More Heroic Failures

bomb, 
which blew all over the 
bank two minutes later. 
It took thirty minutes for the smoke to clear. 
The Most Unsuccessful Hangings 
There are two hangmen that we must remember. The 
first of them worked in Sydney in Australia. In 1803 he 
tried 
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The Man Who Was Unhelpfully Brave 

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The Most Unsuccessful Hangings
 

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three times to hang a Mr Joseph Samuels. The first two 
times Mr Samuels fell to the floor. The third time he just 
hung there until he and all the other people were tired of 
waiting. Since they could not hang him they decided to 
forgive him and he went free. 
The second one was British, a Mr James Berry. Mr 
Berry tried three times in 1885 to hang Mr John Lee at 
Exeter Prison, but each time he was unable to open the 
special door under the prisoner’s feet. 
After this, the British government decided to send Lee 
to prison for a long time instead. He came out of prison 
in 1917, travelled to Australia and lived there until 1933. 
The Worst Fisherman 
Thomas Birch was a man of learning who lived in the 
1700s. He liked to go fishing but he didn’t catch very 
many fish. So he decided to dress like a tree to hide 
himself from the fish. He made some clothes that were 
like a tree, with little holes for his eyes. 
He put on the clothes and went down to the river. But 
he still did not catch anything. No fish came near him. 
But dogs came to see him and friends sat down next to 
him to have their lunch. 
The Worst Game of Football 
In
 
1973 the Oxbarn football players were getting ready to 
play a game in Germany. The players were a group of 
friends who usually played on Sundays against other 
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The Worst Fisherman 

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small local clubs in Britain. They were looking forward 
to the game and also a holiday in Germany. 
When they walked out into the very large football 
ground in Germany, they realized that they were playing 
one of the best German clubs — S V W Mainz. The 
German footballers thought the British players belonged 
to another club - Wolverhampton Wanderers — which 
was one of the strongest football clubs in Britain at that 
time. 
An Oxbarn player said, ‘I thought it was a bit strange 
when I saw the size of the crowd.’ 
About half way through the game - it was already 15-0 
to the Germans - the crowd saw Oxbarn’s centre fall to 
his knees. He looked like he was crying. Naturally, the 
German crowd were very pleased that the Oxbarn club 
was playing instead of Wolverhampton Wanderers. 
‘They were very good about it,’ one of the Oxbarn
players said. ‘When we got the ball, they started to shout 
to help us win.’ 
Oxbarn Football Club lost 21-0.