The credit for this is often attributed to Brazilian winger Jairzinho, who performed a knee slide after scoring Brazil’s third goal against Italy during the 1970 World Cup final, which Brazil won 4-1.
However, it may not have been a deliberate knee slide. He drops to his knees in prayer and the momentum carries him forward.
Another possibility is Roberto Baggio’s brief slide, then collapse onto his back, following his goal against Czechoslovakia during the 1990 World Cup.
The practice didn’t really take off until the 1990s, when pitches improved dramatically. Perhaps players felt more inclined to perform for the cameras at the advent of the new Premier League, with Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Didier Drogba all being regular knee sliders.
Chris Moore, Guildford, Surrey
QUESTION: Which was the first submarine sunk by another?
HMS E3 was one of the Royal Navy’s E-class submarines. Built at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, the E-class was a major improvement on the D-class, with watertight bulkheads, the ability to dive to 200ft and the addition of broadside torpedo tubes.
HMS E3 was commanded by Lieutenant Commander G. F. Cholmley and deployed to patrol the North Sea during the First World War.
On October 18, 1914, while near Borkum island, it was sighted by German U-boat U27, commanded by Lt Cdr Bernhard Wegener. U27 fired a torpedo at 300 yards, breaking E3 in half and causing it to sink, resulting in the loss of all 28 crew.
British submarine HMS Venturer, commanded by 25-year-old Lt James ‘Jimmy’ S. Launders, is renowned for sinking U-boat U-864 on February 9, 1945, near the Norwegian island of Fedje, about 50 miles north of Bergen.
The U-boat, commanded by Korvettenkapitan Ralf-Reimar Wolfram, was bound for Japan and carrying over 60 tons of mercury.
Launders, after detecting the U-boat and stalking it for three hours, released a spread of torpedoes into its predicted path, using calculated trajectory. Despite making evasive manoeuvres, U-864 was hit and sank with the loss of all 73 hands.
This marked the first and only successful underwater submarine-versus-submarine engagement.
The wreck of U-864, discovered in 2003, lies two miles from Fedje and its cargo is slowly leaking out, posing an environmental threat of mercury poisoning.
Richard Barnes, Portsea, Hants
QUESTION: What proportion of the world’s snakes are venomous? What proportion of those are deadly?
There are approximately 4,000 species of snake worldwide. About 600 species are venomous (15 per cent). Of these, only about 200 species (five per cent) are considered medically significant, meaning that their venom is capable of causing serious harm or being lethal to humans.
Britain has one venomous snake, the adder (Vipera berus). The last death from an adder bite was a five-year-old boy in Scotland in 1975.
The most toxic terrestrial snake in the world is the inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) of Queensland and South .
Its venom is a mixture of neurotoxins (in particular paradoxin, one of the most potent toxins known to man), hemotoxins (affecting the blood) and hyaluronidase, which increases the absorption of venom.
Q: Who is the man on the cover of the album Staring At The Sea: The Singles, by The Cure?
Nicola Earle, Redhill, Surrey
Q: Is wagyu beef the most expensive meat in the world?
Becca Ritchie, Swadlincote, Derbys
Q: Who are the world’s biggest private landowners?
Dave Taylor, Bromsgrove, Worcs
The estimated human lethal dose of inland taipan venom is a mere 1mg, and these snakes are capable of delivering over 100mg of venom in one bite, i.e. it could kill 100 people. Yet due to their shyness and remoteness, there has never been a recorded death from one.
The eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis) is the world’s second most venomous snake, and responsible for the most snakebite deaths in . Their venom can be fatal in less than 30 minutes.
Still, the number of deaths from the eastern brown is significantly less than occur from other snakes across the world.
According to WHO, as many as 2.7 million people are poisoned by snakes across the world every year. Of these, up to 400,000 are permanently disabled and between 81,000 to 138,000 people die.
Among the worst offenders are the Indian ‘big four’: namely the common krait (Bungarus caeruleus), Russell’s viper (Daboia russelii), saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus) and Indian cobra (Naja naja).
Collectively, these species are believed to be responsible for around 50,000 deaths in the subcontinent each year.
P. L. Phillips, Norwich, Norfolk