Nicknamed ‘The Run for the Roses’, due to the garland of red roses traditionally draped around the winning horse, the Kentucky Derby is the first leg of North American Triple Crown. Established in 1875, the race is run annually, on the first Saturday in May, over a mile and a quarter on dirt at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.
The horse that still holds the record for the fastest winning time in the Kentucky Derby is Secretariat, who, in his three-year-old season, won the aforementioned Triple Crown. Bred and owned by Christopher Chenery and trained by Lucien Laurin, Secretariat was surprisingly beaten by stable companion Angle Light in his preparatory race for the Kentucky Derby, the Wood Memorial Stakes at Aqueduct in Queens, New York City, two weeks beforehand.
However, ‘Big Red’, as the horse was popularly known, was suffering from a mouth abscess on that occasion and, at Churchill Downs on May 5, 1973, any doubts about him were quickly dispelled. Sent off joint-favourite, alongside Angle Light, Secretariat was settled at the rear of the field by jockey Ron Turcotte, before taking closer order at the halfway stage. At the top of the home straight, Sham took over from the pace-setting Shecky Greene, but was soon challenged and passed by Secretariat, who took off down the outside to win by two and a half lengths, under just hands and heels riding. Our Native finished third, beaten a yawning eight lengths, and the winning time, 1:59.4, set a record that has now stood for a little over half a century.
For the uninitiated, Football Manager is a cognitive, rather than physical, sports simulation game which, according to the developer, Sports Interactive, allows fans of the beautiful game to ‘experience the closest thing to being a real manager’ through the exploits of their own virtual team. The game began life as Championship Manager in 1992, but Sports Interactive split from its original publisher, Eidos Interactive, in 2003 and since 2006 has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sega. Sports Interactive did, however, retain the code and data from Champion Manager and released the inaugural version of a re-titled game, ‘Football Manager 5’, in November, 2004.
Anyway, according to Guinness World Records, the longest single game of Football Manager was played by Paweł Siciński who, in real life, possesses a Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) C Diploma, aimed at grassroots football coaches. Siciński embarked on his virtual management career, from his home in the city of Gliwice in southern Poland, on Football Manager 2018 on January 4, 2018 and continued until May 18, 2434 or, in other words, a total of 416 years and 134 days of in-game time. Remarkably, during his four-century odyssey, which equated to 7,603 hours, or 317 days, of real-world playing time, his teams played 22,300 matches, scored nearly 59,000 goals, won 341 league titles and 759 cups and were relegated just once.
Siciński enjoyed far and away his most successful spell with Fimleikafélag Hafnarfjarðar, which is based in the town of Hafnarfjörður on the southwest of Iceland, approximately six miles south of the capital city, Reykjavík. In actuality, Fimleikafélag Hafnarfjarðar has been a force majeure in Icelandic football since the turn of the twenty-first century but, with Siciński at the helm – as he was for the last 310 years of his game – the team won 301 national championships, 677 cups, including the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Club World Cup, UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.
The footballer who holds the record for the longest period between English Premier League appearances is five-time Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, better known simply as Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese superstar made his Premier League debut for Manchester United on August 16, 2003 when, as a 17-year-old, he replaced Nicky Butt after 61 minutes during a 4-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers at Old Trafford. In his first stint with the Red Devils, Ronaldo made his final Premier League appearance in a 0-0 draw with Arsenal, again at Old Trafford, on May 16, 2009.
Thereafter, ‘El Bicho’, as Ronaldo would become known, joined Real Madrid for the then record transfer fee of £80 million. During the course of nine seasons at Santiago Bernabéu, he scored
451 goal in 438 competitive appearances for Los Galácticos, winning La Liga twice and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League four times, among numerous other honours. Nevertheless, a breakdown in his relationship with Real Madrid President Florentino Pérez
led to Ronaldo leaving the Spanish capital in July, 2018 when, at the age of 33, he moved to Juventus for £100 million.
On August 31, 2021, Ronaldo re-signed for Manchester United for £12.85 million and, on September 11, 12 years, 3 months and 16 days after his last Premier League appearance, made his second debut at Old Trafford. He made a bright start to his second stint at the club, scoring twice in a 4-1 victory over Newcastle United but, thereafter, Ronaldo and Manchester United struggled, finishing only sixth in the Premier League and finishing without a trophy for the fifth season in a row. Ronaldo repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with the club, criticising the appointment of intermi manager Ralf Rangnick and saying in an interview that he had ‘no respect’ for his successor, Erik ten Hag. His United contract was terminated, by mutual consent, on November 22, 2022.
The Cricket World Cup, which represents the pinnacle of competition in One Day International (ODI) cricket, was inaugurated, as the Prudential World Cup, in 1975. In the opening match, between England and India at Lord’s, London on June 7, 1975, England won the toss and elected to bat first. John Jamieson and Dennis Amiss opened the batting and it was Amiss who became the first batsman to score a century at the Cricket World Cup.
Jamieson was caught by Indian captain Srinivas Venkataraghavan off the bowling of Mohinder Amarnath with 54 on the board, but Amiss and Keith Fletcher (68) put on 176 for the second wicket, before Fletcher was clean bowled by brisk medium-pacer Syed Abid Ali. Amiss went on to make 137 from 147 balls, including 16 fours and, following his dismissal, captain Mike Denness (37 not out) and Chris Hold (51 not out) took England to a healthy total of 334/4 off their 60 overs.
The Indian reply was bizarre, thanks in no small part to what team manager Gulabrai Ramchand later described as ‘…the most disgraceful and selfish performance I have ever seen’ by opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar. Gavaskar ‘carried his bat’ throughout the entire 60 overs but, for reasons best known to himself – and apparently oblivious to the frustration of his team-mates and the crowd – he scored just 36 not out, including just one four, off 174 balls. Somewhat ironically, Gavaskar’s brother-in-law, Gundappa Viswanath, top-scored with 37 off 59 balls, but India finished with a paltry total of 132 for 3 and lost by 202 runs.
For readers unfamiliar with the subleties of golf club construction, cavity back irons are, as the name suggests, irons that are hollowed out behind the clubface. Their design allows manufacturers to remove weight from behind the clubface and distribute it around the perimeter of the clubhead. Thus, cavity back irons typically have a wider sole, a lower centre of gravity and a larger sweet spot than the competing ‘blade’ style of iron.
The history of cavity back irons can be traced back to 1959, when Norwegian émigré Kartsen Solheim, working in his garage in Redwood City, California, discovered that by redistributing weight from the back of the clubhead of a putter to the heel and toe reduced rotation of the club and produced a cleaner, more consistent strike. Indeed, the sound of the clubface striking a golf ball was the origin of the ‘Ping’ brand name.
One of the earliest cavity back irons, the Ping Ballnamic 69 – a traditional, forged iron, with two cavity slots behind the clubhead – was introduced in 1961. In 1966, Solheim resigned from his job at General Electric to establish Karsten Manufacturing and continued to experiment with peripheral weighting. The first recognisably modern cavity back iron was the Ping Karsten 1, which was introduced in 1969. Investment cast – that is, created by pouring liquid metal into a hollow ceramic mould – from hardened stainless steel, rather than forged, the Karsten 1 featured a single, deeped cavity, positioned close to the heel than the toe of the club, barrel hosel construction and peripheral weighting.
Generally speaking, cavity back irons are more forgiving than blades. The lower centre of gravity makes it easier for beginners and higher handicap players to get the ball in the air sooner, while the perimeter weight makes it easier to hit the ball straight.