by Tom and Ben Curry will become the first twins to play together for the male rugby team of England in their first six -nations match against Ireland on Saturday, but fraternal and sororal pairs have a long and intriguing sports story. Here are four of the most intriguing …
Billy and Teddy May
Mays, which played in the first years of the football league towards the end of the 19th century, sometimes but not always in the same team, experienced all the pleasures and dangers of life in sport as identical twins, Sometimes being held for each other in the games (and on an opportunity to win a pair of fully independent brothers in a tie in the Birmingham Cup).
Maybe Billy and Teddy’s Excellent Adventure followed a cup match that the latter played for Grimsby against their rivals then Amers, Sheffield on Wednesday. The first match was, he recalls, “very harsh”, and when the two teams accused themselves of the game of ineligible players, it was ordered to be replayed.
“By going there a second time, the feeling of the spectators was so high against us that the mud was launched to me and an attack was made on me while I was showing up in a Hansom taxi,” said Teddy. Two weeks later, Wednesday welcomed Billy de Notts County. “The comments that the crowd sent him would not suit the publication,” read a report. “During and after the match, the referee, the officials and the players endeavored to persuade them that Billy was Billy and not Ted, but all in vain; They would not listen to anyone. At the conclusion, Billy was surrounded by a crowd of around 200 excited people while heading for the locker room. He found his way with the other players as quickly as he could, like a shower of stones, was voted on him. »»
Diane and Rosalind Rowe
“It all started with an unwanted Christmas present,” wrote the Rowes in their book, The Twins Table Tennis. “We were 14 years old and the gift we wanted the most was a bicycle. But Dad gave each of us a table tennis bat, “to prevent you from evil”. We worked on part of our disappointment that on Christmas morning by hitting a ball on the dining room table. Soon the bikes were forgotten. We were playing! In three years, we had won the world’s double championship. »»
It is fair to say that table tennis was a more important affair when it is now: in 1950, Diane won the female and female events during a television tournament played in a royal Albert Hall at Guichets Closed, and when the following year, they went to Vienna and won the world championship, they found international renown. They played, according to Diane’s words, “like a machine, in automatic harmony”, Rosalind right -handed and Diane with her left, and collected a second world title in Wembley in 1954 (where in the final, they beat a Another English pair including a 15 -Year called Ann Haydon;
Rosalind married the doctor to the ship that took them to New Zealand in 1953 and retired at 22; Diane married the famous German player Eberhard Schöler and won bronze in a mixed double, representing Western Germany, at the 1971 world championships.
Mark and Steve Waugh
The Waughum Worms were natural athletes and could have gone to tennis or football – they represented New South Wales in both, and in 1977, the age of 11 was part of the winning team A football tournament of national schools (between them, marking the three of their three the goals of Side in the final) and an interstate national tournament (Mark was captain, Steve his vice).
“We were always in the same teams, still in the same class, we have been living in the same room for 16 years, we have shared the same clothes,” said Steve. “We lived in the pockets of the other. We went everywhere together. Steve, the four -minute elder, beat his brother on the five -year test side, and when Mark finally made his debut, it was to replace a steve out of shape – but before long, and for the better The two were not impatient. They played 108 times together over 11 and a half years, becoming the second pair of twins to play Test Cricket Ensemble, after the Rose and Liz signal of New Zealand in 1984. Tentulkar.
Mark, alias “junior”, was an astonishing striker and a phenomenal defensive player, but such was the success of Steve that he always worked another nickname “Afghan” – the forgotten Wash. “I always remember having played against this English bowler player called James [aka Jimmy] Ormond, “he said once. “I was part of Bat-Pad and told him a few words:” Who is this guy? ” I have never seen it before. He is surely not one of the 11 best cricket players in England. At the end of the end, he passed me and said, “Maybe not, but at least I am the best cricket player in my family.” “”
Zdenek and FRANISK TIKAL
There have been more than 200 pairs of Olympic twins, but perhaps the most curious are the Tikals, in part because they have the rare (but not unique) distinction to have played against each other. The twins were separated at the age of 14, when their father defected their native Czechoslovakia in Australia and only took Zdenek with him.
FRANISEK has become a large Czech ice hockey, winning two national titles, participating in seven world championships and being named best defender of the tournament while winning the Olympic bronze in 1964. Zdenek played at a much lower level in the local leagues de Melbourne, but when American Assistance Australia sent a team to the 1960 winter matches, he was Selected – and the draw threw them against the Czechs in the group phase.
It was the first time in 12 years that the brothers have seen each other, but it was not a romantic meeting: Zdenek and his teammate Ivo Vesely, who were also born in Czechoslovakia, were targeted without remors and violently by their opponents, Who saw them as a treat, and Zdenek was finally forced ice after a vicious collision with his brother left her torn shoulder ligaments, his tournament.
