A selection of five of the angriest Aussie sportsmen

Most professional athletes lose their cool every now and then; such is the competitive nature of sport. However, there is another type of athlete; the bloke who is permanently ticked off about something and always looks like he’s just stepped in a pile of Black Cavier’s finest.

He is the angry man.

From the NFL over the weekend came vision of coaches Jim Schwartz and Jim Harbaugh, two well renowned ‘fiery’ characters, sparking a full on melee after an alleged ‘excessively firm’ handshake.

Whilst it would be tempting to toss this into the only in America basket Australian sport punches above its weight with regards to angry ants, with plenty of coaches, players and administrators in Australia who do a fair Winnebago man impersonation.

Here are five of my favourite:

5. Wade Mckinnon

Whilst he was probably unlucky not to achieve higher honours in the game, former NRL player McKinnon was equally lucky that match officials didn’t bring in a ‘swear jar’ rule during his time in the top flight, as Wade could have easily pushed his team over the salary cap.

The speedy fullback had more issues with authority than Ned Kelly getting audited, a situation that wasn’t helped when he was accused of spitting on a touch judge in 2008 bringing up a number of humorous comparisons to Seinfeld episode “The Boyfriend” at the judiciary.

4. Ricky Ponting

Considering he took over the Australian cricket captaincy from a bloke whose glare was meaner than Clint Eastwood’s (who had in turn played under a bloke nicknamed ‘Captain Grumpy), it seems like it would be hard for Ponting to stand out as a particularly heated kind of guy. Not so.

Whilst Cricket Australia’s strict personality ban usually did a decent job of keeping Ricky slowly simmering with a scowl, every now and then the Bourbon and Beefsteak boy would bust out spraying the Umpires and opposition players like a blindfolded Mitchell Johnson on a bouncy wicket.

Maybe Simon Katich should have been the next captain, after all.

3. Jake King

Little man syndrome personified is the man they deem ‘push up’. Hot-headed and aggressive, King made headlines for allegedly threatening to kill a man and his family in August this year in what is, let’s face it, not quite up there with the St Kilda schoolgirl yarns for outlandish accusations.

2. Ricky Stuart

Once upon a time, life was good for Ricky Stuart. He was an ultra competitive halfback who happened to be playing for winning teams at both club and rep level.

Since then it’s been a bumpy ride with a GF win as a rookie coach and success as NSW coach before getting shafted by the Roosters and then, well, having to coach the Sharks.

From here things went downhill pretty quickly for Sticky with his anger boiling over after coaching Australia to a loss in the 2008 World Cup Final, after which he was found to have physically assaulted match officials accusing them of rigging the result.

Recently, Stuart has tried to redeem himself somewhat by becoming a full time Origin coach, thus meaning fans only have to put up with his continual whinging for a couple of months each year.

1. Kevin Muscat

In 2003 the award winning novel ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ was published. The book has nothing to do with former Socceroo Muscat, but it could have easily been the title of his biography as no one player has come close to producing the reign of terror undertaken by big Kev.

Where to begin.

Muscat was able to do what few Australians have by making an impact in top flight UK football. Unfortunately this was for being crowned the most ‘hated man in football’ and generally being as despised as Pippa Middleton’s boyfriend.

Body checks, wild all in brawls, elbows, stomping, tackles that have had opponents facing possible amputation of limbs… the list goes on. Muscat failed to mellow on his return to Australia and was involved in a further sideline brawl as well as a sickening tackle incident.

Perhaps the best way of describing his reputation was when Muscat was shunned by fans of English club Millwall for being “too aggressive” after being red carded in just his third game for the club. Millwall!