Sporting beard-off won by a whisker
I WENT to the cinema on Saturday to watch the new comedy film The Hangover and took great pleasure in witnessing one of the greatest beards ever seen on the big screen.
It got me thinking though – what is the greatest sporting beard?
It just so happened that today I watched Pakistan, traditionally a great source of quality beardage, win cricket’s Twenty20 World Cup.
But this Pakistan side is sadly lacking in great beards, with only Shahid Afridi having something to shout about but his beard lacks the true girth required to be worthy of the greatest beard title, so the search was forced deeper.
Modern football offers scant pickings. Former Aston Villa defender Olof Mellberg has single-handedly carried its challenge for years, with only AC Milan’s Gennaro Gattuso’s patchy effort for support.
Formula One now possesses a disturbing amount of goatees, such as those on Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello and Nick Heidfeld, with Heidfeld’s wispy attempt leading its charge, but all fail to be contenders for the beard-crown.
The LA Lakers’ Pau Gasol has reduced his championship pretender to something more befitting a teenager, leaving Baron Davis, of the LA Clippers, as basketball’s official beard representative and leading American contender along with the NFL’s Ricky Williams, of the Miami Dolphins.
Rugby offers one principal nominee – France’s Sébastien Chabal, an average rugby player clean-shaven, made fearsome by a majestic, regal beard.
Returning to cricket, England offer Monty Panesar as an admirable contender, but South Africa’s Hashim Amla gets the vote, with a truly epic beard.
Amla’s beard is long, hiding any evidence of a neck and also brilliantly voluminous and thus the greatest beard title is his, narrowly ahead of Chabal, although I would love to be corrected.
Greatest beard in sport - fact
A great blog my friend, i think i’ve already mentioned i enjoy being part of the inspiration for your blog – so much so i’ve decided to piggy-back on that success and advertise my own blog (hoping that a link magically appears if you click my username).
walshy707
June 22, 2009 at 10:28 pm
p.s. potentially a gross oversight – Mohammad Yousef
walshy707
June 22, 2009 at 10:34 pm
[...] lead from one of his opposite numbers in South Africa’s batting line-up – beard hero Hashim Amla, who hair-wise seems to have his head on upside [...]
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