SANDY LYLE
1 The 1985 Open champion and enthusiastic self-lobbyist for the Ryder
Cup captaincy walked off the course after nine holes at Birkdale on
Thursday, claiming his son and caddy, Stuart, couldn’t keep dad’s clubs dry.
Worse still, his fingers were hurting, he had too many clothes on and he’d
lost his swing as well as his bottle. Of course, it had nothing to do with
taking 45 shots to play the front nine. “I was a complete basket case around
there, it was a complete meltdown,” he wailed as his reputation drifted off
into the ether. “I would have done myself more harm than good staying out
there. I was cold.” Just the man to have alongside you in the trenches.
SOL CAMPBELL
2 February 2006 and Arsenal are 2-1 down to West Ham, both visitors’
goals following Sol Campbell errors. At half-time Campbell ignores Arsène
Wenger’s team talk, tells physiotherapist Gary Lewin “I can’t go on”, flees
Highbury and hops on the Eurostar to Brussels. Helpful teammate Robert Pires
explains Campbell has “big problems” at home, which involve a love child and
a disintegrating relationship with elderly designer Kelly Hoppen. Two months
later, Campbell was back, answering no questions but claiming everything was
“Okay”. Not wholly coincidentally, he was off-loaded to Portsmouth the
following close season.
THE WILLIAMS SISTERS
3 The Williams sisters reached the semi-finals of the Pacific Life
Open in Indian Wells in 2001. After a vigorous training workout, moments
before they were due to play each other, it was announced that Venus was
withdrawing, claiming a poorly knee. The announcement did not go down well
with the expectant crowd, especially since it had been previously suggested
that matches between the sisters were, um, less than competitive, if you
understand what we mean. To be fair, it can’t be especially easy facing your
much-loved sibling, with your family watching on from the sidelines. Handily
rested, Serena beat Kim Clijsters in the final and was booed throughout, as
were the watching Venus and their father, Richard, who claimed racism. “What
the white people at Indian Wells have been wanting to say all along to us
finally came out: ‘Stay away from here; we don’t want you.’ I’ll never go
there again, because I believe they would skin me alive.” After the victory,
the Williamses walked out and announced they would never again play at
Indian Wells. And, holding a grudge with a tenacity that even the Taliban
might admire, they haven’t . . .
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN
5 Trailing 4-1 to Stephen Hendry during the 2006 UK snooker
championship in York, O’Sullivan led the sixth frame and notched up a break
of 24. After missing a straightforward red, he immediately turned to shake a
somewhat perplexed Hendry’s hand and forfeited the match. The Scot was
bemused by this latest example of O’Sullivan’s bizarre behaviour. Ronnie
was, though, contrite afterwards: “I had a bad day at the office. I walked
away from a game that, with hindsight, I should have continued. I am
disappointed with myself and I am hurt and numb.” He was fined £21,000,
docked 900 ranking points and he promised not to do it again.
OLIVER McCALL
4 Less the Atomic Bull his publicity claimed and more the Scaredy Cat,
McCall was never the most stable of characters and a career in the ring was
never going to help his equilibrium, especially when it involved facing big
bad men who just might hit him back. Shortly after being arrested for
spitting at a cop, his nadir came during a 1997 fight for the vacant WBC
title against Lennox Lewis, before which he’d alternated training with drug
rehabilitation and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Lewis, lest we forget, was
a fearsome opponent - just ask Frank Bruno and Mike Tyson. Anyway, McCall
confused Lewis with his bizarre behaviour throughout the fight and when the
17st pugilist refused to throw any punches in the fifth round and started
crying, Lewis was awarded the title. It was enough to reduce anybody to
tears.
ROY KEANE
6 Always more keen on the nuclear explosion than the diplomatic
option, Keane walked out of Ireland’s Saipan training camp before the 2002
World Cup. Getting on his wick were manager Mick McCarthy, the training
facilities, the lack of equipment, the forced bonhomie with journalists and
the junket mentality of the Irish FA. At a team meeting, the rest of the
squad stared hard at the floor as Keane told McCarthy: “I didn’t rate you as
a player, I don’t rate you as a manager and I don’t rate you as a person.
You’re a f****** w***** and you can stick your World Cup up your a***.” He
flew back home in a lather. His Labrador, Triggs, needed a walk. Attempts
were made to persuade Keane to change his mind and return to join his
teammates, but he was having none of it.
Keano has always had a way with words, of course. He accused his Manchester
United teammates of being prepared to rest on their laurels and forgetting
their work ethic after they won the European Cup in 1999, and he wasn’t too
complimentary about United’s “prawn sandwich-eating supporters” either. And
woe betide any of his players at Sunderland who display anything less than
100% commitment to the cause. Keane, of course, has a point. He believes
that it’s the fans who have the right to walk out if they are not happy with
the standard of football being served up by their team. Players who don’t
agree are likely to find themselves on the wrong end of Keane’s right foot
GEOFFREY BOYCOTT
7 Loved in Yorkshire, just about tolerated by everyone else, Boycott
walked out of Test cricket from 1975 to 1977. One of the most self-obsessed
batsmen the game has ever seen, he claimed he was feeling a tad stressed,
but he was actually disappointed that his suggestion for the England
captaincy (a Mr G Boycott of Yorkshire) had been passed over in favour of
Mike Denness and then Tony Greig, neither of whom was from Yorkshire, or was
Mr G Boycott. Five years after his return, Boycott was a central figure in
the rebel tour of apartheid South Africa and banned from Test cricket for
three years, thus preventing another walkout after he’d again been passed
over for the captaincy, this time in favour of Keith Fletcher, who, not
entirely coincidentally, also did not come from Yorkshire, and was not Mr G
Boycott
BUDGE POUNTNEY
8 A rugby man, especially a rugby man who lost a testicle in a game,
can only be pushed so far. With Scotland busily preparing for the 2003 Six
Nations, their English-born former captain Budge Pountney fled the training
camp, claiming: “Every week before an international is a fight to get simple
things like water after training, food, kit, studs, whatever. I couldn’t
take it any more. The players are slogging their hearts out while people
around us couldn’t care less. When you’re expected to put your whole life
and heart into playing for Scotland and others appear to be taking the
mickey, it’s hard to cope with.” His actions cost him £50,000, but he hated
the penny-pinching too: after a defeat at Murrayfield, Pountney gave his
team tie to a young fan. He was later sent an invoice for £7.50 by the
in-no-way-stereotypical Scottish Rugby Union
ADOLF HITLER
9 For Germany’s boss, the 1936 Olympics were a golden opportunity.
Down went the anti-Jewish signs, up went the Olympic bunting and off went
the gypsies to concentration camps. Naturally, Hitler assumed that the
Aryans (more specifically, the German Ayrans) would triumph uber alles. As
it was, Germany did win more medals than anyone else, but Jesse Owens won
the plaudits with four golds. The Olympic committee told Hitler he had to
shake hands with all the winners or none. He went home. And although he
returned, he was off again soon afterwards, just in time to avoid watching
another black American, Cornelius Johnson, pick up his high jump gold medal.
Time to dust off those “annex Sudetenland” plans
BJORN BORG
10 In 1981, Borg, a mere 25 years of age at the time, had just lost at
Wimbledon for the first time since 1975. A couple of months later, he lost
the US Open final (for the fourth time in all), again to John McEnroe, thus
confirming, in Borg’s tortured mind at any rate, that he was no longer the
world’s best. As McEnroe received his prize, Borg, still in tennis kit, was
in a taxi heading for JFK.
Within a year he’d walked out of tennis altogether. Having won five successive
Wimbledon singles titles and six French Opens, Borg hadn’t had much
experience of losing and he decided it was something that he really would
rather not have to do again. There were failed marriages to the tennis
player Mariana Simionescu and the Italian singer Loredana Bertè, rumours of
suicide bids and a battle to avoid bankruptcy before, eventually, Borg
discovered that what he really wanted to do was design men’s underwear
