Every week we witness footballers suffering injuries on the pitch. But over the years, many of the worst injuries have occurred off the playing arena, quite frequently in the home and more often than not, of a bizarre nature.
Perhaps the most celebrated case was when Rio Ferdinand injured himself back in 2001 while performing the physically demanding act of watching television. Apparently he strained a tendon while he had his feet up on the coffee table for several hours. Now, that takes some doing for someone supposedly at the peak of his fitness.
But Rio was not the first player to be injured while watching television. In 1998, Robbie Keane, in his Wolverhampton days, required major cartilage work when he messed up his knee while stretching for the remote control. At least he was actually moving when he hurt himself, unlike Rio.
Outdoing both of these was Leroy Lita. During his time at Reading, Leroy phoned in one morning saying he couldn’t move from his bed. He claimed he injured himself by stretching in bed after waking up. Manager Steve Coppell was reportedly not amused.
Another candidate for the “lazy injury” department is Italy’s Alessandro Nesta. After indulging in an all-night PlayStation session, Nesta suffered a ruptured tendon in his left thumb and required surgery which put him out for a month.
Goalkeepers suffer a lot of injuries on the field of play, but appear to be equally vulnerable off it. One of the more celebrated self-inflicted injuries fell to goalkeeper Dave Beasant in his Chelsea days. He had been suffering a touch of the “dropsies’’ in matches, so it came as no surprise when it was revealed that he dropped a jar of salad cream in his kitchen and broke his foot while trying to trap it.
In a similar vein, Spanish ‘keeper Santiago Canzares missed the entire 2002 World Cup after dropping a bottle of aftershave on his foot. In 1975 Manchester United goalie Alex Stepney succeeded in breaking his jaw simply by shouting abuse at his defenders. At least this injury occurred on the field of play.
Another bizarre goalkeeping injury suffered during a match was in 1970 when Brentford goalie Chic Brodie was flattened in his penalty area at Colchester by a dog that ran on pitch chasing the ball. It looked quite amusing at the time, but unfortunately the kneecap injury Brodie suffered ended his career.
A dog was also responsible for an injury to Barnsley midfielder Darren Barnard. The newly acquired puppy had left a naughty puddle on the kitchen floor, Barnard trod in it, performed an involuntary somersault and that was that — out of action for the next five months with a knee injury.
Stoke midfielder Liam Lawrence was another canine victim, colliding with his dog as he was rushing to the bathroom, suffering a badly sprained ankle.
Perhaps the most bizarre injury featuring an animal happened to Norwegian defender Svein Grondalen. He was out jogging one morning and collided with a moose, putting him out for several games.
Then there was Rochdale ‘keeper Neil Edwards who, during a match against Scunthorpe, was bitten on the arm by an angry Canadian goose he had tried to remove from the Glanford Park pitch. Play was held up for a considerable time while Edwards was treated for his goose bite.
The bathroom is widely recognised as the room with the most potential for a mishap, as Allan Mullery discovered in his days with Spurs. But it was not a result of slipping on a bar of soap or anything like that. He succeeded in putting his back out while brushing his teeth. That was enough to put him out of the 1966 England World Cup-winning squad.
One of the more unusual off-field injuries was suffered by Aston Villa’s diminutive left-back Alan Wright in the 1990s. After splashing out on a Ferrari the vertically challenged Wright suffered a knee ailment because his foot could not reach the accelerator properly. He hastily changed to a Rover.
As Beasant discovered, the kitchen is also a likely place to pick up an unusual injury. When he was playing for Rangers, defender Kirk Broadfoot was inspecting two poached eggs he had just cooked in the microwave when one blew up, covering his face in yoke and scalding water. Grimsby keeper Aiden Davis suffered egg abuse of a different nature when he was felled by a hard-boiled egg thrown from the crowd during a match against Fulham in 1998.
Another Grimsby player suffered a traumatic incident of a different nature in the dressing room. Manager Brian Laws was furious with the performance of Italian midfielder Ivano Bonneti after losing to Luton in 1996 and hurled a plate of chicken wings at the player. The chicken wings didn’t do much damage, but the plate did, fracturing the unfortunate Italian’s jaw. It came as no surprise that Bonneti moved to Tranmere a few months later.
Possibly one of the daftest football injuries came after the League Cup final in 1993 in which Arsenal defeated Sheffield Wednesday. Arsenal captain Tony Adams was so delighted with Steve Morrow for scoring the winning goal he picked him up, slipped and accidentally dropped him, breaking Morrow’s arm. The unfortunate Morrow had to be whisked off to hospital and missed the rest of the season, including the FA Cup final.
Anyway, next time you’re reaching for the remote, brushing your teeth or simply having a quiet stretch, be careful or you might end up sitting in a hospital bed.