1) It has been a devastating week for Bury Football Club. After 125 years in the Football League, they have been expelled by the EFL after a takeover bid collapsed. The club have a rich history, so here are a few choice highlights.
Lots of memories from Bury’s promotion to League One last season, but this goal from (centre back!) Eoghan O’Connell is probably the pick of the bunch. On the last day in 2014-15, Bury leapfrogged Southend into third place of League Two with a 1-0 win over Tranmere to secure automatic promotion – here’s the story of that day. Manchester City and Bury are poles apart now, but back in 1998, Paul Butler secured a 1-0 win for The Shakers over their local rivals at Maine Road (City would later be relegated). The season before, Bury secured back-to-back promotions to reach the second tier (for the first time since 1969), with a 2-0 win over Millwall. What an atmosphere at Gigg Lane it was. David Lee: wing wizard. And we can’t seem to find any video footage of Bury’s famous FA Cup wins in 1903 and 1900, but please do comment BTL if you do find any.
2) Turns out professional sumo wrestlers Hakuho and Kakuryu are pretty tidy at basketball. And it transpires that pint-sized Welsh rugby legend Shane Williams is not too shabby at sumo wrestling.
3) Welcome to Death Diving, or Dødsing as it is called in Norwegian. The painful-looking sport is believed to have been invented during the 1960s, at the Frognerbadet pool in Oslo. The first ever Dødsing Championship was a small affair, with just six divers and about a dozen spectators, but after the founding of Det internasjonale dødseforbundet (The International Dødsing Association) in 2011, its popularity has grown. These days, the World Dødsing Championship held at Frognerbadet featured close to 100 divers and thousands of spectators. Here are the top 10 dives from this year’s championship, with some other highlights below.
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4) The north London derby returns to the Emirates on Sunday. Arsenal won the fixture last season, here’s the DVD video they made to commemorate the occasion. “I’ve never been hyped up for a game more in my life,” says a young voice. Hmm. Tottenham have had their share of decent moments too, though, and here are 10 of their best goals from recent years.
5) Yes, Ben Stokes may have stolen the Ashes headlines, but England’s victory over Australia was also much owed to the heroics of Jack Leach, 1 not out. Here he is recreating his famous run later that evening, here’s last month’s92 against Ireland as a nightwatchman, a mesmeric compilation of all 51 wickets for Somerset in 2017 (including an outrageous catch from Marcus Trescothick after 13 seconds), and his favourite all-time XI, featuring Hashim Amla, Chris Rogers (as captain) and, of course, Daniel Vettori.
6) In Play to the Whistle corner: action from Metalac v Backa in Serbia’s Prva Liga. Metalac’s Bojan Gocanin sends Vido Markovic tumbling with a firm challenge. Backa hands go up claiming a free-kick, play continues, hands stay up, and … all hell breaks loose. Breakaway goal, run-for-your-life celebration, three red cards, plus an angry official sent to the stands. No particular rush from anyone to check on Markovic’s welfare, either.
Our favourites from below the line last week
2) Manny Pacquiao, now 40 years old and senator of the Philippines, used to be quite good at boxing. Here he is taking Oscar De La Hoya to the cleaners in 2008.
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