Yesterday’s revelation that Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet purposely crashed his car to allow teammate Fernando Alonso to win a race raises an important question: should tactical decisions ever trump ethics in sport? But let’s leave that aside for a minute and instead take joy in the ingenuity, wanton disregard for the spirit of sport and sheer bloody-mindedness of those who will take any advantage, no matter how dubious.

Fans? What fans?

We are always informed that the paying spectators are the lifeblood of sport and that their needs should come first. Never mind that those at the stadium always end up losing to corporate sponsors and the demands of television networks; lip service must be paid to this mantra. The memo never reached Somerset captain Brian Rose who, in a one-day match against Worcstershire in 1979, declared his team’s innings closed after one over as they could only be knocked out of the competition if they suffered a heavy defeat. The match took all of 18 minutes to complete — 10 of which were spent on the innings break. The kicker: heavy rain had washed out the previous day’s play, meaning that fans had to waste two day to watch a match completed in 16 balls.

On the flip side, there is the always entertaining Ian Botham, who managed to both help his team and awake the fans from their stupor when he deliberately ran out Geoff Boycott in a Test match against New Zealand in 1978. England needed quick runs to force a declaration and Boycott, renouned for his selfishness, was more interested in bolstering his batting average. What raises this incident to legendary level is that Botham didn’t seem to care that he was running out his own captain!

Ugliness in the Beautiful Game

Coming into the final match of the group stage at the 1982 World Cup, both West Germany and Austria had a chance to qualify for the next round. The Germans simply had to beat Austria to progress further, while Austria had to ensure that they didn’t lose by more than two goals. West Germany scored early in the game, raising the prospect of a heavy Austrian defeat. Then, the two teams, putting aside all the nastiness about Hitler and the Anschluss, seemed to come to a ‘gentleman’s’ agreement. For the next 80 minutes, they tamely passed the ball to each other like five-year olds having a kick about in the park. Needless to say, no further goals were scored.

Sometimes though, cooperation between two teams can lead to a veritable bonanza of goals. Such was the case in the qualifying for the 1984 European Championships. In their final match against Malta, Spain needed to defeat the already-eliminated Malta by an unthinkable 11 goals to make it to the tournament. At half-time, the Spaniards were leading by 3-1, a score that all but sealed their fate. It is not known what the Maltese had to drink during the mid-match break, but whatever it was, it made them altruistic enough to allow Spain to score a mind-boggling nine more goals in the proceeding 45 minutes.