Time Out by Simon_Doyle

Apart from the bed-hopping antics of some of our Premiership footballers, our sports stars do manage to get themselves into some scrapes with vehicles or craft of one kind or other.

Only this week Wales backrow Andy Powell was banned from driving for 15 months after pleading guilty to drink driving of a golf buggy. The 28-year-old had been arrested at a motorway service station hours after Wales had beaten Scotland in the Six Nations. He has subsequently been dropped from the Wales team.

But the Welshman is not the only one to have indulged in some high jinks which have landed him in bother. Who can forget Flintoff and the 'Fredalo' incident during the 2007 World Cup when the England vice-captain decided to head out to sea aboard a pedalo and promptly fell overboard leading to a late night rescue. He was stripped of the vice captaincy.

Proving that cricketers abroad can be a recipe for more naughtiness, there was an incident during the 1991 Ashes Tour in Australia when David Gower, who had been dismissed earlier in the day (likely in the gulley), decided to go for a joy-ride with John Morris in a Tiger Moth biplane to go buzzing over the Queensland ground. Gower was fined £1000, but thankfully opted not to release the water bombs he had also prepared to drop while Robin Smith and Alan Lamb were at the crease.

And proving that a knighthood is no bar to misdemeanour, Sir Alex Ferguson, was stopped by police while driving his BMW on the motorway hard shoulder in Greater Manchester in October 1999. The United manager, who allegedly talks plenty of shit, got his lawyer to speak some more quite literally when they argued that the Manchester United manager had driven on the hard shoulder due to having an upset stomach and being in dire need of the toilet. He was cleared of the offence.

So maybe there's a lesson in all this, that if you're a sportsman with time on your hands , then maybe golf buggies, pedalos, bi-planes should be avoided. And if you are prone to the odd bout of diarrhea, then get yourself a good lawyer or wear a nappy.