First to wear football boots? Henry VIII!

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SPORT?

EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR: THE QI BOOKOF SPORTS

by James Harkin & Anna Ptaszynski?(Faber & Faber £14.99, 400pp)

If there was ever an inevitability, it was that someone would 結局 令状 The QI 調書をとる／予約する Of Sports. QI has become the most reliable brand in the small but select world of trivia, and there’s nothing more trivial than sport.

You might also say that ― such as, for example, the 最近の Saturday in which England lost twice to South Africa in different world cups ― sport can often be. . . やめる 利益／興味ing.

James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski are long-serving QI elves who have written countless 調書をとる／予約するs and 与える／捧げるd to even more TV shows.?

Harkin is a 回復するing football 審判（をする）, and Ptaszynski’s greatest 冒険的な 業績／成就 is knocking a kookaburra off its perch with a sausage.

They are as qualified as anyone could be to 令状 this 調書をとる／予約する, and they have done a wonderful 職業. Cock-threshing, for instance, was a game played on Shrove Tuesday, in which a rooster was tied to the ground and people threw 石／投石するs at it until it fell over.

Henry VIII?and was the first person we know of who owned a pair of football boots

Cock-threshing was a game played on Shrove Tuesday, in which a rooster was tied to the ground and people threw 石／投石するs at it until it fell over

Henry VIII, 同様に as marrying half the women in England, played football, and was the first person we know of who owned a pair of football boots.?

He also had two pairs of 盗品故買者ing shoes and 37 pairs of velvet shoes, which 推定では were not sports-関係のある.

Brett 物陰／風下, the former Australian 急速な／放蕩な bowler, now plays in a 激しく揺する 禁止（する）d called Six & Out.?

If your ゴルフ ball lands next to venomous snakes, stinging bees, alligators, 解雇する／砲火／射撃 ants or 耐えるs, you can move it to a safer area without incurring a 刑罰，罰則 発射.?If it lands next to a cactus, you can’t move it, but you can 包む a towel around your 団体／死体 to 保護する you when you play your next 発射.

Lance Armstrong, the 麻薬-hoover cyclist, 否定するd 麻薬ing for many years but had to 支払う／賃金 out millions in 解決／入植地s when he was finally caught. But he is still incredibly rich, as he was an 早期に 投資家 in the taxi app Uber. Still taking people for a ride, then …

People have been cheating in the Olympics since 古代の times. No Olympics were scheduled for AD 67, but Emperor Nero 賄賂d 公式の／役人s to 持つ／拘留する them then anyway, as he was planning to be in Greece at the time.?

Nero competed in the four-horse chariot race, only his chariot had ten horses. He was thrown from the chariot and didn’t finish the race, but he was 宣言するd the 勝利者 anyway.

The only thing that can be rubbed on a baseball is a special mud gathered 毎年 from the Delaware river. The man who collects it keeps the exact 場所 secret: if challenged during his collection trips, he （人命などを）奪う，主張するs that he is 集会 it to put on his roses.?

Lance Armstrong (pictured) 否定するd 麻薬ing for many years but had to 支払う／賃金 out millions in 解決／入植地s when he was finally caught. But he is still incredibly rich, as he was an 早期に 投資家 in the taxi app Uber

Cheating is endemic to 確かな sports. There have long been rumours of モーターs hidden in bicycle でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるs, but only one person has ever been 設立する 有罪の of it, a ベルギー cyclist in 2016.?

In 1957, the world 記録，記録的な／記録する for the high jump was beaten by a Soviet 競技者 who had been wearing extra-bouncy 単独のs in his shoes.

Australian aborigines used to play a game called ‘Marn Grook’, with balls made from kangaroo scrotums stretched and filled with grass.?

It’s thought that Australian 支配するs football, the only game played on an oval, was 奮起させるd by Marn Grook, only with balls made from possum 肌s. Bad news for possums, good news for kangaroos.

The Netherlands didn’t 供給する a team for the first modern Olympics in 1896 because they didn’t think it was fair for each 競技者 to 支払う／賃金 their own expenses. The American 競技者 who won the discus gold メダル in the same games hadn’t even seen a discus until the day before.

Some 競技者s are just 完全に bonkers. In 2017, an Americ an 走者 ran a 100-mile race on so little sleep that for the last 12 miles she went blind. It took five hours for her sight to return.

Australian aborigines used to play a game called ‘Marn Grook’, with balls made from kangaroo scrotums stretched and filled with grass

Then there are the hallucinations. In 2019, a 支持する／優勝者 fell-走者 running a 268-mile ultramarathon thought there were animals appearing out of the 激しく揺するs on the course. She 現実に won this race, ‘にもかかわらず needing to stop to 表明する breast milk for her baby at さまざまな points along the 大勝する’.

There are facts and stories as good as these on almost every page, and not one of them did I 以前 know. This is a splendid 調書をとる／予約する, and the perfect gift for any sports-mad person you know, which might even be you …