Top 10 worst sports fans

A drunken Pieter van Zyl tackled Irish ref David McHugh - but was quickly felled by a punch from All Black Richie McCaw. Photo / Getty Images

With fans like the ones from Liverpool, whose beachball antics served only to eliminate the slim hopes their beloved football club had of breaking their 20-year Premiership drought, who needs enemies? Dylan Cleaver highlights 10 infamous "fans" in sport.

1. Gunter Parche - Steffi Graf

What do you do when the hegemony created by your favourite tennis player looks like it is coming to an end under the withering two-handed groundstrokes of a grunting Yugoslav? To the right-thinking people of the world the answer is simple: you sit back and hope that Steffi Graf adds a few more layers to her game and figures out a way to out-duel Monica Seles.

Not if you're Gunter Parche, though. If you're crazy Gunter, you wait until Seles is playing at Hamburg in a low-key quarterfinal against Magdalena Maleeva, then run on to court during a break between games and stab Seles between her shoulders with a boning knife. The really sickening thing is that it worked. Although Seles' injuries took only a few weeks to heal, she did not return to competitive tennis for more than two years and was never really the same player.

Parche escaped jail because he was found to be psychologically abnormal - no kidding - and was instead sentenced to two years' probation.

2. Dictators Clubs - Real Madrid, Bologna, Chicago Bulls and (possibly) Schalke 04

There are a couple of blokes who you'd rather not have backing you. Top of the pops would be Adolf Hitler, who The Times dubiously claimed had "a soft spot" for German club Schalke 04.

This outing was hilariously counter-claimed by the club itself: "We didn't know Adolf Hitler had a soft spot for Schalke 04 let alone was a fan of our club. We were very curious to find out what made the well respected Times claim this as a fact. So we checked and double-checked whether the club board between 1933 and 1945 had named a stand the Führer Stand' for example, and we watched every episode of Allo Allo in a bid to find a clue. Nothing.

"In fact, it turned out he must have been an armchair supporter because he never bothered to turn up at any of our games, even if it was a championship final right on his door step at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. Perhaps he was too occupied with his genocidal policies."

Mussolini's affair with Bologna FC coincided with their golden period during the 1920s and '30s and they were reportedly bankrolled by the local fascist organisation.

Real Madrid was Franco's favourite team. Santiago Bernabeu, the former club president for whom the club's ground is named, fought for Franco during the Nationalist invasion of Catalonia (home to Barcelona). Sir Alex Ferguson, never one to shy away from mind games, even brought up the spectre of Franco when scrapping with the club over the rights to Cristiano Ronaldo.

"Slavery, well, did they tell Franco that? Jesus Christ. Eh, give me a break," he said in reference to Real's president Ramon Calderon saying Manchester wanting to keep Ronaldo was akin to slavery.

Perhaps the most curious case of dictator love is Kim Jong-il's devotion to the Chicago Bulls. During a 2000 visit, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented him with a basketball signed by Michael Jordan. Dear Leader apparently has a video collection of every televised game Jordan played for the Bulls.

3. Spike Lee - New York Knicks

One thing basketball veterans treat as gospel: never rile the opposing team's champion. The New York Knicks knew that well enough and were happy enough to be going into game five of their Eastern Conference finals at 2-2 against the Indiana Pacers, whose star Reggie Miller had been relatively quiet to that point.

So it was doubly galling for them that the man who sparked Miller into a 25-point fourth quarter frenzy that enabled his team to overturn a 12-point deficit was not one of their players but film director and Knicks tragic Lee.

The creative genius behind Do the Right Thing had been sledging Miller from his Madison Square Garden courtside seats and the shooting guard decided to make his revenge personal, preening in front of Lee with every shot made and even pulling out the "choke" gesture. Footage shows a chastened Lee slumped in his seat at one point.

The next day's New York Daily News headline said it all: "Thanks a lot, Spike."

4. Little Johnny Scouser - Liverpool

The sharper among you might have recognised that the above name is a pseudonym, due to the lengths the more responsible media have gone to in protecting his identity, no doubt wary that his unveiling could induce a Steve Bartman-like backlash (see No 6). Little Johnny, he of beachball on to the Stadium of Light fame, will go into the annals as the fan who "deflated" the Reds' season, who made Pepe Reina look like he was stuck in sand, who bounced Sunderland up the table... enough already.

5. Pieter van Zyl - Springboks

Van Zyl is the last thing the South African Rugby Union wanted to see after they had worked so hard to convince the rest of the world that Springbok fandom had moved on from the image of overweight, beer-swilling Boers.

Van Zyl, an overweight, beer-swilling Boer from Potchefstroom, charged on to King's Park, Durban, in a fug of alcohol fumes after he felt Irish ref David McHugh had blown one call too many. He tackled McHugh but was quickly felled by a stinging punch from All Black flanker Richie McCaw. The image of a bloodied van Zyl being hauled off King's Park, his massive gut hanging out from his beloved Springbok jersey, remains indelible.

6. Steve Bartman - Chicago Cubs

Perhaps the most devastating incident of fan interference in the history of sports. Bartman wrote the Chicago Cubs, the team with the longest-running losing streak in professional sports, another chapter in the book of futility.

This was no ordinary night at Wrigley Field. Leading 3-0 in the eighth inning, holding a 3-2 series lead in the best of seven series, the Cubs were five outs from making their first World Series since 1945, a championship they had not won since 1908.

Pitcher Mark Prior was still on the mound and heading towards a shut-out when he induced the Florida Marlins' Luis Castillo to pop up in shallow left field. Moses Alou tracked the ball towards the stand, reached out to grab it only for lifelong Cubs fan Bartman to reach for the ball and deflect it away. Alou was livid. Castillo ended up drawing a walk, the next batter reached on an error when the infield tried to turn a risky inning-ending double-play (they would not have needed the double-play had Bartman not interfered), precipitating a seven-run inning that killed the game. One night later, Florida won game seven and Chicago's curse continued.

Perspective left the building at the same time as Bartman, apparently. Passers-by pelted him with drinks and other debris as he left the game surrounded by security.

Bartman's name, as well as personal information about him, appeared on Major League Baseball's online message boards minutes after the game ended. As many as six police cars gathered outside of his home to protect Bartman and his family. The seat he sat in - Aisle 4, Row 8, Seat 113 - has become a tourist attraction.

7. David Mellor - Chelsea FC

Chelsea, being home to the Headhunters, has a number of infamous fans but none that received front-page treatment in The Sun like Mellor.

The Conservative MP for Putney was a strident antagonist of the press but they got their own back in July 1992, when actress Antonia de Sancha sold her story of Mellor's extra-marital affair with her for $30,000. De Sancha's landlord had bugged the property and the tabloid paper took particular delight in the fact Mellor asked to make love to her while dressed in his Chelsea kit.

It is unknown whether he managed to score at the away end.

8. Lord Ted - New Zealand cricket

Of all the denizens of Eden Park's cheap seats, Lord Ted, who died in 2003, was often the drunkest and always the loudest. His exhortations to New Zealand's batsmen and bowlers were by turns pithily funny and painfully obnoxious. Fellow terrace residents did not know whether to encourage him or tell him to shut up.

As the weight of his chillybin got lighter as the day wore on, Lord Ted became impervious to any outside influences and New Zealand's batsmen could expect a "Have a go, ya mug," every time they had the temerity to play defensively.

9. David Munro - Celtic FC

It takes something to stand out from the crowd of cretins who often inhabit Old Firm derbies but this bloke managed it.

Just as Rangers winger Claudio Reyna was about to take a corner, Celtic fan Munro stood up with his arms outstretched mimicking a plane flying erratically.

Reyna is American; the match was taking place not long after September 11, 2001.

The incident sickened neutrals but Rangers fans would struggle to claim moral high ground. The sectarian nature of the clash has seen some horrific incidents, most notably when Rangers fan' Jason Campbell fatally slashed the throat of Celtic supporter Mark Scott, 16, as the teenager walked past a pub full of Rangers fans.

10. Sir Allen Stanford - West Indies

Texan motormouth Stanford painted himself as Caribbean cricket's white knight. He was alleged to be more swindler than saviour.

In June 2008, Stanford and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) signed a deal for five Twenty20 internationals between England and a West Indies all-star XI with a total prize fund of US$20 million. Stanford turned up to Lord's in a helicopter carrying the cash in a chest.

Tacky? Well, when the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Allen Stanford with "massive ongoing fraud", it began to look as the ECB may have done a deal with the devil. He now sits in prison awaiting trial.