SMALL PRINT:ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, Real Madrid player Sergio Ramos, below left, did the unthinkable, dropping the team's just-won Copa del Ray trophy from the top of the team's open-top bus. It's probably one of the best ever trophy drops, but there are a few other great gong-destroying moments in prize-winning history.
1 After some over-zealous celebrating upon winning her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for My Left Foot in 1989, Brenda Fricker managed to drop her Oscar in a fountain. A bellboy dived in and rescued the award, clutching it with his fist as he surfaced, leaving Fricker with an unforgettable image.
2 In 2002, Armagh football manager Joe Kernan brought his 1977 All-Ireland runners-up plaque into the dressing room during half-time when his team was losing to Kerry. He smashed it to inspire the team who went on to beat Kerry by a point to claim the title.
3 While resting on the edge of a table on a stage in a function room at Portsmouth FC in 2009, the FA Cup smashed to the ground when a group of excited children jumped on the platform to see it. The rim of the cup was dented and the lid wouldn’t fit back on. It had to be returned to the FA for repairs.
4 Last year, while posing for photographs at the Grammy Awards, pop country star Taylor Swift, above, dropped one of the four awards she was struggling to hold. It broke on the floor but a quick-thinking organiser swiftly replaced it with another blank award.
5 In 2006, days after winning the World Cup, Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro, who had slept with the trophy the night Italy beat France, was photographed with a broken piece of green malachite from the trophy’s base. The piece was subsequently glued back on.
– Una Mullally
Missing the Doctor's sidekick
K-9 HAS LOST his mistress. The Doctor has lost an old friend. And, with the death of Elisabeth Sladen, who passed away on Tuesday aged just 63, millions of Doctor Whofans have lost a heroine. Sladen played Sarah-Jane Smith, the Doctor's most iconic companion, from 1973 to 1976, and was so adored by fans that when she returned for the episode School Reunionin 2006, she proved so popular that she was given her own programme on CBBC, The Sarah-Jane Adventures.
For many small girls, from the 1970s to the 21st century, she was an inspiration. Not least because she made being a journalist look so exciting.
Sladen's death has prompted many tributes from fans and former colleagues, including Tom Baker himself, and a special programme, My Sarah Jane, will air tomorrow at 6.45pm on CBBC, directly after the first episode of the new series of Doctor Whoon BBC 1. But perhaps the most moving tribute of all comes from Sladen's youngest fans. When the BBC's children's programme Newsroundasked viewers to share their thoughts on Sladen's death, hundreds of heartbroken children responded. "I needed the biggest hug when I heard the news," wrote ten-year-old Ellie from Manchester. And ten-year-old Rebecca from Scotland spoke for all fans, young and old: "No one is going to forget you," she wrote. "No one at all."
– Anna Carey
