With Leroy Lita resting up after his nasty bed-stretching incident, Pies looks at some equally slapstick injuries that footballers have picked up over the years. Meet the team so unlucky with injuries that they would be tempted to hire Jonathan Woodgate as a fitness coach: it’s the Pies Silly Injuries XI.
GK Dave Beasant
Famously dropped a jar of salad cream on his foot in the 1993 pre-season and was out for two-and-a-half months.
RB Svein Grondalen
The Norwegian international defender missed an international game in the 1970s after colliding with a moose while jogging.
LB Darren Barnard
The Barnsley man’s injury took the piss. He was out for five months with knee ligament damage after slipping in his new puppy’s pee.
CB Steve Morrow
Famously fractured his collar-bone when he fell off Tony Adams’s shoulders while celebrating Arsenal’s 1993 League Cup win.
CB Shaun Teale
A tale equally as fishy as Lita’s account. The Aston Villa centre-back suffered a gash to his arm while cleaning out the family fish tank.
RM Perry Groves
Groves managed to knock himself unconscious while warming the Arsenal bench by headbutting the dugout when he jumped up to celebrate a goal.
LM Paulo Diogo
The Portuguese player managed to get his wedding ring caught in a fence while celebrating a goal for Swiss side Servette. He tore off the top half of his finger and the rest was later amputated. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he was booked for excessive celebration! Video here.
CM John Durnin
The then Portsmouth midfielder ruled himself out for six weeks in 1999 after crashing his golf buggy and dislocating his elbow.
CM David Batty
Achilles injuries are not uncommon among footballers, but those acquired by being hit by toddlers on tricycles are a little more freakish.
ST Robbie Keane
In Lita-esque fashion, a young Keane ruptured his knee cartilage in 1998 while stretching for the TV remote. Still, it was probably worth it if he managed to mute Clive Tyldesley.
ST Darius Vassell
While at Aston Villa, Vassell picked up a nasty infection after using a power drill to cut through his toenail and drain a blister in a bit of DIY surgery.