Summer Sports
It's the summer, and some major sporting events will take place in the next few weeks. In honour of these forthcoming spectacles of sport, AskOxford presents a selection of quotes by or about some of sport's great and the good.
We all get cut and we all get stitched up. We get stud marks down our bodies, we break bones and we lose teeth. We play rugby.
Martin Johnson, English rugby player
The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.
Danny Blanchflower (1926–93) Northern Irish footballer
What makes a sane and rational person subject himself to such humiliation? Why on earth does anyone want to become a football referee?
Roy Hattersley, British politician
The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score.
Nick Hornby, Author and Arsenal fan
Football and cookery are the two most important subjects in the country.
Delia Smith, British cookery writer
I threw the kitchen sink at him, but he went to the bathroom and got his tub.
Andy Roddick, American tennis player, after defeat by Roger Federer at Wimbledon 2004
New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.
Jimmy Connors, American tennis player
If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that's concentration. I didn't grow up playing at the country club.
Serena Williams, American tennis player
Personally, I have always looked on cricket as organized loafing.
William Temple (1881–1944) Archbishop of Canterbury
I couldn't bat for the length of time required to score 500. I'd get bored and fall over.
Denis Compton (1918–1997) English cricketer and footballer
It's not in support of cricket but as an earnest protest against golf.
Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English satirist, on being approached for a contribution to W.G. Grace's testimonial.
Of course I want to win it... I'm not here to have a good time, nor to keep warm and dry.
Nick Faldo, British golfer, while leading the field in wet weather, during the 1996 PGA Championship
The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.
P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) British author
If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.
Bob Hope (1903–2003) American entertainer
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
George F. Will, American journalist
Honey, I just forgot to duck.
Jack Dempsey (1895–1983), American boxer, to his wife on losing the World Heavyweight Title.
If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arrangement.
Alan Bennett, British writer
Jogging is for people who aren't intelligent enough to watch television.
Victoria Wood, British comedian
He just can't believe what isn't happening to him.
David Coleman, British sports commentator
There's been a colour clash: both teams are wearing white.
John Motson, British football commentator
Simon Christie
10/07/2007
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