“I did get on the field in front of Bay 13 at the MCG. I can remember having an exchange with a hostile crowd down there. I did give some back – which was stupid. “Ah, look, we’ve got a young goose here, there’s only 35 shoplifting days to Christmas, Cornery,” they shouted. Then they started to throw marbles and they were pinking me on the back of my jersey. There must have been a hundred marbles around me and I thought I was going to roll an ankle. Then they started throwing pies when they ran out of marbles. And that attracted the birds. I had undulating ground underfoot and above, flying wildly around me, were birds swooping to attack these bits of meat. It was a disaster. And it was from that day on that I was solely a slip fielder.”
– Gideon Haigh’s sweet tribute to England’s Chris Tavere:
“As an ersatz opening batsman, Tavaré did not so much score runs as smuggle them out by stealth.”
– How A $500 Craigslist Car Beat $400K Rally Racers:
“I once asked Bill why he insisted on going through every spectator section crossed up and with the engine banging off the limiter. “Dude,” he said, “I don’t care if it costs me a couple of tenths. It makes the fans go nuts.”
– The top ten Roy Keane battles:
“The two had been grappling for an hour or so before McAteer responded to a Keane foul by miming writing motions, mere days after the midfielder had said he’d rather buy his son a Bob The Builder CD than Keane’s autobiography. Soon afterwards, they chased for a loose ball, Keane elbowed McAteer in the head, and off he trudged.”
