King of sprain

After the summer of Flintoff's knee, England has entered the spring of Rooney's ankle. For those living in saner countries, Wayne Rooney is our Fred equivalent in the prole game of footer. The other day he fell over with no-one near him, and caused a national palpitation when it appeared the injury might be serious enough to keep him out of the World Cup.

Luckily for those looking forward to England's unconvincing progress to the quarter-finals before elimination on penalties to either Portugal or Germany, he'd only sprained it. He'll be out for three weeks.

The sprained ankle is one of those injuries that has remained impervious to the progress of medical science. In 1867, the Sporting Life reported: 'From May 10 until June, Mr WG Grace was laid up through a sprained ankle'.

See, it doesn't matter whether you're WG or Wayne Rooney, whether it's 1867 or 2010. Sprained ankle = three weeks out. 

NB: Hopefully Wazza will have more luck than the good Doctor had in '67. He'd been back for 10 days when he caught scarlet fever, which laid him low for a month, and then he split his finger fielding, which kept him out for the rest of the season.