The daft and the furious: famous sports rants

As a follow up to Warren Gatland’s outburst this week – ‘Wales players dislike the Irish’ – I did a piece on other sporting rants for today’s Irish Examiner.

Babs Keating: The Tipperary legend took charge of a group of Offally hurlers boasting serious skill but with a reputation for being less than enthusiastic about their training.
When the Faithful were well beaten by old rivals Kilkenny in the 1998 Leinster final a furious Babs described his charges — whom he enjoyed a frosty relationship with — as ‘sheep in a heap.’ The statement was the full stop in an unhappy chapter for Keating as the insulted players effectively forced him out before they went on to take the All-Ireland title.

Rafa Benitez: Only the Liverpool boss, a man who has distilled football to a mathematical algorithm, could for the first time deliver what the British press desire — a rant — but have it scripted. Rafa decided — as Liverpool lay seven points clear at the top of the table — that he would preempt Fergie’s mind games and pick apart United’s Christmas fixture schedule. This was Kevin Keegan — I’d love it! — but with a hint of obsessive compulsive disorder.

John McEnroe: Think Big Mac doesnt deserve a place in the list? You cannot be serious! The guitar-playing, three-time  Wimbledon winner’s constant and vociferous questioning of umpires’ integrity was the soundtrack to the 80s. “You will never work another match in your life”, “Explain that call to me” and “How the hell can that be out” were some of his greatest hits.

Lee Elia: This profanity-punctuated, post-game eruption following a Cubs defeat to the LA Dodgers in 1983 is the stuff of baseball folklore. It is the obscenity-laced soliloquy of a beaten man — he lasted less than two seasons in Chicago — yet he neatly summed up, in one explosive moment, the Cubs and the famously fickle Wrigley Field crowd. “The fans can kiss my ass, downtown, and you can print that! These nickel and dime people don’t even have a job, that’s why they’re at the ball game.”

Mike Tyson: If Tyson didnt exist, parents would have to invent him so kids would eat their greens. The man who chewed off Evander Holyfiield’s left ear reprised his bogey man role when he told Lennox Lewis: “When I’m ready I’m going to rip out his heart and feed it to him. My style is impetuous, my defence is impregnable and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat your children. Praise be to Allah.”

Damien Richardson: The former Cork City manager is a man of many, many words. “Whether one is blessed with a prodigious flair for articulacy or merely entrusted with a basic monosyllabic uttering of contentment,” he once wrote, “the relevance of this coming season will stimulate in every green and white heart at least a temporary escalation in embellished eloquence, so as to allow all an opportunity to express the most wondrous sense of anticipation and excitement that lies within.” But Rico might also be remembered for his succinct response to a cup defeat in Longford. City were ‘ridden rock solid’ he fumed.

Alistair Cragg: The man who put the Cragg back in lose your rag, got out of the blocks quicker than ever when he launched a full-blooded tirade from the Beijing track-side last summer while mistakenly thinking he had been eliminated from the Olympics. “Prominent names in this sport are sitting in Ireland and are talking about how we are not great like they used to be … It’s about time they acknowledged us instead of putting us down to make themselves look like legends.”

Joe Kinnear: Black and white may be the colours, but the Newcastle boss turned the air blue with a prodgious 52 swear words in the first five minutes with journalists in his new role. Unhappy  — clearly — with the coverage his appointment received he describing reporters as “c***s” and “so f***ing slimy”.
“You’re not going to f*** me off or frighten me in any manner. Whatever you do, or whatever headlines you run, you’re not going to embarrass me. I’m not going to stand for it. I’ve come up here for a simple chance to f***ing prove myself. Get off my back and let me get on with my job. That’s all I ask. F***ing hell.”
The situation has since deteriorated.

Any more?