0
The number of games Arsenal lost in 2003–4 – thus becoming the first club to win the Premiership without losing a single game.
0
The number of goals Switzerland conceded in the 2006 World Cup Finals while becoming the first team to be eliminated from the World Cup Finals without conceding a single goal.
0
The number of players Tottenham Hotspur had sent off in a Football League match between 27 October 1928 and 4 December 1965.
0
The number of tries scored by Jonah Lomu against South Africa despite facing them 13 times.
1
The number of times animals were killed on purpose in an Olympic event (the 1900 Olympics featured pigeon shooting).
1
The number of prime ministers to own a Derby-winning horse (Earl Rosebery, 1894).
1
The number of England international footballers to wear glasses in an international (James Mitchell, 1924).
1
The number of rugby union players to wear a monocle in internationals (Dolway Walkington of Ireland – though he did remove it when he needed to make a tackle).
1
The number of athletes to win an Olympic sprint gold medal while chewing gum (Thomas ‘Eddie’ Tolan, 200 metres, 1932).
1
The number of jockeys to win a race after death. In 1923, Frank Hayes suffered a fatal heart attack in the middle of a race at Belmont Park in New York. However, his horse, Sweet Kiss, didn’t know this and carried on running to win the race with the lifeless jockey still on board.
1
The number of first-class cricketers to have been dismissed off consecutive deliveries in the same first-class match. This happened in 1946 when Glamorgan were playing the touring Indians. Peter Judge was bowled by the last bowl of the Glamorgan innings and the Indians invited the county to follow-on. At this point, the Glamorgan captain, Wilf Wooller, decided to waive the 10-minute interval between innings and instructed the last pair to remain in the middle and open the innings: in other words, he was reversing the entire batting order. The first ball of Glamorgan’s second innings saw Peter Judge bowled again (by the very same bowler) – thus becoming the only cricketer to be bowled by consecutive balls in the same match.
1
The number of first-class cricketers to die on the Titanic (the American John Thayer).
2
The number of sports in which the team has to move backwards to win (tug of war and rowing – backstroke is not a team sport).
2
The number of goals AFC Bournemouth scored against Manchester United – without reply – in 1984.
2
The Czech team that reached the 1934 World Cup Final contained players from just two clubs.
2
Actor Matthew Perry was ranked number two at tennis in Ottawa at the age of 13.
2
The number of Test matches that have been tied – the first between West Indies and Australia at Brisbane in 1960–1 and the second between Australia and India in Madras in 1986–7.
The number of dead heats in the Derby. The first dead heat was in 1828 and the two horses concerned raced again later that afternoon. There was a second in 1884 and the two jockeys met in the weighing room and decided to share the prize money.
2
The number of holes-in-one achieved by 75-year-old Peter Wafford in the same round in 2010. The chances of such a feat are estimated at 1 in 67 million.
3
English referee Graham Poll mistakenly handed out three yellow cards to Croatia’s Josip Šimunić in a 2006 World Cup match against Australia.
4
In the history of professional boxing, only four men have been knocked out in the first eleven seconds of the first round.
4
The number of balls in a game of croquet: black, blue, red and yellow.
4
The number of clubs in the Football League with names starting and ending with the same letter: Liverpool, Charlton Athletic, Northampton Town and Aston Villa.
The quickest booking in a Football League/ Premiership match was after just five seconds. The culprit was Vinnie Jones playing for Sheffield United against Manchester City. He was booked again later in the match and was therefore sent off.
5
The number of one-eyed men in the 1920 France–Scotland rugby union match. One of them was the remarkable Prop Marcel-Frédéric Lubin-Lebrère who, just a few years earlier in World War I, had lost an eye and also had 23 pieces of shrapnel removed from his body. He later became Mayor of Toulouse.
5
The number of Football League teams for which the footballer Kevin Bremner scored during the 1982–3 season.
5
The number of batsmen who have been left stranded on 99 not out in a Test match. Four of them had either already made test centuries or would go on to do so. However, 99* turned out to be the England cricketer, Alex Tudor’s highest test score.
6
The number of past, present or future England captains in the Southampton line-up of the early 1980s: Alan Ball, Mick Channon, Kevin Keegan, Mick Mills, Peter Shilton and Dave Watson.
From a complete stop, a human is capable of outrunning a Formula One car for about ten metres.
10
The number of ways in which a batsman can get out in cricket: caught, bowled, leg before wicket (LBW), run out, stumped, handling the ball, obstructing the field, hit the ball twice, hit wicket, and timed out. He can also retire. The first five are by far the most common. In Test cricket, for example, only seven batsmen have ever been out for handling the ball, and only one (Sir Len Hutton) for obstruction of the field. No Test batsman has ever been dismissed for hitting the ball twice or been timed out. A batsman is allowed to hit the ball a second time if it’s threatening to hit his stumps but not at any other time.
10
The number of first-name initials boasted by A.R.R.A.P.W.R.R.K.B. Amunugama who has more initials than any other first-class cricketer.
11
A semi-final wrestling bout in the 1912 Olympics lasted for 11 hours. The winner, an Estonian named Martin Klein, was so exhausted that he couldn’t take part in the final contest the next day.
11
James Gordon of Rangers was selected to play for the club in all 11 positions, including goalkeeper, during his career at Ibrox Park from 1910 to 1930.
The number of clubs that made up the Football League when it was first established in the 1888–9 season: Preston North End, Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion, Accrington (no relation to Accrington Stanley), Everton, Burnley, Derby County, Notts County and Stoke City. Preston North End won the first title without suffering a single defeat.
13
The number of officials in a tennis match (ten linesmen, one net official, one foot-fault official and an umpire).
13
The number of cricketers who have scored double hundreds in Test matches but finished on the losing side. Twelve of the thirteen batsmen suffered this fate once but it happened to the West Indian cricketer, Brian Lara, on three separate occasions.
13
The number of bowlers who have taken a wicket with their very first ball in Test cricket. Over a hundred bowlers have taken a wicket with their very last ball in Test cricket. No bowler appears on both lists.
14
The number of countries that competed in the first Modern Olympics (in 1896).
The number of days the Timeless Test between England and South Africa lasted for in 1939. Remarkably, it wasn’t finished: England needed 42 more runs to win, and had five wickets in hand, but the team’s boat was due to sail home the next day, and so the game was called off.
18
The number of times that Greek skier Antoin Miliordos fell before crossing the finish line of the downhill event at the 1952 Winter Olympics – backwards.
18
The number of men who died from injuries sustained on the American football field in 1905 – which prompted President Theodore Roosevelt to demand measures to make the game safer.
20
The number of players sent off during a match played in Paraguay between Sportivo Ameliano and General Caballero in 1993.
22
In 1983, the British racing driver John Watson became the only driver to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix from as far back as 22nd on the grid.
25
When a baseball is hit really hard, it momentarily changes shape by as much as 25 per cent.
The number of minutes for which the first League match to be played under floodlights (Portsmouth v. Newcastle on 22 February 1956) was held up when the fuses on the floodlights failed.
32.66
The weight in kilograms of Hart Massey, the Oxford cox in the 1939 Boat Race. There’s now a 55kg lower weight limit for coxes.
35
The longest tandem was designed for 35 riders. It was twenty metres long and weighed as much as a small car.
36
The longest gap – in years – between appearances in the Olympic Games. Ralph Craig (US 100 metres 1912) competed again in the 1948 Olympics at the age of 59 as an alternate in the US yachting team.
36
The record number of goals scored in a first-class British soccer match – by Arbroath 36 v. Bon Accord 0 on 12 September 1885. Incredibly, on the very same day and in the very same competition – the Scottish Cup – Dundee Harp beat Aberdeen Rovers 35–0. According to the referee in the Dundee Harp v. Aberdeen Rovers game, the final score was 37–0 but the club secretary of Dundee Harp – the winning team, remember – reckoned that it was only 35–0 so the referee went with the lower figure.
The first international Test match took place in 1877. It was between Australia and England. Played in Melbourne, it finished with Australia winning by 45 runs. 100 years later, in 1977, a centenary Test match between the two countries was played in Melbourne. Australia beat England by 45 runs – the precise same margin by which they had won the inaugural match 100 years earlier.
52
When Ted Hough was signed by Southampton FC in 1921, his ‘transfer fee’ was a round of drinks (which amounted to 52 pints of beer).
59
The number of centimetres above his own height that Franklin Jacobs high-jumped in 1978 – a height differential record that still stands.
66
The number of runners in the 1929 Grand National.
68
The percentage of professional ice-hockey players who have lost at least one tooth.
85
A first-class soccer game has an average of 85 throw-ins – almost one a minute.
The number feared by superstitious Australian cricketers because it’s 13 short of a century.
99.94
The final Test average of the Australian batsman, Sir Donald Bradman. In his last Test innings (against England at the Oval in 1948), he needed just four runs to be able to retire with a batting average of precisely one hundred. He was bowled second ball by Eric Hollies for a duck. This left him with a test average of 99.94 – still considerably higher than his nearest competitor.
100
Prior to 1900, prize fights lasted up to 100 rounds.
101.2
Maria Sharapova’s loudest grunt was measured at 101.2 decibels (louder than a motorcycle or a lawnmower), on 21 June 2005 at Wimbledon Centre Court.
103
The oldest player to ‘score his age’ in a game of golf was C. Arthur Thompson (1869–1975) of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, who carded 103 in 1973.
108
The number of stiches on a baseball.
110
A badminton shuttlecock travels at a speed of over 110 mph.
The number feared by superstitious English cricketers (known as a Nelson) probably because the figure looks like three stumps without their bails. Very superstitious batsmen will hop on one leg when the score is 111 (222, 333 etc.).
122
The number of successive victories by Ed Moses in the 440-metre hurdles.
138
The world’s longest competitive tennis match took place at Wimbledon in 2010, when the American player John Isner beat the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut after playing for eleven hours and five minutes over three days. The reason it went on so long is because in the final set, a player must win by two clear games. The score in their final set was 70–68 – that’s 138 games played over 8 hours 11 minutes – making it the longest set in history in both time and games.
147
The maximum break in snooker (15 reds each followed by the black and then all the colours). In fact, with free balls after a foul shot, 155 is technically the highest score possible. The highest break ever recorded was 151 by Cliff Thorburn, who achieved his score with the benefit of a foul shot from his opponent.
The highest speed on skis ever recorded was 156 mph by the Italian Simone Origone in April 2006 in Les Arcs, France.
200
The number of spectators who turned up to watch the first Wimbledon championship in 1877 (they paid one shilling each; the first champion, Spencer Gore, won 12 guineas).
223
The (record, for a man) number of matches Jean Borotra played in his Wimbledon career.
250
Eddie Arcaro, one of the greatest jockeys in the history of American horse racing, rode 250 losers before winning his first race.
286
The weight in kilograms of the heaviest sumo wrestler – the Hawaiian, Konishiki Yasokichi – known as the Dump Truck.
311
The number of competitors (all male) at the first modern Olympic Games.
325
In 1930, England’s Andy Sandham scored Test cricket’s very first triple century – 325 – in what was his very last Test match.
The (record) number of matches Martina Navratilova played in her Wimbledon career.
350
The number of football fans who died in a 1964 riot after an equalizer by Peru was disallowed (the referee said afterwards, ‘Anyone can make a mistake’).
375
The number of full members of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which owns and runs Wimbledon. There are also honorary members, including past singles champions.
1,007
The length in yards of the world’s longest golf hole: the par-6, sixth hole at Chocolay Downs Golf Course in Marquette, Michigan.
3,000
The number of cows it takes to supply the US National Football League (NFL) with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs.
46,001
The most pushups ever performed in one day.
52,000
The number of balls used at the Wimbledon tennis tournament each year.
250,000
Keepy-uppy is the art of juggling a football using your feet, knees, legs, chest and head without allowing the ball to hit the ground. The men’s record for the longest keepy-uppy was set by Briton Dan Magness who kept a football off the ground for 24 hours at London’s Covent Garden in May 2009. No one was counting but it was estimated that he hit the ball 250,000 times. The record he broke had been set in August 2003 by Brazilian Martinho Eduardo Orige who had kept a football in the air for 19 hours and 30 minutes.
20,000,000
The number of golf balls lost in water hazards on British golf courses every year.
