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A fraud conviction, a self-confessed gambling addiction and rumors of supplementing his income with bare-knuckle boxing were just some of the colourful off-field antics of striker Billy Whitehurst. Some of the biggest names in English football rated Whitehurst the hardest man they had ever played against. Wandering Whitehurst played for nine English league clubs and in Ulster, Australia and Hong Kong. The former bricklayer cemented his place as a cult figure before a knee injury forced his retirement in 1993, but in 2005 he was convicted of a £12,000 fraud after failing to declare a footballer’s pension while claiming unemployment benefit.
England players came under fire for their drinking exploits on a 1996 tour to the Far East. They caused £5,000 damages to an aircraft, and then some squad members were pictured strapped into a dentist’s chair at a Hong Kong club having drinks poured down their throats from a certain height.
Fowler – the cocaine snorter!
Robbie Fowler’s career at English Premiership side Liverpool wasn’t to be sniffed at until he tried a very special goal celebration. Angered by persistent, though never substantiated, rumors about cocaine snorting, striker Fowler tried to have his say in an unusual and demonstrative way. After scoring a goal in a 1999 match against Everton, he went on all fours and pretended to snort the white lines around the pitch. It caused uproar with a rift with manager Gerard Houllier that was never healed. He was increasingly sidelined and eventually transferred to Leeds United.
Ian Halloway, manager of English Coca-Cola Championship side Blackpool, was forced to wear an oversized £12.99 charity shop suit in 2009 for being late for training.
Now, that’s how you let out your frustration!
It took two fans just 22 minutes of the first match of the 2009-10 English season to become disillusioned. Frustrated as their newly relegated Norwich City fell 4-0 behind to Colchester United, the two fans charged across the pitch, ripped up their £350 season tickets and threw them towards the Norwich manager Bryan Gunn. Although stewards and police escorted them out of the stadium there was some sympathy for the fans’ frustration, because Coca-Cola League One Norwich went on to suffer their heaviest ever home defeat: 7-1. Gunn was sacked within days. Ironically, Norwich City were promoted at the end of the season.
German club Gottingen 05’s 2009 shirt deal caused a storm because it advertised…a brothel. After problems getting a conventional backer, club director Burkhard Bartschat said: “We have 700 children at matches – but so what? It’s real life. People should grow up.”
You wouldn’t want to mess with his guy!
English goalkeeper Graham Stack was used to punching the ball away from his goal, but in the 2002-03 season, his fists came came in handy to save himself from rioting fans. Although he was Arsenal’s reserve goalkeeper, he won cult status while on loan at Belgian club Beveren for thumping a supporter from rivals Royal Antwerp. After being subjected to abuse and missile throwing during the game, Stack confronted Antwerp fans who menacingly ran on to the pitch to confront him at the final whistle. Claiming self-defence, he punched one of them in the face. He was quoted as saying: “Someone was running at me and it was obvious he wasn’t going to stop. So, I swung at him out of self-defence.”
A plan to re-invent penalty taking was foiled in Japan’s J-League in 2010. Hiroshima defender Tomoaki Makino placed the ball and shaped up for a run up when Hisato Sato rushed past him to score. However, the ref ruled it out for unsportsmanlike behaviour.
Ethiopia was effectively stripped off its national team when 16 members of the squad sought political asylum in Italy. Fifteen players and their coach disappeared from Rome en route to an Africa Cup of Nations match in Morocco in 1997.
Austria will forever be known as the first side to be defeated by the little Faroe Islands. The European Championship group-qualifying match in 1990 was the islanders’ first recognized FIFA international and the team of amateurs won 1-0 thanks to timber merchant Torkil Nielsen’s goal. The match was played in Landskrona, Sweden, because the islands (population 48,000) did not have the facilities to host it. The Faroes, situated between Iceland and Norway, had joined FIFA only two years ago, but had played unofficial games since the 1930s.
Read some of the other stories from the series here:
