Curses can be absolutely devasting to suffer from. It can last for a short time or an eternity. This is even in the sporting world. It has the possibility to affect either a singular athlete or an entire team. It's bad news for either case. There's a strong possibility that there's no cure. The athlete may be the best in the world but that doesn't matter if they're cursed.
A popular example, at least to me, is Harry Kane. He has played domestically for 15 years and 9 years on the international stage. Despite the huge amount of goals he's scored, his trophy cabinet is empty and filled with cobwebs. It wouldn't surprise if there's a bunch of dust on the shelves.
This brings us to the debate of his curse. The debate is wether it's his own personal curse or one that he brings with him when he plays for a team and England. It's important to look at the facts. Kane left Tottenham and trophy wise, nothing has changed. Tottenham, despite starting off well, are unable to win the Premier League. They lost in the second round of the Carabao Cup and were eliminated from the FA Cup in the fourth round.
When it comes to the international stage, the closest he's come to winning a trophy is the Euro 2020. They lost on home soil - Wembley - to Italy on penalties. Other than that, it's been a semi-final and quater-final finish in the past two World Cups, respectively.
He moved to Bayern Munich last summer. On joining the club, he said, "I've always said in my career, I've wanted to keep improving, keep pushing myself to my limits and see how far that can take me. Ultimately, I want to be playing at the highest level, I want it to be playing in the Champions League, I want to be fighting for titles every year. Coming to Bayern Munich, one of the biggest clubs in the world, gives me that opportunity, so I'm looking forward to that challenge."
On the surface, the expectations would be met. However, it's been a topsy-turvy season that's led to another trophyless season for Kane. It's the first time since 2012 that Bayern Munich will finish a season without winning anything. To me, it will take another season to determine if he's cursed or brings a curse with him.
If it makes him feel any better, he's not alone. There are other instances of teams being cursed in some way or form.
In golf, a curse exists in The Masters and more specifically, the Par -3 contest. This contest takes place the day before The Masters begins. It was created way back in 1960. Since it's inception, the players that won the contest has never won the proper tournament. There have only been three winners of Par -3 contest that has gone on to win The Masters.
The curse has become so legendary among the players that some will even purposefully lose or disqualify themselves in an attempt to not fall victim. Tiger Woods was in a three-way tie for first place at the end of the 2004 contest, but opted to skip the playoff.
Former US Open champion Andy North, who is now an analyst for ESPN, told the tournament's website that he subscribes to the curse. North said, "Absolutely, I believe in the jinx." Raymond Floyd nearly broke the curse in 1990 after winning the Wednesday event and then holding a four-stroke lead with six holes to play in the final round of the real tournament. He ultimately lost in a playoff, thus further cementing the legend.
The "Curse of Bambino" is aimed at the Boston Red Sox. In the early years of baseball, they won eight of fiften World Series' titles. Their success would dry up upon the deparature of Babe Ruth. He went to the New York Yankees. The Yankees would win their first title in 1923. They would become one of the most dominant franchises in sport. The Red Sox wouldn't win another World Series for 86 years.
The term, "Curse of Bambino", was created when Boston sportswriter, Dan Shaughnessy, wrote a book with that as the title in 1990. For some, the idea of Ruth feeling slighted by the move, explained the team's decades of bad luck.
Some believe the curse was finally broken when a teenage fan, who lived in Ruth's old house, had his two front teeth knocked out by a Manny Ramirez foul ball in August of 2004. The Yankees suffered their worst defeat in team history that day and the Red Sox went on to overcome a 3-0 series deficit against the Yankees in the ALCS several weeks later and eventually won the World Series.
It's believed that the Yankees transfered the curse to Cleveland. After the 2021 season, they changed their name from the Indians to the Gaurdians. Much as some Red Sox fans pointed to the trade of Babe Ruth for their woes, Cleveland fans blamed the 1960 swap of the team’s most popular player, Rocky Colavito.
The reigning American League home run leader, Colavito learned of his trade to Detroit while standing on first base during an exhibition game at Russwood Park in Memphis. Perhaps the first sign that the transaction had angered the sporting gods was when the stadium was destroyed in a fire hours after the trade. Although Colavito returned to Cleveland five years later, the team’s 1948 World Series title remains their last. Cleveland’s long-suffering fans watched their team fail to hold a ninth-inning lead in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series before a Tony Fernandez error contributed to a devastating loss.
The Chicago Cubs - Billy Goat curse - there are really two facets of the Cubs Curse. The first is the fact that the last time the Cubs won the World Series was in 1908 after Fred Merkle of the New York Giants committed a famous mistake that gave them the pennant. Thus, fans (especially Giants ones) have pushed the idea that as punishment for “stealing” that pennant away, the Cubs were hit with a lack of success as they would reach the World Series seven times between 1910 and 1945 but lose each one, often badly.
Of course, the famous one is the Billy Goat curse. During the 1945 World Series where the Cubs faced the Detroit Tigers, longtime Cubs fan Billy Sianis, owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, came to the game with his pet goat as he’d done all year. However, this time, those around him complained about the goat’s smell and the Wrigley officials asked Sianis to either take the goat away or leave himself. He did and sent a telegram to the Cubs declaring they would never win a World Series again. Since then, the Cubs’ legacy of woe has become legendary, coming close (especially in 2003) but never reaching the Series and setting a record for post season futility that will remain unmatched.
In football, while in Mozambique for World Cup qualifying in 1969, the Australian men's national soccer team, nicknamed the "Socceroos," was favoured to beat Zimbabwe. The team was locked in a 1-1 series draw and needed a third game.
The Socceroos were determined to do whatever it took to guarantee the victory. They reportedly enlisted a local shaman for help, asking the shaman to put a curse on their opponents. The team won its next game, 3-1, but they failed to pay the shaman for his services.
As the story goes, the curse was then reversed and put upon the Australians. Johnny Warren, the then-captain of the team, said , "From that moment that he put the curse on, everything went wrong for the team."
The Socceroos qualified for just one World Cup over the next 32 years and suffered a series of devastating losses. In 2004, Australian television personality, John Safran, decided to do his part to reverse the curse as part of his television series. Joined by two shamans, the group went back to the pitch in which the curse was first placed and they performed various rituals in hopes of breaking the curse.
The Australian team qualified for the 2006 World Cup and former player-turned-broadcaster, Craig Foster, thanked Safran after the clinching victory. The Socceroos reached the Round of 16, which remains their best result in history, at the World Cup several months later.
While the origin story of this curse has been disputed and some believe there was no such curse ever placed on the team, it's clear Warren and many other players truly believed it and that perhaps can be equally, if not more, consequential.
In Argentina, there's a curse known as "The Curse of the Seven Cats." It started in 1967 after a club, Racing Club de Avellaneda, followed its 1966 domestic title with victories in the Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup. Fans of their bitter rivals, Club Atlético Independiente, broke into Racing’s home field and buried seven dead black cats under a stadium entrance.
Racing, which had won 15 league titles prior to the interment, subsequently swooned while Independiente captured a string of championships. Racing was even relegated from the top tier in 1983 and temporarily suspended from the league after declaring bankruptcy in 1999.
By that point, six of the cats had been disinterred. However, with the seventh corpse still missing, a priest performed an exorcism in front of tens of thousands of fans. Months after a stadium redevelopment in 2001 unearthed the seventh skeleton, Racing won its first domestic title in 35 years.
In the NFL, there's a curse known as, "The Madden Curse." In 1998, San Francisco 49ers running back, Garrison Hearst, became the first NFL player to appear on the cover of the wildly popular Madden football video game produced by EA Sports. Hearst suffered a gruesome ankle injury in a playoff game. It was the first in a series of injuries and poor seasons that seemed to strike players appearing on the video game’s cover.
According to Digital Trends, 16 of the 22 players selected to appear on the cover through to 2021, subsequently suffered troubling or shortened seasons. The list includes: Rob Gronkowski; Drew Brees; Donovan McNabb; Michael Vick; Daunte Culpepper and Adrian Peterson.
Additionally, there's, "The Curse of Bobby Layne." In the 1950's, the Detroit Lions were a dominant force in the NFL. Their fortunes flipped, however, after trading future Hall of Fame quarterback Bobby Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1958 after winning three titles in the six years.
The trade of Detroit’s star quarterback coincided with the start of an epic championship drought. Since Layne’s departure, the Lions haven’t even appeared in an NFL Championship game or Super Bowl, let alone, won one. In fact, they have won just a single playoff game.
If Layne indeed cursed the Lions for a half-century, it has had even greater staying power. Rather than return to greatness in 2008, Detroit became the first NFL team to post an 0-16 record while the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Even the subsequent drafting of quarterback Matthew Stafford, who attended the same Texas high school as Layne and grew up on the same street, failed to reverse the fortunes for the Lions.
In motorsport, there exists a curse known as, "The Andretti Curse." In 1969, Mario Andretti won the Indianapolis 500. After this, he only finished five of 24 races. Following the 1969 victory, Andretti’s team was sold and chief mechanic, Clint Brawner, was fired. According to Racer magazine’s Robin Miller, Brawner’s wife reportedly visited a soothsayer to place a curse in which no Andretti would ever again win the Indianapolis 500.
Mario’s sons Michael and Jeff, nephew John and grandson Marco have also driven the Indianapolis 500 and none have had better luck than the family patriarch. The 431 laps led by Michael Andretti are more than any driver who has not won the race.
Michael said after blowing an engine while leading the 1989 race on lap 162, "I got a lot from my dad. More than his driving, I think I inherited my dad’s luck."
There lies a mysterious curse in Talledega. Bobby Isaac left his car on the track in 1973 because he claimed he heard voices shortly after a young driver died several laps earlier. In 1974, multiple cars were found with slashed tires and sand in the tanks and a crewman lost his leg in a freak crash. Bobby Allison was badly wrecked in 1987 and his son died in a helicopter crash in the race track’s field years later.
Accidents that would never happen anywhere else just appear common there with deadly results. Some claim the place was built on a Native burial ground while others say a shaman cursed the area long ago but whatever the case, anyone in NASCAR knows that when you race in Talladega, always expect something odd to occur.
There lies a "Sports Illustrated" curse. Usually, getting the cover of “Sports Illustrated” is a good thing. However, one can’t ignore how so many athletes or teams who gain a cover almost immediately suffer a bad fate. Here are some big examples: Ernie Matthews, the very first cover star, breaking his hand; The 1957 Sooners called “Unbeatable” only to lose the very next game to Notre Dame; Lee Trevino on a preview of the U.S. Open, failed to make the cut; The Texas Longhorns appearing just before losing the 1977 Cotton Bowl; Jack Lambert called “the Man of Steel” and then forced to miss the season due to a foot injury; The Cleveland Indians called “the Best Team in Baseball” prior to the 1987 season and ended up losing 101 games; The Giants appearing before losing Super Bowl XXXV and The Tigers just before being swept in the 2012 World Series.
On a personal level, I believe that I have a curse. If I'm watching a match where a team I support are playing, bad things will happen. However, when I don't watch, good things tend to happen. This has been proven time and time again. However, Ryan Lieberthal doesn't believe in it and just says that it's all in my head.
Curses can be horrible to have. It's almost as if the ones involved have broken many mirrors and consequently have many years of bad luck. Unfortunately, there's no solution to these curses. It's up to the ones involved to find a solution to end it. It's vital to identify the source and seek a solution to end the bad luck/jinx/curse forever.
Source Material
Klein, C. 2023. 7 Bizarre Sports Curses. History.
Maine, D. 2021. The most legendary curses and jinxes in sports. ESPN.
Weyer, M. 2015. Top 15 Most Notorious Curses in Sports History. TheSportster.