Five great underdog victories
The iconic photo by Colman Doyle of Séamus Darby’s famous last-minute goal for Offaly to win the 1982 All-Ireland final against Kerry in Croke Park.
1: Offaly 1982 All-Ireland The t-shirts were printed in advance. A Kerry entrepreneur had the ‘five-in-a-row’ tops ready to go. To many of the population, the final was a formality.
Kerry had won the last four All-Irelands and were considered unstoppable.
But Eugene McGee's Offaly stayed in touch and Kerry still led by two entering the closing minutes.
A long ball in by Seán Lowry came between Séamus Darby and Tommy Doyle. Darby nudged or pushed Doyle out of the way, depending on your perspective.
Mayo referee PJ McGrath saw no free and Darby arched an incredible shot past Charlie Nelligan to secure one of the most famous All-Ireland titles ever.
2: Mullinalaghta 2018 Leinster club champions The Longford club were 9/2 to win the 2018 Leinster final against Kilmacud Crokes.
But that only scratches the surface of this underdog tale.
The tiny half-parish had a population of just 447. Crokes, the Dublin super club, had over 4,000 members alone.
They became the first ever Longford side to win a Leinster senior football club title with an exceptional 1-8 to 1-6 win over the Dublin kingpins.
Managed by Mickey Graham, Mullinalaghta came from three points down with four minutes remaining to stun Crokes, proving belief, attitude and fearlessness can bridge enormous gaps in resources.
3: Leicester City 2016 Premier League champions A decade on, it is still as hard as ever to believe this happened. Leicester City struggled to stay up the previous year and were as long as 5,000/1 to win the league at the start of the season.
You might have found a bookie willing to offer similar odds for Mayo after the Roscommon game!
New manager Claudio Ranieri confounded the critics and went with a settled, hard-working squad led by striker Jamie Vardy, playmaker Riyad Mahrez and linchpin N’Golo Kante.
Despite having a fraction of the budget of England’s traditional powers, Leicester stayed the course while everyone else faltered.
4: Denmark 1992 European Champions Considering they were not even supposed to be in the tournament, Denmark’s achievement in winning the Euros in 1992 remains incredible.
They finished second in their group to Yugoslavia and, therefore, failed to qualify and their players were on their summer holidays.
However, just ten days before the start of the tournament, Yugoslavia were thrown out because of the war in the Balkans and Denmark called in at the 11th hour.
They were expected to be just makeweights but with Peter Schmeichel being borderline unbeatable in goal and the Danes being well organised and full of belief, they feared no one.
After scraping through the group, they stunned holders the Netherlands in a penalty shootout before beating world champions Germany 2-0 in the final with Schmeichel exceptional in goal and goals from Kim Vilfort and John Jensen.
Denmark showed what can happen when a team is ready and prepared to capitalise on the opportunity presented to them.
5: Buster Douglas beats Mike Tyson 1990 It is hard to credit just how unbeatable Mike Tyson appeared heading into this World title contest. Tyson was 37-0 and considered practically invincible. He was one of the most feared boxers of all time.
‘Iron Mike’ had destroyed so many promising rivals in the heavyweight division. Douglas wasn't considered to be in the same class as the challengers Tyson had already demolished.
He had no big wins of any kind to his name and was priced an incredible 42/1 with the bookies.
He wasn’t expected to last through the opening rounds, never mind win.
Amazingly Douglas dominated and then did the impossible – knocked Tyson out in the tenth round, proving that old adage that fights or contests are not won on paper but between the ropes or white lines.
