After the recent victory over Bahrain in a FIFA World Cup qualifier, where the Socceroos were completely outplayed for most of the match but still managed to win, there may be some truth in the claim that the ‘Curse of the Socceroos’ may finally be over.
Johnny Warren’s 2002 autobiography, “Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters”, raised the notion of the curse, and it goes something like this.
During a trip to play against Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 1970 World Cup Qualifier in Mozambique, members of the Socceroos consulted a witch doctor. The witch doctor buried bones near the goal posts and cursed the opposition, and Australia went on to beat Rhodesia 3-1.
However, the move backfired when the players could not come up with the £1000 demanded by the witch doctor as payment and he subsequently cursed the team.
The Socceroos failed to beat Israel and did not qualify.
The curse was supposedly lifted by John Safran during his 2004 TV series John Safran vs God.
After reading the story in Warren’s book, Safran travelled to Mozambique and hired a new witch doctor to reverse the “Socceroos Curse.”
The following year, the Socceroos not only qualified for the 2006 World Cup, but were quite successful, reaching the second round before finally falling to Italy with a last kick of the game penalty in Kaiserslautern.
Sports fans and players can be very superstitious people often going through exact routines before games, like wearing the same coloured underwear as they wore last time they won and tying their shoe laces in the same order.
Here are a few other famous sporting curses:
THE CURSE OF NORM SMITH
A curse on Melbourne Demons AFL club is used to explain why they have failed to win a premiership since it sacked Norm in the middle of the 1965 season.
Smith had coached fourteen years and won six premierships, including the previous season, but his relationship with the club grew strained and the multiple premierships winning coach was sacked.
He attacked the club in the media following his dismissal, and claimed they would never win another premiership, which has remained true to this day.
THE CURSE OF THE BILLY GOAT
The Chicago Cubs blame their 99-year World Series drought on a curse placed on the team by a Greek immigrant, annoyed that his pet goat was ejected from the 1945 World Series game at Wrigley Field.
Legend has it that Billy Sianis took the goat, which had been left outside his tavern with a sign pinned on it reading, ‘We got Detroit’s goat’, to game four against the Detroit Tigers. But Sianis and the goat were ejected from the stadium by Cubs owner, Philip Knight Wrigley, due to the animal’s smell.
The Cubs lost the World Series and Sianis wrote to Wrigley saying, ‘Who stinks now?’ The Cubs haven’t won a National League pennant or played in a World Series since – the longest drought in Major League history.
Talk about a scapegoat.
THE CURSE OF WILLIAM PENN
The statue of founding father William Penn atop Philadelphia City Hall has watched over the city for generations, with a gentlemen’s agreement prohibiting any building rising above the statue. But in March 1987, the 945ft One Liberty Place skyscraper was completed, dwarfing Penn’s statue.
Beforehand, Philadelphia teams had enjoyed an enviable run of success – including NBA and World Series – but since then, the four Phillie franchises have endured a run of narrow failures.
The Phillies lost the 1993 World Series, the 76ers lost the 2001 NBA Finals and the Eagles lost Super Bowl XXXIX.
In an attempt to end the curse, locals have attached a small figurine of Billy Penn to Philadelphia’s new tallest building.
CURSE OF THE VETCH
Swansea football fans have often cursed the performances of their side through the years – but could the club’s roller coaster history be down to evil spirits?
Celebrity physic Uri Geller claimed he could feel the presence of black spirits lurking in their former Vetch Field home in 2001. Michael Jackson’s spoon-bending buddy also insisted the mysterious presence was the reason why Tich Evans, Swans star of the 1920s, committed suicide at the ground.
The club took his words seriously, hiring Kenyan dancers to perform a voodoo act on the pitch – but the curse won out in the end – the ritual was cancelled due to a waterlogged pitch.
CURSE OF THE COLONEL
Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Harland Sanders is said to have placed a curse on Japanese baseball team, Hanshin Tigers.
The Kansai-based team have not won a Japan Championship Series since 1985 and fans blame the drought on the, ‘Curse of the Colonel’.
Following The Tigers’ only Championship victory over the Seibu Lions, raucous supporters chanted each player’s name as a fan resembling the chosen player leapt from the Ebisubashi Bridge and into the canal beneath. Unfortunately, nobody looked like Randy Bass, so fans tossed a plastic statue of the Colonel from the nearby KFC off the bridge as both had a beard and were foreign.
The Tigers fate was thereby sealed. Many attempts have since been made to recover the statue in a bid to lift the curse, but to no avail.
So has the ‘Curse of the Socceroos’ finally been broken and can we now look forward to many years of guaranteed FIFA World Cup qualification.
Koala Bear
Guest
The curse at the Sydney Football Stadium and SFC still remains... :( It's time to employ Doris to break the Curse with one of her belly dancing routines for the lads in the sheds at SFS ... :D ~~~~~~~~ KB
jimbo
Guest
Joe FC, you're right on both counts. My mind's been a bit blurry and I've been waking sweating every night since I mentioned "the curse" . . .
jimbo
Guest
THE CURSE OF ST ANDREWS Legend has it that gypsies cursed Birmingham City Football Club for 100 years as revenge for the football club kicking them off their land in 1906 to build St Andrews Stadium. The litany of bad luck is woven into the club’s fabric from day one as their first game on Boxing Day, 1906 was delayed for an hour while directors shovelled snow from the pitch. The main stand was destroyed during the Second World War when a firemen threw what he thought was water over a fire. It turned out to be petrol. The Blues were relegated at the end of their first full season at St Andrew’s and were relegated in their last full season under the curse. During the Eighties, Ron Saunders put crucifixes on the floodlight pylons and painted the soles of the players’ boots red. A decade later, Barry Fry decided the best course of action was to urinate in all four corners of the ground. Didn’t stop them getting relegated.
Albert Ross
Guest
Chuck Brodsky wrote a song about the Curse of the Billy Goat and included it on his 2006 album "Tulips for Lunch". The lyrics are on his website at http://www.chuckbrodsky.com/lyrics.html#tfl which illuminate the story some more and despite the egregious rhyming ("Most recently" with "2003"!) is fun to read. It works better if you listen to it on the CD.
Mattay
Guest
My favourite curse would have to be the Bambino curse involving the Boston Red Sox. I just love the way the curse was defeated as well, made that movie with Drew Barrymore and that guy from SNL partly-watchable as well.
md
Guest
Fantastic read mate. You missed the most famous one of all though: the curse of the Bambino (no, not Steve Corica).. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_bambino Cheers md.
Towser
Guest
Midfielder Thanks for the site. added it to my list of Football sites.
Joe FC
Guest
a minor correction jimbo, the socceroos drew thier last 1974 WC group match with Chile & the Phillies have just won the 2008 World Series.
Midfielder
Guest
Das KB Dave Jimbi Jim Tow Mill Westy Cappa & all football bloggers Just found a greal site .... http://euroos.blogspot.com/ ........ daily update on Australian players overseas and in Europe ... argueably one of the best sites I have seen.
jimbo
Guest
KB, that's two letters I've got to write now! One to the FFA to have Safron inducted in the FFA hall of fame. The second to Safron to find that Witch Doctor and "reverse the curse" against SFC put on them by a disgruntled Dwight Yorke. All in the mind you say . . .
Koala Bear
Guest
Jimbo, all of that is in the past now ... What I what to know; what are you going to do about Dwight Yorke's curse. The one he has obviously left SFC -- with one great Momma of a curse at the Sydney Football Stadium..?. Did we ever pay him his outstanding player payments owed to him from V1 HAL .? Will he lift that curse plaguing Kossie's squad, if we reconcile with him .?. Or do we need to employ John Safran to break the curse at the SFS.?. All difficult questions I know, but I would like some answers NOW..!! :( ~~~~~~~~~ KB
dasilva
Guest
Wouldn't be great if John Safran is inducted to the Football Hall Of Fame for exemplanary services to football by removing the curse. I'll support that. Perhaps we should start a petition and send it to FFA
Kazama
Roar Guru
A fun read jimbo, but I wouldn't invest too much interest in curses. Really it is all in our minds, either as justification for when things don't go our way or to shift the blame from ourselves when we can't admit that we just weren't good enough. It's in our nature to start looking to a higher power sometimes when you keep failing. Maybe there are some fellow Chelsea supporters out there that think we can't win the Champions' League because we always get screwed over. Was John Terry's penalty miss an act of God? I don't think so. I think the poor lad just crapped himself at the responsibilty of having to win the thing off his own boot. People forget that athletes are human beings too. Just because we treat them as superhuman doesn't mean they aren't prone to making gigantic mistakes or giving into their nerves like the rest of us. And, just like us mere mortals, if they keep making the same errors it starts to play on their minds, making it harder and harder for them to believe in themselves. Without self-belief you aren't going to get very far in life whether you are Cristiano Ronaldo the superstar footballer or John Smith the shipping clerk. To blame it on a curse is just an easy way out of taking responsibilty.
Paddy Higgs
Guest
Quirky article jimbo, liked it
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Jimbo good article!
Midfielder
Guest
Das Just for you John Safran youtube with the great Johnny Warren explaining the curse and having it reversed. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OV7IVos1lo4
Midfielder
Guest
Good article Jimbo and this youtube is no half bad came out only days after the 2005 win to make the WC. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=EUIP6STNxSA Das the Curse was quite famous ........ thwy visted the witch doctor to win a game by putting a curse of some kinda on the other team ........ they won by refused to pay the witch doctor and he then put a curse on the Socceroos.
jimbo
Guest
Yes dasilva, we did qualify for the WC of 74, but our captain Johnny Warren and best striker, Ray Baartz, were injured in the lead up and didn’t get to play. We were also beaten in every game and didn’t score a goal. Curse or no curse, in the 36 years from when the boys first visited the witch doctor and Safran “reversed the curse”, the majority of luck has not gone our way and now we seem to be getting luckier. Why would Johnny Warren and the Socceroos have visited a witch doctor in the first place?
dasilva
Guest
Nice fun article Jimbo THe one problem I have with the curse of the Socceroos was that after the witchdoctor place the curse on the socceroos, AUstralia qualified to the world cup in 1974. They may be the greatest socceroos of all time to qualify to the world cup because for them to qualify, they had to become the best team in Asia with a voodoo curse over the team. Imagine how well they would have done in the World Cup if there wasn't a voodoo curse. They could have even won the 1974 world cup. We were robbed not only the 2006 World Cup but the 1974 World Cup as well.