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

Wright vaults into our list with two different offerings, making him the only Everton goalkeeper to do the double. In summer 2003 he was packing his suitcases after a holiday away when he fell off a loft ladder and damaged a shoulder, wrecking his pre-season preparations. Three years later he proved it was not only David James, the Portsmouth goalkeeper, who deserves the nickname Calamity as he injured his ankle in a freak accident in the warm-up prior to an FA Cup game with Chelsea , falling over a sign positioned in the goal. Iain Turner, a reserve, was forced to deputise and Everton lost the game 4-1.

46. Mariner Moose

If you are not into baseball, you will be unfamiliar with this creature who is the unruly mascot of the Seattle Mariners. The Moose made national headlines in 1995 when in a play-off series with the New York Yankees, he crashed into the outfield wall at the Kingdome while being towed on online skates behind an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) in the outfield. These days our moose tends to drive the buggy himself and later exacted some kind of revenge in a game with the Boston Redsox this season, colliding with visiting second baseman Coco Crisp who , despite being incredibly lucky to avoid serious injury, laughed off the incident. As an aside Svein Grondalen, the Norway defender, had to withdraw from an international during the 1970s after colliding with a moose while out jogging, but it is not believed to be the same creature.

45. Thierry Henry

You would have thought that with the number of goals he scored during his career with Arsenal that the France international would have turned his celebrations into a slickly choreographed routine. Not so. After scoring in a Premier League game against Chelsea in May 2000 he ran to the corner flag and ended up almost poking his eye out. Henry received medical treatment by the side of the pitch before being able to continue.

44. Rio Ferdinand

When a player costs your club a cool £18million you would probably be quite happy as a manager if your prize asset is at home with his feet up watching the telly like a sensible young man rather than out on the town partying. Unfortunately back in February 2001 Ferdinand, then with Leeds United, was resting his leg on a coffee table for a number of hours and when he came to move it found he was in big trouble. The result was a strained tendon behind his knee and an enforced absence of two games which he spent, one would assume, sat at home with his feet up watching TV.

43. Ian Greig

The unfortunate Greig snapped his key in the lock after arriving home after playing for Sussex in the county championship match with Kent in June 1983. No problem, thought the resourceful all-rounder, as he spotted an open window and proceeded to shin up the wall of his house. Greig lost his footing and fell nearly 20 feet, breaking an ankle in the process. Now playing for Surrey, he was in the wars again four years later after being hit on the hand in a game. He went to the local hospital for an X-ray to make sure there were no broken bones and stood up, banging his head on the machine and opening up a wound which required two stitches.

42. Hasim Rahman

Rahman suffered a horrific-looking injury to his head in a bout against Evander Holyfield in June 2002. Two unintentional head-butts caused a lump the size of a small grapefruit (or a large apple, if you prefer) appear on the unfortunate heavyweight’s forehead. “I didn't think he could do so much damage with his head,'' Rahman said. ``He must have a metal plate in there or something.'' The bout was stopped and went to the judges, with the 39-year-old Holyfield being declared the winner.

41. The perils of kickboxing

Eric Cantona might disagree [you may remember his flying kung fu kick into the crowd at Crystal Palace in January 1995] but kicking people can be as injurious to your own health as the person on the receiving end. Trawling through YouTube, it would appear that kickboxing injuries are ten-a-penny. Man kicks another man, man doing the kicking screams and foot flops around at a funny angle. Check out this one , or this one. There is a common thread here, the same thread presumably by which these gentlemen’s feet are attached to the rest of their leg.

40. Trevor Franklin

A tall and doughty opener for New Zealand, Franklin’s tour of England in 1986 ended in disaster at Gatwick Airport, where he was run over by a motorised luggage trolley. He suffered multiple leg fractures which kept him out of the game for 18 months and he was unable to sprint when he finally returned. Franklin had already broken a thumb on that tour and five years later he had his forearm smashed by David Lawrence. It was poetic justice that his one and only Test hundred came against England at Lord’s in 1990.

39. Malcolm Marshall

Marshall, who died tragically young from cancer, left a legacy that will never be forgotten as one of the world’s finest, fastest and nastiest bowlers. He generally had a penchant for inflicting pain rather than being on the receiving end, just ask Andy Lloyd, who was hit on the head in 1984, ending his Test career in a series where the hosts were well and truly blackwashed in a 5-0 hammering. The abiding memory of that series, however, is of the Hampshire bowler, his thumb broken, coming out to bat one-handed and making a mockery of the England attack on the way to helping Larry Gomes to an unbeaten hundred. He then rubbed salt in the wounds by taking 7-53 in the England second innings.

38. Barbaro

Ignoring the Seattle Mariners' moose mascot (see entry No 46) we come to our one and only animal entrant. Barbaro was one of America’s favourite racehorses and the winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby. In May 2006 he entered as an odds-on favourite for the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, the second leg of the famous Triple Crown. Disaster struck after the horse false-started, as he fractured three bones in and around the ankle of his right hind leg. There followed a long-running odyssey as a nation was gripped by daily updates of the horse’s wellbeing. But despite having a special cast made and recovering from the original injury, Barbaro developed a hoof disorder called laminitis and eventually had to be destroyed some eight months later. A memorial fund was set up in his honour.

37. Colin Montgomerie

Montgomerie, one of the best (and, some would say, often grumpiest) current players never to have won one of golf's majors, saw his dream of winning The Open almost ended before he got out of the starting blocks at Royal St George's in 2002. The Scot announced on the eve of the tournament that he felt so fit that "I should win by five shots" then took a tumble on the way to breakfast at the Wallett's Court Hotel in Dover, with his wrist breaking his fall. "I couldn't believe it was raining and as I looked up I fell over a step and landed nastily," said Montgomerie, who lasted just seven holes of his first round before having to withdraw.

36. Vince Coleman

Coleman, of the St Louis Cardinals, was one of baseball’s quickest players and he would have run a mile had he seen this one coming. On October 13, 1985 he was playing in the National League Championship Series when it began to rain and the umpires decided to cover the field. Unfortunately for Coleman, he was looking the other way when the mechanical tarpaulin roller was brought out to keep the infield dry. It rolled over his leg, chipping a bone in his knee, badly bruising his limb and ruling him out for the rest of the season, meaning that he missed the World Series, where the Cardinals lost to the Kansas City Royals in seven games. "That tarp was a real man-eater," Coleman later said.

35. Joe Paterno

American football is one of the most violent sports in the world, so much so that you have to be even more vigilant even if you are not in the game. Just ask Joe Paterno, one of the most successful coaches in the history of college football. The 79-year-old Penn State coach broke his left leg and damaged a knee ligament when two players ran into him on the sidelines during the Nittany Lions' loss to Wisconsin in November 2006. Watch it here

34. Ted Dexter

Dexter, one of England’s all-time greatest batsmen, was run over by a car in June 1965. His own. The Jaguar he was driving ran out of petrol on the Great West Road in Brentford and he opted to try and push it to the nearest garage. Unfortunately the vehicle had a mind of its own and Dexter lost control, ending up being pinned against a factory gate with a smashed leg. Almost a case of leg before picket (fence).

33. Jose Maria Olazabal

Seemingly a placid and mild-mannered character these days, Olly must be a frustrated Mike Tyson at heart (more of him later), because the Spaniard broke a bone in his hand at the US Open in 1999 after punching his hotel room wall in frustration after a bad round.

32. Steve Morrow

The highlight of Morrow’s career turned into one of his worst nightmares thanks to the over-exhuberance of Tony Adams, his Arsenal team-mate. The former Northern Ireland defender scored the winning goal in the 1993 League Cup final win against Sheffield Wednesday, his first for the club, but in the post-match celebrations Adams lifted Morrow on to his shoulders before promptly dropping him, unintentionally, like a sack of potatoes. Morrow was taken to hospital with a broken arm and was ruled out for the rest of the season, which meant he also missed the FA Cup final [also against Wednesday], though he made history before that game by going up to receive his League Cup winners' medal.

31. Alex Stepney

Alex Stepney gained notoriety in the 1970s playing for Manchester United for being a goalkeeper who took penalty kicks. Football fans (well this one, at least) used to hope that he missed just so you could see him have to sprint like Linford Christie the length of the field back to his own goal. But if you thought Peter Schmeichel set the standard at Old Trafford for bawling at his defenders, think again. In a match against Birmingham City Stepney shouted so loud at his hapless back four that he dislocated his jaw.

30. Orlando Brown

Brown, an offensive lineman with the Cleveland Browns, was struck in the right eye with a penalty flag thrown by referee Jeff Triplette in 1999. The little yellow flags look innocuous enough, but are weighted with ball bearings to make them fall to the ground. It hardly mattered that Brown was suspended for three games for pushing the official in retaliation because the flag almost blinded him and he did not play again for some four years. He received a reported $25 million settlement from the NFL over his eye injury before an emotional return to the gridiron field in 2003 with the Baltimore Ravens. Peversely, his father Claude had lost his eyesight due to glaucoma.

29. Sam Torrance

Torrance, a former Ryder Cup player and later captain, had an unfortunate incident with a plant pot at the Belfry in 1993 as a result of his sleepwalking. “I woke up during the night and there was this huge urn in the room, which I thought was an intruder,” Torrance said. “So I just ran at it and smashed it to pieces, cracking my sternum in the process. Luckily nobody heard it and I came clean the next morning.”

28. Henrik Larsson

Larsson, the consummate goal-scorer, was stretchered off in agony after he attempted to challenge Lyon's Serge Blanc in a Uefa Cup tie while playing for Celtic in October 1999. His left leg buckled beneath him and it was immediately obvious that something appalling had happened. The Sweden international was later diagnosed with a double fracture, reminiscent of the career-ending injury suffered by Coventry's David Busst in 1996, and was sidelined for seven months.

27. Bruce French

Some sportsmen it seem, are just cursed, and that would certainly appear to apply to Bruce French, the England reserve wicketkeeper on one day in particular while on the 1987-88 tour of Pakistan. A well-meaning spectator returned a cricket ball that had gone astray near the nets and inadvertently struck French on the head. French was hit by a car outside the hospital where he was taken for treatment and after having his wound stitched he hit his head again on a light fitting as he got up to leave.

26. Ivano Bonetti

Bonetti became a fans’ favourite at Grimsby Town after forking out £50,000 of his own money to part-fund his transfer from an American management company who owned his image rights (sounds very Carlos Tevez). However, the Italian was not as popular with his manager, Brian Laws, who lost the plot after a 3-2 defeat at Luton Town in 1996. Laws was so incensed by the performance of Bonetti that he threw a plate of chicken wings at him, fracturing the player’s cheekbone. It’s a pity Bonetti was not playing for Kilmarnock at the time, because a player getting a face full of chicken wings while playing at KFC would have made a much better story.

25. Santiago Canizares

The Spain goalkeeper would have been first choice for his country at the 2002 World Cup, but with the tournament fast approaching he dropped a bottle of aftershave in the sink at his hotel. The container shattered, and a shard of glass severed a tendon in his big toe, ruling him out of the competition. Canizares just beats Dave Beasant into our top 50 list, though the Southampton goalkeeper suffered a similar injury during the 1993-4 season while making a sandwich. For "aftershave" read "salad cream" and for "bathroom" read "kitchen". “Both my hands were holding on to things, so my natural reaction was to stick out my foot to stop the jar hitting the floor,” he said. Beasant was out for two and a half months.

24. One man and his dog

They may be man’s best friend, but it seems footballers are much like postmen in that they have a love-hate relationship with dogs. Darren Barnard, the former Barnsley midfielder, was sidelined for five months with a torn knee ligament after he slipped in a puddle of his puppy's urine on the kitchen floor in the late 1990s, while Chic Brodie, the Brentford goalkeeper, saw his career ended in October 1970 when he collided with a sheepdog that had run on to the pitch. The animal “might have been small but it just happened to be solid,” he mused. Both though, lived to tell the tale, unlike Mistar. The Indonesian footballer was killed aged just 25 by a stampede of pigs which overran his team's training pitch in 1995.

23. Ice hockey nastiness

You should never take your eye off an opponent for a second in ice hockey and here’s a clip to highlight why. Playing for the Philadelphia Flyers in the US National Hockey League, Petr Svoboda took this cheap shot from Marc Bureau of the Montreal Canadiens, a nasty elbow to the head that floored him with such force that his head bounced off the ice, opening a very nasty gash. Svoboda, now retired, became the first Czech to play over 1,000 games in the National Hockey League. In September 1969, Ted Green of the Boston Bruins got into a fight in an exhibition game with St Louis’s Wayne Maki which saw Green hit over the head with a stick. He suffered partial paralysis and had a metal plate inserted in his skull but came back the following year and carried on playing throughout the 1970s.

22. Alan Wright

Footballers love flash cars and Wright, who was in the middle of an eight-year spell with Aston Villa at the time, was no different, as he invested in a gleaming new £50,000 Ferrari without first investigating the practicalities of such a decision. At only 5ft 4in tall, Wright strained his knee reaching for the accelerator pedal and subsequently swapped the Prancing Horse for a much less flashy Rover 416. Wonder what Jeremy Clarkson would have to say about that? The Villa man, though, had no regrets: "The accelerator's position meant my right leg was bent slightly and my knee was giving me grief," he said.

21. Barry Sheene

Sheene, a British motorcycling legend having twice won the 500cc world championship, suffered appalling injuries at Silverstone in August 1982, when his bike crashed into the wreckage of another machine during practice before the British Grand Prix. Keith Huewen, a fellow racer and now commentator, was one of the first at the scene. “I slowed down and noticed Barry lying there; his body was actually smoking,” Huewen said. “In my mind, there was no question he was dead.” For a while it seemed that Sheene’s legs would have to be amputated. But a series of operations, which involved the insertion of nearly 30 screws and plates into his smashed legs, restored him to racing.

20. Jamie Ainscough

Ainscough, an Australian, who was a rugby league player for Wigan, came down with a mystery arm infection in 2003 which became so bad that doctors thought at one point they might have to amputate. But the cause of the problem became clear after an X-ray revealed the tooth of an opponent - Martin Gleeson of St Helens - had been lodged in his arm. A similar thing happened Down Under to former NRL prop Ben Czislowski, who needed stitches above his left eye after clashing heads with a rival in April 2007. Czislowski later suffered an eye infection but continued to play through the pain until almost four months later when a doctor examining him found an opponent's tooth buried in his head.

19. David Lawrence

Affectionately known as “Syd”, Lawrence was a gentle giant of a man and a very quick bowler who played for Gloucestershire and England. His appearances at Test level, though, were rare and his international career was ended by an appalling injury suffered on the last day of the third and final Test with New Zealand at Wellington in February 1992. With England already 2-0 up in the series and the match destined for a draw, Lawrence came on to bowl his third over of the second innings and there was a sound like a pistol shot which reverberated around the ground. Lawrence collapsed in agony with a fractured kneecap. He suffered a series of further setbacks and although he made a brief comeback in 1997 he was never the same force again. “All I can remember is the pain,” he told Matthew Syed earlier this year. “I am a bit of a hard guy. Before getting into cricket I used to box, so I know how to take a punch. But I had never experienced pain like that before — and I stayed conscious throughout the whole thing.” Nowadays he is a nightclub owner in the West Country.

18. Bert Trautmann

Trautmann’s is probably the most famous footballing injury of them all. The German former prisoner of war, who had decided to stay in England to ply his trade after hostilities ended, was playing for Manchester City in the FA Cup final with Birmingham City at Wembley in May 1956. Near the end of the match, which City won 3-1, he dived at the feet of Peter Murphy trying to cut out a cross and the forward’s thigh landed right on his neck. Trautmann played the last 15 minutes dazed and in pain, rubbing his neck as he came off the field. He remembers enjoying the official post-match banquet despite the fact that he could not move his head. It was only several days later that he was diagnosed with a broken neck, being declared lucky to be alive after one of his vertebrae had been crushed. “If I’d known my neck was broken I’d have been off like a shot,” he said.

17. Sid Vicious

To most people wrestling is not a sport, more like entertainment, because the bouts are carefully scripted and the action choreographed. Occasionally, though, something unexpected happens, and when it does it is usually painful. Sid Vicious, not the former Sex Pistol, found out to his cost in January 2001, snapping his leg in a grisly accident captured perfectly by this clip on YouTube. Vicious, real name Sidney Ray Eudy but who has also answered in the past to Sid Justice and Sycho Sid, sustained a compound fracture on his left leg during a WCW pay-per-view event called "Sin" as he jumped from the top rope and attempted to land on his opponent Scott Steiner. He was sidelined for three years, making his return in a low-key tag team contest in Montreal, but never made the wrestling big time again.

16. Evander Holyfield

Few would argue that at the peak of his powers Mike Tyson was unrivalled in the heavyweight division and probably only Mohammad Ali has been as big a boxing box office draw. By the time he fought Evander Holyfield in June 1997, however, Tyson’s career was on the slide. Clearly a desperate and out-of-control individual, Tyson, in front of a sold out crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, took a bite out of his opponent's ear in the third round. The referee, Mills Lane, could hardly believe it until he was summoned over to Holyfield’s corner to inspect the damage. His initial thoughts were to abandon the fight there and then, but instead he ordered the judges to deduct two points from Tyson’s score and resumed hostilities. Within seconds, Tyson repeated the same skullduggery and was promptly disqualified. “It’s like Dracula time,” said the commentator. “I’ve never seen anything like this in boxing.” All hell broke loose, the police came into a by-now crowded ring to try and restore order and like a ripple effect the bedlam moved to the hotel lobby and then the streets outside. Tyson was suspended from boxing and his purse was withheld. It was the beginning of the end for Iron Mike.

15. Wayne Shelford

The reason why rugby players, unlike their Amercian footballing cousins, do not wear lots of fancy padding is that they are hard b****ards. Some of them are really hard, and Shelford is one of the hardest of them all. Playing for New Zealand against France in Nantes in August 1986 Shelford, at the bottom of a ruck, was trampled on by an opponent, the studs raking over his scrotum and ripping it open, leaving one testicle dangling free. Shelford, who had also lost four teeth in the same match, asked the All Blacks medic to stitch him up and carried on playing. He later suffered a blow to the head which left him concussed and he had to leave the field. What a wimp! "I was knocked out cold, lost a few teeth and had a few stitches down below," Shelford said. "It's a game I still can't remember - I have no memory of it whatsoever.” New Zealand lost the game 16-3.

14. Gus Frerotte

Ever wondered why American football players wear helmets? Frerotte was a quarterback with the Washington Redskins and one bar short of a facemask, it would appear. In 1997 he celebrated scoring a touchdown against the New York Giants by head-butting the padded stadium wall. Unfortunately, his target consisted of a thin layer of foam covering a block of concrete and although Frerotte continued groggily until half-time, he was then taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with concussion and was never really the same player again. "People made a big deal out of that," Frerotte said. "I just laugh about it. It was an emotional thing. I was excited, and it's not something I made an effort to do, it just happened." He’s at the end of this YouTube clip of sporting headbutts.

13. Jessica Dube

Dube, from Canada, was competing with her figure skating partner Bryce Davison in the free programme of the pairs competition at the Four Continents championships in Colorado in February 2007 when disaster struck. Performing a side-by-side camel spin (leaning over at an angle with one leg on the ice and the other extended horizontally), Dube’s face made contact with Davison’s skate . With all that twirling going on it was reminiscent of someone walking into the rotor blades of a helicopter and similarly devastating, Dube collapsed to the ice after suffering cuts to the cheek and nose which required surgery.

12: Glenallen Hill

Baseball is a dangerous game. Pitchers throw fastballs at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour, there are collisions between fielders and between batsmen and fielders. Glenallen Hill’s injury, however, was something quite different. On the roster of the Toronto Blue Jays at the time, Hill turned up with bumps and bruises before a match with the Seattle Mariners in July 1990 and declared himself unavailable to play. He then proceeded to tell incredulous reporters the story of what had happened the night before which was so bizarre he could not have possibly made it up. Hill, who suffers from arachnophobia, had been having a nightmare that he was being attacked by a spider and literally got out of bed and started trying to flee – while still asleep. He subsequently tumbled out of bed, cut his foot on a glass table and fell down a flight of stairs while sleepwalking. ''When I woke up I was on a couch and my wife, Mika, was screaming, 'Honey, wake up!''' he told the Associated Press. Opposing fans gave him the nickname Spiderman from then on.

11. Salim Sdiri

Sdiri a long jumper, was minding his own business by the pit in a Golden League Meeting in Rome in July 2007 when he was struck by a javelin thrown from the other end of the arena by Tero Pitkamaki. The spear lodged in his side and he was immediately surrounded by medics before being rushed to hospital. The Finnish thrower had slipped at the end of his run-up, hurling the javelin out to the left of the landing area and spearing Sdiri in his right side as he crouched in the long jump warm-up area. The javelin penetrated ten centimetres into Sdiri’s flesh, causing damage to the athlete’s kidney and liver, though the prognosis was that he would make a full recovery. It is difficult to know who to feel more sorry for, poor Sdiri, or Pitkamaki, who looked absolutely stunned after the incident, holding his head in his hands, though he did recover his composure enough to continue to compete in the competition.

10. Clarence Blethen

Babe Ruth is probably baseball’s most famous player of the 1920s, but Clarence Blethen has his own particular niche in history from the same period. Blethen was a toothless rookie pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, who wore a set of dentures but took them out when facing batters because he thought he looked more menacing. He would reinsert the dentures while batting but one fateful day, in September 1923, he forgot and left them in his back pocket. Sliding into second base to try and avoid getting out he quite literally bit himself on the behind.

9. Craig Parnham

Parnham was the captain of the England hockey team and was hit by a flying hockey stick in the last minute of a match against Pakistan in August 2001. A complete freak accident, it was no laughing matter, as it left him with a shattered larynx and gasping for breath. “Suddenly I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I charged over to the bench and our team doctor screamed for a stretcher and oxygen. There was talk that I may die and, if I lived, would never talk again.” Medical staff rushed Parnham to an intensive care unit. Once he had been airlifted back to Britain, a skin graft was taken from his thigh and specialists rebuilt his larynx, which had smashed into four pieces, and the cartilage at the top of his windpipe. Within months he was playing for his country again.

8. Paulo Diogo

Diogo was playing for Servette in a Swiss league game in December 2004 and was so overjoyed at setting up a goal for Jean Beausejour in a 4-1 away win at Schaffhausen that he jumped up on one of the boundary fences to celebrate with the fans. Diogo, who had only recently got married, failed to notice that his new wedding ring was caught on the fence until he jumped back down and both the ring and most of his finger did not accompany him. Diogo was left writhing on the ground shrieking in agony, but referee Florian Etter thought he was just making a meal of the goal and yellow carded him for excessive celebration. Stewards took part in a frantic search to retrieve the finger, which was found, but doctors were unable to reattach it and instead opted to amputate what portion was left.

7. Mike Gatting

When England toured West Indies in February 1986 the hosts were at the peak of their powers and in possession of one of the most fearsome bowling attacks to ever play Test cricket. The series, though, was won before a ball had been bowled, because of what happened in a preceding one-day international. Malcolm Marshall got a ball to rise steeply off the pitch, striking Gatting a fearful blow full in the face, squashing his nose. Marshall picked up the ball to find shards of Gatting’s nose cartilage embedded in its leather while England, to nobody’s surprise, lost the Test series 5-0. Not that they were scared, of course, but there is a legendary tale of Allan Lamb later admitting to walking in one Test when he hadn't even hit the ball. Gatting, who was also sporting two black eyes by now, arrived back at Heathrow Airport to be asked by a reporter one of the all-time funniest or dumbest questions, depending on your point of view: "Where exactly did it hit you?" He went to point at his nose, but stopped, much to the mirth of the mischievous media scrum accompanying him.

6. Mick Foley

Here is another example that wrestling can be anything but stage-managed and predictable. Mick Foley a very popular wrestler with the WCW, fighting under the name of Cactus Jack, was up against Vader in an exhibition bout on a European tour in Munich. One of Foley’s trademark moves was known as a Hangman, where he would intentionally get his head trapped between the top two ropes. It was not without risk, but not highly dangerous, except that on this night one of his colleagues had earlier complained that the ropes were too loose and had them tightened considerably. Foley charged headlong at the ropes and was trapped. The referee in prising them apart freed him but only at the expense of Foley’s ear, which was hanging off as he collapsed on the floor outside the ring. After lying prostrate for several seconds, he finally hauled himself up and continued to fight in this incredible YouTube video. At 7:29 of the clip the incident actually happens. At 8.14 he throws a punch and most of his ear falls off. Watch the referee sneak in, pick it up and hand to somebody outside the ring. The rumour that he actually said: “Ear, keep hold of this,” however, is apparently untrue, nor did he consider leaving it in the corner where the ropes meet to create a listening post. Later that year Foley chose to wrestle instead of having his ear reattached and won his only championship in WCW, partnering Kevin Sullivan to a tag team title at Slamboree 1994.

5. Allen Ray

Presumably you have heard the saying “eyes on stalks”. Playing in a college basketball game for Villanova against Pittsburgh in March 2006, American basketball viewers were appalled when Ray had his eyeball dislodged in the middle of the game by an opposing player, Carl Krauser. Ray’s eyeball sat in front of the eyelid and he temporarily could not see through it. However, doctors popped the eyeball back into place, his vision returned and he was left with only minor soft tissue damage around the eye.

4. David Busst

With Henrik Larsson’s appalling injury featured earlier in our list and Kieron Dyer suffering a double leg fracture playing for West Ham United in the Carling Cup, leg injuries although comparatively rare are an occupational hazard in football. The worst of them all happened to David Busst, the Coventry City defender, in April 1998, when he went to try and poke home an early corner and collided with United defender Denis Irwin. Peter Schmeichel went to help the stricken player and his reaction - he was sick at the side of the pitch - signalled the horrific nature of what had happened. Busst’s lower right leg was twisted back in an improbable L-shape, with the tibia and fibula bones snapped in two and thrusting through the skin. Schmeichel, who helped to mop up the blood from the penalty area after Busst had been removed, had to receive counselling. Sadly, after 22 operations to repair his leg, Busst never played again.

3. Joe Theismann

This is probably the most imfamous American football injury of them all, not least because it happened on Monday Night Football, a national institution which attracts massive television audiences. Theismann, the quarterback with the Washington Redskins, was facing the New York Giants and their fearsome defence led by the outstanding linebacker, Lawrence Taylor. Washington called for a trick play, where the ball is handed to the running back who turns and passes it back to the quarterback who then throws it downfield. Unfortunately, New York had called a blitz, meaning that Theismann was buried under an avalanche of rampaging defenders before he ever got the chance to unleash the ball. That was the last thing on poor Joe’s mind moments later: Taylor got to him first, Harry Carson followed and the QB’s leg was trapped at an horrific angle, leaving Taylor with his hands on his head screaming for medical attention for his stricken opponent. It is one of the most memorable clips in all of American professional sport. "It was at that point I also found out what a magnificent machine the human body is," Theismann said. "Almost immediately, from the knee down, all the feeling was gone in my right leg. The endorphins had kicked in, and I was not in pain."

2. Clint Malarchuk

Although he did not make top spot in our list because few people this side of the Atlantic have heard of Clint Malarchuk, this is the most gruesome injury of them all. And, an early warning, on no account watch the video if you are squeamish or of a nervous disposition. Malarchuk was a goaltender playing for the National Hockey League’s Buffalo Sabers against St Louis Blues on home ice in March 1989. In the sort of play that happens a thousand times a night in a hockey game, Steve Tuttle of St Louis and Sabers defender Uwe Krupp collided in front of the goal, only this time Tuttle’s leg kicked into the air, and in a horrible fluke his skate blade sliced through the goalkeeper’s jugular vein. Malarchuk flung off his mask and collapsed to his knees in front of his goal, blood, literally, spurting out of his neck and gushing on to the ice. He asked the trainer who rushed out to help him: “Am I going to live?”. If the skate had hit one eighth of an inch higher, he would have been dead in two minutes and the sight was so grisly that three spectators suffered heart attacks. Malarchuk, who was back on the ice just three weeks after the incident happened later recalled: “I just remember the looks of horror in people’s faces and their eyes.”

1. David Beckham

Many of the closest relationships end in spectacular bust-ups and Beckham’s falling out with Sir Alex Ferguson was splashed across the front pages of all the tabloids. Ferguson was fuming after his Manchester United side lost 2-0 to arch rivals Arsenal in the fifth round of the FA Cup in February 2003 and lashed out with his foot at a stray boot in the changing room. Of course, he had no intention of hurting poor Goldenballs (who would want to contend with a furious Victoria down the training ground the next morning?) but, with the unerring accuracy of a Beckham free-kick, the rogue piece of footwear avoided the wall and curled towards the head of United’s star player, opening up a nasty cut that bled profusely. Beckham was furious and later needed two butterfly stitches to stem the flow of blood. “It was a graze which was dealt with by the doctor," Ferguson said. "It was a freakish incident. If I tried it 100 or a million times it couldn't happen again. If I could I would have carried on playing. There is no problem and we move on. That is all there is to say." Remember the immortal headline on the front page of The Sun the next day? FERGIE DECKS BECKS

Explore More Sport

• Cycling

• Athletics

• Sailing

• US Sport