stories, more recent athletes have done so as well. Take the story of amateur Scottish cyclist Graham Obree. When his bike shop failed with the burden of bad debts he decided that the way out of his problems was to beat the World hour velodrome record which had stood for 9 years. Unlike his English rival, Chris Boardman, who had access to the help of the UK Olympic team for coaching and sponsorship as well as custom made carbon fibre superbikes thanks to the backing of Lotus, Graham had to not only design his own training regime but build his own bike from left over stock from his shop and parts from an old washing machine.

The bike he subsequently designed had an unusual riding position, which he later became famous for, because not only was it aerodynamic but also because it allowed him to put more pressure on the pedals allowing him to get up to speed without the need for standing up. On his first attempt at the record he failed but he had booked the track for 24 hours so decided to come back early next morning to try again. In order to prevent his body from seizing up while he slept, he made himself drink pint after pint of water so that he would have to wake up every two hours for toilet trips which allowed him to stretch his muscles. With so much punishment on his body it should have been a waste of time even going back on track. The day before he had been fresh and had failed the old record by a kilometer, but this time the effort was not in vain and he beat the record by over 400 meters.


At a time when most professional cyclists seemed to be ruining the sport by competing with the aid of illegal drugs the World governing cycling body (the UCI) seemed to be more concerned that the evolution of the bicycle was making it possible for a disproportionate improvement to track records. So they banned the unusual elbows tucked in riding position that Graham had used to set his record, which meant that this necessitated the need for a new bike to be designed and built if he was to continue racing after Chris Boardman broke it a week after he had set it.

His new bike had yet another unusual riding position, later to be named the Superman position because of the way his arms were outstretched in front of him as he rode. He used this new bike to win the World Championship pursuit.

Not bad for someone who had to get over bouts of depression, which at times in his life was so severe that he had tried to kill himself not once but twice. The first time as a child when he was only saved by the luck of his father getting off of work unusually early and once as an adult after his brother died of a car crash, this time being saved by a woman who was checking out a barn.

To me its unusual stories like that can make Sport so much more interesting than impressive skills and crazy income levels and the building of expensive superteams such as Real Madrid.

My Gripes About Modern Life

Cars That Are Too Safe!

Ok you are probably thinking … ‘Steven what medications are you on today, how can cars be too safe?’ Hear me out before you go phoning the funny farm. I write this as cyclist, pedestrian AND a driver. Drivers quite rightly feel that they’re so well protected by their seatbelts, bull-bars, airbags, ejector seats and the rest that they can afford to take risks. Cyclists, pedestrians and other drivers (who can only afford an old second hand car) are the ones who have to pay for the modern safety conscious car. I am speaking from experience here.

While I was a student I was a keen cyclist, I used to ride 100+ miles in a day. One week I was informed that there was going to be a couple of cycling scouts at the next amateur road race I was competing in, so I went out training so that I would be inb the right shape so I could make a good impression. This was back when I was young, naïve and misguided and thought that perhaps with the right coaching I could be good enough to do the Tour De France one day. I didn’t have the talent, but a guy has dreams and I thought that this was my big chance and could perhaps be a step in the right direction. On my training run I was around 4 miles from home cycling down the Campsie Hills. Approaching the bottom of the hill where there is a bend that leads into the town. At this bend one idiot driver decided to overtake another driver. One stupid, thoughtless manoeuvre resulted in me having no road left to ride on. To prevent myself from going over the top of the oncoming car, or worse under it I had to take avoidance action, instead of following the road into the bend I had to go straight ahead. Lucky for me straight ahead was a golf course, unlucky for me there was no way into the golf course. To prevent cars from entering the golf course 3 giant boulders had been strategically placed at the edge of the road, not only did it prevent cars it did the same for bikes. My front wheel hit the first boulder, wrecking £1800 of equipment, throwing me over the handlebars in the process, making me land shoulder first on the third boulder breaking my collarbone. I never did get spotted by a scout.

I might be wrong here, but my theory is this if the car wasn’t as safe for drivers as it was then possibly the driver wouldn’t have overtaken on a blind bend like that. My argument is that the only way you will prevent stupid dangerous behaviour by drivers is if you make driving more dangerous for the occupant of the vehicle.

I think I’ll call it the ‘hit them where it hurts’ theory. I’d replace seatbelts, that have a little bit of give in them when braking, with cheese wire that cuts into the flesh under heavy braking. I’d also replace bull-bars on SUVs with a spear mounted on the drivers steering wheel, preferably lined up with the drivers heart. That way when the driver is going too fast and has to break suddenly instead of killing some poor kid who was crossing the road it would be the driver who would suffer horrendous injuries. These innovations would skewer and slice the typical crash-test dummy, but drivers aren’t crash-test dummies. Most drivers have a brain (yes I did say most), give them the right incentive and they will drive more carefully, to the benefit of the cyclists, pedestrians and other drivers.

Personally I am of the opinion that seatbelts cause accidents. Don’t get me wrong I know they save lives, I’m not that stupid. If you are unlucky enough to be involved in a collision at 30 mph, there are 3 ways to stop moving at 30mph. You can go flying through the windscreen and land on the ground, that might lead to your death or severe injury, brain damage perhaps.. Alternatively you can go flying in the car until you hit a fellow passenger, you might kill the passenger but you should live. Or you could wear a seatbelt. I know what I would rather do. As soon as I put on my seatbelt I feel safe to drive. This is a good thing for me, but can be a bad thing for others if i'm inconsiderate driver who doesn't pay enough attention to what I am doing.

When we feel safe, we drive more dangerously. You only have to look at the boy racers out there with their extra loud exhausts and go faster stripes. They take risks because they are under the impression that they are a good driver, and so go charging off down the street when the traffic lights turn green. You may be under the impression that you are a great driver and have never been involved in an accident and could be struggling with the concept that you drive more dangerously because of your cars safety features.

Think about those occasions when your car’s safety features have let you down: the seatbelt mechanism is stuck; the baby is on someone’s lap because the baby seat is elsewhere; one headlight is on the blink. In those situations, you drive more carefully - more slowly, less aggressively, with less attention to the CD under the seat or the incoming phone calls. That must mean when the safety systems are all operating well, you don’t drive as carefully.

Safety features encourage drivers to jabber on mobile phones, drive with their knees while putting on make-up and break the speed limit with relative impunity. Would they be so keen act in such a way if they had cheese wire for seatbelts?