Field of Dreams

July 2, 2011 12:18 AM

Cricketer Adrian Shankar recently hit the headlines in Britain after blagging his way into an embarrassed Worcestershire side but he's hardly the first to overcome a complete lack of talent to launch a brief, inglorious sporting career. Rosie Ruiz famously took a bit of a shortcut to 'win' the 1980 Boston marathon and Senegalese footballer Ali Dia made a brief and solitary appearance for Southampton, as substitute for the sublime Matt Le Tissier no less, after fooling the notoriously hard bitten Graeme Souness. Excellent as their efforts may have been, none possessed the all round sporting skills of the immortal Karl Power.
posted by joannemullen (16 comments total)

blag. Fifty years and I'm still learning four letter words!
posted by telstar at 1:14 AM on July 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Overpaid British sportsmen aren't gentlemen? That's a shock. It's like American sports, except for the leagues.
posted by Mblue at 1:21 AM on July 2, 2011

If someone derailed this thread into a collection of Matt Le Tissier wonder goals, I wouldn't complain.
posted by kersplunk at 2:35 AM on July 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Shankar reminds me of the "Ivy League athletics impostor" James Hogue, although at least Hogue had real athletic ability to back up his numerous false identities.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:44 AM on July 2, 2011

SPOILERS







"It has emerged he is actually three years older than he told the county"
"a few members of the crowd came forward to reveal that they had seen her jump into the race during its final half-mile."
"Clumsy, inept, awkward, embarrassing and awful. ... In 21 minutes Dia missed an open goal and was unable to control the ball"
Karl power wins.
posted by unliteral at 5:20 AM on July 2, 2011

"It has emerged he is actually three years older than he told the county"

Ummm... What?

Unless talking about highschool-level sports, where an extra year or two really can give a player an edge... So what? And why would he even lie about it?
posted by pla at 5:23 AM on July 2, 2011

pla, there's talk in the cricinfo pieces that claiming to be 26 allowed him to benefit from "young player" incentives that he wouldn't have been eligible for as a 29-year-old. Also: selectors might have been willing to overlook his awful batting statistics if he were a promising ingenue just working his way into the game. As a less-than-journeyman player who'd already had a decade on the second XI and minor counties circuit? Not so much.
posted by Sonny Jim at 5:41 AM on July 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here's a good interview with Karl Power and his mate Tommy Dunn
posted by The Discredited Ape at 7:30 AM on July 2, 2011

Is this something I'd need to have a Queen to understand?
posted by maryr at 9:06 AM on July 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

blagging his way into an embarrassed Worcestershire side

I have met the limits of my Anglophilia, and it is this sentence. (To me it reads like he went into a restaurant and talked the staff into a free serving of a self-conscious Lea & Perrins-based side dish, which I am pretty sure is not the case.)
posted by scody at 10:27 AM on July 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this something I'd need to have a Queen to understand?

I suspect the Sri Lankans might have an inkling.
posted by pompomtom at 10:29 AM on July 2, 2011

blagged = conned

Worcestershire = county in England that has a cricket team

side = team

Americanized: "scammed his way into the Detroit Tigers starting lineup"

If that sounds implausible, it's because it is.

I wonder if, in a few years, Bebe at Man U will be regarded with the same bemusement.
posted by Errant at 10:48 AM on July 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Thank you, Errant. I'm sorry to be the American jerk and all, but the translation helped. To my American mind, a blag is something on a wobsite..
posted by maryr at 1:29 PM on July 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I remember at the time there was a joke about Rosie Ruiz stockings! THEY DON'T RUN!
posted by rmd1023 at 2:58 PM on July 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder if, in a few years, Bebe at Man U will be regarded with the same bemusement.

There's some talk that the Bebe signing was a payoff for his agent (I think for his help in persauding Ronaldo to stay another season at United). But then, there's also some talk that Bebe can still turn out to be a good player. We'll see when he gets back from loan I guess.
posted by Infinite Jest at 3:00 AM on July 3, 2011

Karl Power made it onto the pitch for England's "haka" against Italy, did he now? That would be interesting to watch.
posted by wilful at 9:34 PM on July 3, 2011