General Ignorance in Sport
| 11
|
by user Alex Holowczak
In Britain, we are treated to the wonderful QI, a TV comedy programme on BBC2 designed to sort fact from fiction.
Each show ends with the “General Ignorance” Round, which is basically a round where the truth comes out, and all misconceptions are put to bed.
If you give an answer that you think to be correct, but is actually wrong, then you lose points. A siren rings in the background.
Here are a few sporting brilliancies!
Which boy from Rugby School invented an internationally popular ball game in the 19th Century?
Not William Webb Ellis. (The siren answer!) Ask anyone in the know about Rugby Union, and that will come up. The World Cup Trophy is named after him.
At Rugby School, in Rugby, England, there is a memorial plaque, “THIS STONE COMMEMORATES THE EXPLOIT OF WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF THE RUGBY GAME A.D. 1823”
However, this is wrong. Ellis was never the inventor – he didn’t even come close to it.
The evidence is based on a letter to The Times newspaper 57 years after the incident is supposed to have taken place. This is compete nonsense, however.
The answer is Tom Willis, the actual inventor of Australian Rules Football. He invented the game at Rugby School in 1840, but has been written out of the books. American Football evolved even later.
When did a Russian linesman help the English National Football Team?
This refers to the 1966 World Cup Final, between England and West Germany at Wembley. At 2-2, the match went into extra-time.
Geoff Hurst then hit the ball against the cross-bar and down toward the line, but no-one could tell if it went in. Apart from the linesman!
This is the “Russian Linesman” referred to in the question! Tofik Bakhramov awarded the goal.
However, he was born in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Anyone in the Soviet Union at the time was classified as a Russian, even though the official name for them was Soviet. So whenever an English commentator says “where’s a Russian Linesman when you need one?” he actually wants an Azerbaijani linesman.
Furthermore, he had no authority to give the goal, but the match referee gave it as he was unsure, and Mr. Bakhramov seemed so. England went on to win 4-2.
Another famous Azerbaijani is Garry Kasparov, a former Chess World Champion.
Who won the 1973 Canadian Grand Prix?
A quick glance at Wikipedia will show you that Peter Revson won the race. This would be the siren answer!
Revson didn’t win the race. In actual fact, to this day, nobody knows who won the race! After an incident involving Jody Scheckter and Francois Cevert, the safety car had to be called upon, for the first time ever in Formula One. The idea was that it had to pick up the leading car. Otherwise the whole system collapsed. Unfortunately, everybody decided to pit on the lap the safety car was deployed. As a result, the car the safety car had been told to get infront of was not going to be the leader after the pitstops.
It ended up picking up someone that was definitely not the leader, and since there was no radio with the safety car, or no electronic timing, nobody actually knew who was leading. Emerson Fittipaldi was at the back of the field, and the crowd thought he was winning. He came through the field afterward, and was catching Peter Revson on the track.
The chequered flag came down for Revson, which bemused the crowd, who were convinced that Fittiapldi had won (and was about to lap Revson). However, nobody knew for sure. In the resulting chaos, Revson was awarded the win.
Fortunately, Jackie Stewart had long since become World Champion, and the race made no real difference from that perspective.
Where was the first ever golf club set up?
Not St. Andrews.
The St. Andrews Society of Golfers was founded in 1754. Muirfield however predates it by 10 years – The Honorary Company of Edinburgh Golfers.
Unofficially, people have been playing on the links at St Andrews since the 14th century, which more than predates the life of Muirfield. But an official golf club was set up ten years after the one at Muirfield.
Who was responsible for the tie-breaker in tennis?
Not Pancho Gonzales.
In 1969, at Wimbledon, a 41 year old Gonzales won a match 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9 against Charlie Pasarell. Pasarell had 7 match points in the fifth set. The match lasted over five hours. In the early days of Open tennis, it seemed a more realistic end to a set was needed. The tie-break was introduced in 1970 at the US Open, and in 1971 at Wimbledon. Nowadays, only the US Open has a tie-break in the fifth set – all other matches at Grand Slams still use the old system of needing to win by two clear games in the final set, a reminder of the traditional days of tennis.
As a matter of fact, the idea of a tie-break had been introduced 14 years earlier. James van Alen theorised a 21 point tiebreak, using the same scoring method as table tennis could be used. In 1956 though, the fans at the United States Professional Championship expressed their dislike for this rule, and it was scrapped.
Van Alen also founded the Tennis Hall of Fame.
The actual tennis scoring system is interesting, nobody actually knows where the love, fifteen, thirty, and deuce comes from, the best guess being to do with the French, whom invented the game, and links to a clockface.
And so concludes my tour of sporting General Ignorance for now! I will post future editions if I can find any such examples on a par with these. Feel free to add some of your own to this list if you like!
