2 Edmundo’s chimp
The Brazilian footballer, known as The Animal, faced prosecution by animal rights groups after getting Pedrinho, a chimpanzee, drunk on beer and whisky. Edmundo had celebrated his son’s first birthday in 1999 by hiring a circus to perform in his back garden, and to please the snappers, he cuddled the chimp and openly fed it a glass of lager. Reports suggest the two elephants were nursing tap water.

3 Mike Tyson’s tiger
The boxer blamed Kenya, a 45st, white tiger, for his own munching of Evander Holyfield’s ear. An animal trainer had once told Tyson to nip a cat’s ears to show him who was boss. But in 2001, the planet’s baddest man faced cold-sweat fear. Kenya, fed on whole horse legs, stood on the boxer’s head for four hours. Tyson, pinned to the floor and realising his pet could kill him with one swat, stroked the beast until it was bored and heaved off him.

4 Stacy Dragila’s goats
America’s chick on a stick, the first ever women’s pole vault gold medallist thanks goats for her career. Somewhere in Hicksville, North Carolina, the teenager built the explosive punch of her upper-body by roping goats on the local rodeo circuit. “There still isn’t a goat too ornery for Stacy to wrestle,” boasts the chest-puffed local paper.

5 John Lambie’s dead pigeons
The Partick Thistle manager, a keen pigeon breeder, admitted to punishing a player for back-chat by slapping him across the jaw with a dead pigeon. “I had it in the office,” Lambie said, “because it had died of a disease and I was going to bury it.”

6 Lord’s cat
Sleek, coal-black, “a cat of great character who loved publicity” in the words of the McC’s then secretary. Peter the Cat had an ego worth bursting, the first animal in the obituary columns of Wisden. The 1965 edition solemnly records the death of “CAT, PETER, whose ninth life ended on November 5, 1964”. Peter “preferred a close-up view” and “could often be seen prowling on the field of play when the crowds were biggest”.

7 Spanish World Cup team’s dog
A nation of bullfighters takes the moral high ground on animal rights, on another nation’s “barbarity”. The footballers adopted a puppy for $25 last summer to save it from a Korean dinner table. Jose Antonio Camacho, Spain’s coach, was asked about the custom of eating the animals. Cradling the dog, he replied: “We eat snails. The customs of all foreign countries are sometimes strange.” Spain lost to South Korea on penalties in the quarter-finals.

8 Jeff Hartwig’s pythons
The American pole vaulter, who spent his childhood summers collecting reptiles in the woods — “my parents would come home from work and just freak” — now has more than 100 snakes in his basement. Hartwig used to share his waterbed with John, his favourite 10½ft long python. Not any more. He got married (and was nearly choked by the python). “My wife won’t touch them. I don’t know why.”

9 DeeDee Jonrowe’s huskies
Two randy pets cost her the 1991 Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. Jonrowe took a wrong turn in the Minnesota snow, and stopped to calculate her exact position. She turned back; the amorous pair, who had started to mate, took 25 minutes to untangle, and she lost her lead.

10 Darren Barnard’s puppy
Not always man’s best friend. Barnard, of Barnsley and Wales, slipped in a puddle of puppy pee on his kitchen floor. The tragi-comic accident in 1999 resulted in torn knee ligaments and kept him out of football for five months.