Lazio midfielder Luciano Re Cecconi’s sense of humour was his downfall. In 1978 he walked into a Rome jewellery shop and shouted «Stop! This is a robbery.» The shop owner shot Cecconi, who died trying to explain the joke.
A young mother got her kit off to give her son a dream trip to the 2003 Worthington Cup final. She posed as a nude model for an art class and won two free tickets to see Manchester United play Liverpool at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. The young mum spotted a competition in her local paper asking people what they would be prepared to do to get their hands on tickets. She submitted her outrageous suggestion but admitted she hoped she wouldn’t win. But she did and said: «I was dreading a phone call and it took a bit of nerve to take my clothes off.» She went to the final with United fan son, who saw his side beaten 2-0.
Chinese officials accused Italian football clubs Inter Milan and Lazio of racking up a £6,000 wine bill during a 2009 trip for a friendly match at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium.
Former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish was the innocent victim of a business feud that saw a grenade left at his Birkdale home in 2009. Two men who planned the grenade attack on a Merseyside businessman were jailed for abandoning the device outside the Dalglish home. It was intended to be thrown through a window at Dalglish’s neighbour, but the plan was foiled by undercover police before the attack. Two men were jailed for five years and four and a half years respectively.
Prolific French striker Nicolas Anelka had to hire a chauffeur when he joined Manchester City in 2002 because he kept getting lost on his way to the club training ground. Then, first time out, the chauffeur got lost too.
A six-month deal with a top Colombian club was the prize in a South American game show. Julian Martinez Cabrera, 17, landed a deal with Club Deportivo Los Millonarios after seeing off 10,000 other hopefuls to win the race for a short contract. Cabrera, who got his big chance when he won the majority of votes from both the judging panel and the audience of the reality TV show, said he was hopeful of ultimately making the Millonarios’ first team. A Millonarios spokesman said: «Julian is very good.»
Diego Forlan revealed how a few millimetres in the length of studs got him booted out of Manchester United. The row with Sir Alex Ferguson over his choice of footwear ended in the Uruguayan being sold to Villarreal in 2004. Ferguson wanted him to play with long studs, which suit wet pitches, but Forlan felt more comfortable in short ones. He defied Ferguson and missed a great chance in a match United lost against Chelsea. Forlan recalls: «I rushed to the dressing room to change boots but Ferguson caught me. He grabbed the boots and threw them. That was my last game for United.»
Pizza was allegedly thrown at coach Sir Alex Ferguson after a fiery match between his Manchester United and English Premiership arch-rivals Arsenal. The pizza, flavour unknown, was thrown by an Arsenal player during a post-match fracas in the tunnel.
Everton manager David Moyes paid £5m for a Denmark international centre half in 2005 but very quickly decided Per Kroldrup wasn’t for him. Kroldrup played one game before being sold to Fiorentina.
Organisers of the famous 2003 Rio de Janeiro Carnival drafted in a group of 130 Ronaldo lookalikes to open the event. The group, men and women, were dressed in exact replicas of the kit Ronaldo wore during the winning of the 2002 World Cup – right down to the boots and the disastrous two-tone flat-iron haircut modelled by the Brazilian striker during the tournament. Carnival organisers even hired Paulo Cesar Carvalho, the official hairdresser to the Brazilian football team, to ensure hairstyle authenticity. The Rio Carnival is a wild four-day annual celebration befOre the beginning of Lent.
Football was the inspiration of an ever-changing piece of art in 2003. In a unique collaboration Antonio Becerro – Chile’s equivalent of Damien Hirst – had top player and compatriot Francisco Huaiquipan take penalties against him using a freshly painted football. The goal was a large white canvas and the work of art changed every time Colo Colo player Huaiquipan struck the ball. Becerro said: «Even the missed penalties produced art because the ball splashed me and the canvas.»
Colchester United organised an «everything must go» internet sale of monogrammed kit left behind by former boss Steve Whitton. With the club as a player and manager for nine years Whitton left in 2003 without managing them to promotion but in danger of relegation from the English league Second Division. Colchester’s online auction took bids for Whitton’s training kit, including trousers, shorts, socks and rain jacket – all complete with the «SW» initials.
