Curses have a peculiarly strong hold in sport. In baseball, the “Curse of the Bambino” saw the Boston Red Sox suffer almost nine decades of misfortune for the sin of trading their best player, Babe Ruth, to their bitter rivals the New York Yankees, while the “Curse of the Billy Goat” led the Chicago Cubs to endure a 108-year World Series drought for ejecting a spectator and his disruptive pet from Wrigley Field.
Mayo’s Gaelic football stars’ disrespect of a funeral cortege inflicted the “Curse of ‘51” that has seen them lose 11 All-Ireland finals since their last success 75 years ago and Ireland’s men’s rugby team don’t have a catchy moniker for their struggle but the pain of eight Rugby World Cup quarter-final appearances and eight defeats (plus one loss in a quarter-final playoff for good measure) is real.
