The United States decathlete Dave Johnson was expected to win gold in Barcelona in 1992.
When he finished third he reacted philosophically, telling the press: ”It’s not the end of the world. When I get home my dog will still lick my face.”
In the cut-throat environment of modern professional sport, pets have an important role to play. As top psychologists such as Willi Railo would probably say, the dog is the athlete’s wet-nosed emotional safety net.
Further evidence of the significance of man’s best friend in helping shape sporting careers was to be found in recent newspapers where Triggs, faithful canine companion to Roy Keane, was once again making the headlines.
Triggs, you may recall, last featured in the press when his owner returned home early from the World Cup. At that time Keane was heard loudly proclaiming that he was a wolf who had been stabbed in the back by a group of sheep.
If Triggs held the view that it is a poor sort of wolf that allows a sheep to sneak up behind it with a sharp instrument clutched between its hooves, he didn’t show it. Instead the sandy-haired mutt trotted through the Cheshire suburbs alongside the Manchester United midfielder in a display of loyalty as admirable and inexplicable as that of Sven-Goran Eriksson to Emile Heskey.
Recentlt it was revealed that the Irishman’s dog was also instrumental in persuading his master not to retire from football after his sending-off against Newcastle last season. It was apparently during a long walk with his wise and amiable companion that Keane decided to carry on. Scampering about all over the park, his tongue hanging out and his eyes full of mischief — but enough of these memories of Peter Beardsley and back to dogs.
The thought that affection will be freely given whatever the result is plainly a comfort to raw competitors such as Keane. Though in some circumstances pets can have a negative effect too. Barnsley’s Darren Barnard, for example, slipped on some puppy urine on his kitchen floor. The resultant knee ligament damage kept him out for five months. Brazil’s Edmundo ended up in trouble with the police for supplying beer to a pet chimpanzee at his son’s birthday party, and the Brentford goalkeeper Chick Brodie’s career was ended when a dog ran on to the field and collided with his leg during a match at Colchester.
By and large, though, animals have a positive influence on athletes, not just emotionally but also physically. Heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey trained for fights by tussling with his dog, and Stacy Dragila, the women’s pole vault world record holder, improved her upper-body strength using a similar strategy but a different quadruped.
The future Olympic champion spent her teenage years roping goats on the rodeo circuit. According to a report in her local paper the Sacramento Bee, ”there still isn’t a goat too ornery for Stacy to wrestle it”. Perhaps, in an attempt to increase the performance of its own women pole vaulters, Sport England could fund some goat-wrestling facilities in Britain. Certainly the costs would swiftly be recovered. There are cable channels out there that’d pay a fortune for the TV rights.
Among sports stars, women tennis players are probably the greatest dog lovers.
Martina Navratilova regularly travelled with an entourage of five Jack Russells (that’s the dog, not a cloned former England wicketkeeper) and since then the Williams sisters, Elena Dementieva, Monica Seles and Anke Huber have joined her with their packs of Maltese and Yorkshire terriers.
This sudden influx of tiny yapping canines has caused consternation among Women’s Tennis Association officials worried that most courts don’t provide adequate kennelling facilities. At the Canadian Open last year officials posted a notice on the players’ entrance, ”No animals allowed unless in bags”.
Footballers, as you might expect, tend to favour more powerful breeds such as Alsatians and name them accordingly — Rocky and Tyson crop up an awful lot. That Julian Dicks has a passion for pit-bull terriers or that Jaap Stam loves Rottweilers is hardly surprising, but players with less rugged images are equally affected. Even sweet little Michael Owen has a Staffordshire bull terrier called Bomber. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that there is a bit of overcompensation going on here.
Indeed, it will probably be dogs like the self-assuredly un-macho Triggs that finally help soothe away football players’ anxieties about their masculinity.
You’ll know that day has come when a Premiership centre-back is seen reacting to a cup final defeat by walking a Pekinese named Miu-Miu. —