Buried cats, exorcisms and a sunken Colonel Sanders – the strange world of sporting curses
- Written by: Weekend Times
Sports fans can be a superstitious lot.
Some believe sitting in the same seat every game helps their team win. Many
wear so-called “lucky” jocks. Some grow “playoff beards”.
Others go as far as believing their team is cursed. After a long championship drought or numerous heartbreaking losses, it can seem like the most logical explanation.
Here are some of the weirdest and most surprising curses in world sport.
Guttmann’s curse
Portuguese soccer club Benfica won the European Cup (now the UEFA Champions League) in 1961 and 1962.
Coach Bela Guttmann then asked for a pay rise but the board refused. He immediately quit and said Benfica would not win another European trophy for 100 years.
They have made eight finals since then and lost them all.
Despite installing a statue of Guttman outside their stadium and praying for forgiveness at his grave, the curse endures.
The curse of the seven cats
Racing Club is one of the most successful soccer teams in Argentina. Between 1913 and 1966 it won 15 titles in the Argentinian Premier League.
Their 1966 title gave them entry to the Copa Libertadores (a tournament to find the best club in South America), which they won. They then won the Intercontinental Cup (best club in the world) the same year.
Fans of their rivals Independiente were not happy and decided to do something about it. They broke into Racing’s stadium and buried seven black cats, allegedly with the assistance of a local witch.
Racing then endured a 35-year Premier League title drought. During this time, Independiente won eight titles, five Copa Libertadores and two Intercontinental cups.
Racing was later declared bankrupt and was, for the first time, relegated.
The club tried numerous things to lift the curse. In the 1980s it dug up six of the cats, buried toads (supposedly associated with cleansing and rebirth) in their places and asked the Catholic church to perform an exorcism.
The seventh cat was finally found under a concrete section of the stadium in 2000.
Shortly afterwards, Racing won the 2001 title.
The curse of County Mayo
Earlier this year, County Mayo won the All-Ireland Gaelic football final for the first time since 1951.
While a 75-year championship drought is noteworthy, it is the related curse that really makes this story interesting.
Legends tells that while celebrating the final in 1951, the team interrupted a funeral and was allegedly cursed by the Catholic priest officiating it. The priest stated Mayo would not win another championship as long as any of the team was alive.
Mayo lost all 13 finals it played in from 1951 to 2021. This includes four heart-breaking one-point losses.
Mick Loftus, the last surviving member of the 1951 team, died in 2023.
Mayo then won the next final it played, in 2026.
The curse of the billy goat
From 1876 to 1945, the Chicago Cubs were one of the most successful baseball teams in America. Then came the “curse of the billy goat”.
Local tavern owner William Sianis cursed the Cubs after his pet goat, which he had bought a ticket for, was denied entry to Wrigley Field for Game 4 of the World Series because of its smell.
A huge title drought ensued. Cubs fans made numerous attempts to reverse the curse over the years, including spreading holy water on the dugout, blowing up a “cursed” ball, giving free goat sausages to fans and inviting the goat’s descendants to the opening day of the season.
The Cubs didn’t play in another World Series until 2016, winning their first title in 71 years.
The curse of ‘The Bambino’
The “curse of The Bambino” is legendary. It relates to the Boston Red Sox’s 86-year championship drought between 1918 and 2004.
In 1920, Babe “The Bambino” Ruth was controversially traded from the Red Sox to the New York Yankees. At that time, the Red Sox were the most successful team in Major League Baseball with five championships. The Yankees had never even made the World Series finals.
The trade coincided with a dramatic reversal of fortunes for these teams.
By the time the Red Sox won the championship in 2004, the Yankees had claimed the most championships (26) of any team across the major American professional sports.
The curse of the Colonel
The “curse of the Colonel” involves the Hanshin Tigers baseball team in Japan.
In 1985, fans were celebrating a championship by yelling players’ names, with a fan resembling that player jumping off a bridge into the local canal. However, no fans looked like their star US hitter Randy Bass.
The closest thing they could find was a plastic statue of Colonel Sanders in a nearby KFC. So, they stole it and threw it the sludgy water to represent Bass.
It was said: “until the Colonel is rescued and cleansed of its sludge, Hanshin has no hopes of winning a championship”.
He was finally found by construction workers in 2009 and displayed outside the Tigers’ home stadium, after being cleaned and blessed by a priest.
The Tigers finally broke their curse after 38 years, winning the championship in 2023. KFC Japan gave the Colonel a ritual farewell at a local shrine before disposing of him in 2024.
The Norm Smith curse
The “Norm Smith curse” is a well-known Australian Football League legend.
Smith coached Melbourne to six premierships in ten years. Despite this success, he was fired mid season in 1965 after disagreements with the club committee.
Smith famously said:
It will be many, many years before Melbourne will play in the finals again, and it will be a long, long time before Melbourne wins another premiership.
In his absence, Melbourne did not make finals again until 1987.
The club finally broke its curse with victory in the 2021 grand final. Their 57-year premiership drought was the longest in the league at that time.
The Socceroos’ curse
In 1969, the Socceroos enlisted a local witch doctor to curse their opponents Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) before a World Cup qualifier in Mozambique. Australia won, but did not pay the witch doctor, who then reversed the curse. Australia failed to qualify for the World Cup in 1970.
They failed to score a single goal at the 1974 World Cup and didn’t qualify for the World Cup again until 2006. This 32-year absence included heartbreaking losses against Iran in 1997 and Uruguay in 2001.
In 2004 TV presenter John Safran heard about the curse from former Socceroos captain Johnny Warren.
Safran travelled to Africa to pay the overdue bill and participate in a ceremony on the same soccer field. This involved a witch doctor channelling the original (now dead) witch doctor and sacrificing a chicken and smearing its blood over Safran.
Once back in Australia, Safran and Warren met at Accor Stadium to smear themselves with a specific ritual clay the witch doctor had given them to wash away bad luck.
In 2005 the Socceroos overcame Uruguay in a dramatic penalty shootout to qualify for the 2006 World Cup.
They have not missed a World Cup since.
Vaughan Cruickshank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
