Sport, in case you hadn't noticed, can be a dangerous occupation. For every tale of glorious success there is another of tragic, often painful failure. Although this collection of 50 of the most memorable sporting injuries contains the humorous and downright crazy, it is not to be taken lightly.

There is nothing funny about a man breaking his leg, like the horrific career-threatening injury that David Busst, the Coventry City player, suffered at Manchester United.

And where do you draw the line? Alex Zanardi, the motor racing driver, lost both his legs in this crash, but he is not included in the list because it would be in appalling taste. There is nothing wrong, however, in championing the courage of a man who continued to race with the aid of two artificial limbs. It is a testament to human spirit and the drive of an individual who refuses to be parted from the sport he loves.

Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction. John Smoltz, the legendary Atlanta Braves pitcher, swears blind that he has never burnt himself ironing a shirt … while wearing it, though you will find many a reference to that mishap across the good old worldwide web. Then there is this gruesome-looking alleged weightlifting injury which almost made me choke on my cornflakes when it arrived in my inbox a year or two ago. It would appear that it is a fake, though I would like to know what the picture actually does show.

Part one of our top fifty runs from 50 to 26, with the remainder appearing tomorrow. If you have any suggestions or notice any glaring omissions, please let us know below.

50. Chris Lewis

Lewis was a very gifted cricketer who never quite achieved what he might considering his talents. Perhaps intelligence was an issue. Selected for England’s team to tour West Indies in 1993-4 he decided to shave his head on arrival and promptly went out to practice on a baking-hot day without a hat. The result? Sunstroke. "Chris Lewis baldly went where no other cricketer has gone before," wrote The Sun, "and the prat without a hat spent two days in bed with sunstroke.”

49. Leroy Lita

Leroy Lita missed the first month of the 2007-08 Premier League season after damaging a leg muscle as he stretched in bed after waking up. “Leroy is in a great deal of pain,” said Steve Coppell, the Reading manager. “He woke up and stretched while in bed and he has done something to his leg. It is not an injury that should be ridiculed or made light of,” he added. So why are we laughing, then?

48. Dave Dravecky

Dravecky is a famous pitcher who is known as much in America for his bravery in a personal fight against cancer as for his prowess on the baseball diamond. In October 1988 the San Francisco Giants player had half of his deltoid muscle removed and his humerus bone frozen in an attempt to rid him of the disease. Making a winning return nine months later, things appeared set fair only for the bone to snap in his next start against Montreal with a sound that could be heard around the entire stadium. He never pitched again, breaking his arm for a second time celebrating the Giants winning the National League pennant at the end of that season when it was then discovered that the cancer had returned. After two more surgeries his left arm and shoulder were amputated but he remains to this day held in high regard by the US sporting public.

47. Richard Wright

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