RICKY HATTON
1 Bernard Manning died last year, but his kindly spirit lives on in Britain’s newest stand-up sensation, sweary Ricky Hatton, who admits his fellow Manchester City fan is his comedy hero. ‘Ricky's got a wonderful sense of humour and he'll have them rolling in the aisles,’ said his unbiased agent. Indeed, nurses have had to be summoned to his performances in order to stitch the audience’s sides together and he’s back out on the road next week. ‘I promise not to use too many of those four-letter words ladies hate to hear,’ he gallantly trills, ‘like “wash”, “cook” and “iron”. . .’ There are rib-tickling jokes about hitting women (‘I had to take my missus out last night - one punch’), a neat line in self-deprecation (‘I went on the rowing machine yesterday. It f****** sank’) and a homage to a fellow boxer: ‘What an animal Mike Tyson is. Imagine finding him in bed with your missus: you’d tuck him in, wouldn’t you?’ Couldn’t he open a lard shop instead?

KYRAN BRACKEN
2 Having carved out a manly career as a scrum-half for Bristol, Saracens and England, Bracken tried figure skating, winning Dancing On Ice in 2007. ‘It’s harder than rugby,’ he claimed. ‘I'm now at one with sequins. And I'm surprisingly comfortable about wearing lightning stripes on a tight top.’ Now known as Twinkletoes, he is a fully paid-up member of the Dancing On Ice tour.

TONYA HARDING
3 If having her rival Nancy Kerrigan’s knee worked over in 1994 was insufficient evidence of a violent bent, once she was through with ice skating (we’ll glide gently over the Penthouse photos and the drink-related dealings with her local constabulary), Harding reemerged in 2002 as, oh lordy, a professional boxer. First, she defeated Bill Clinton’s ‘friend’ Paula Jones in a celebrity boxing bout for television before taking it up full-time. A year and six fights later (won three, lost three) she retired, citing her asthma. A nation mourned. Probably.

NEIL WEBB
4 The classic riches to rags saga. After star turns for Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and England, retirement seemed to hold no fears for Webb. Instead, after a brief spell managing Weymouth, the phone stopped ringing unless it was the lawyers during his difficult divorce. Short of cash but not of dignity, he rejoined the real world and became a postman. ‘When I first started people would say, “What are you doing? You played for England and earned a lot of money”,’ Webb muttered. ‘I said, “Yeah, and it isn’t going to last me till I’m 65. Work it out - mortgage, car, kids and tax”. People just don’t understand.’ He’s also an analyst for Canadian cable channel The Score.

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