No sports
No Sports is the legendary and often quoted answer that Winston Churchill is said to have given a reporter when he asked how he, a passionate cigar smoker and as fond of whiskey as he was to champagne , had reached his old age. The quote is often used by sports opponents, but has not been proven to be authentic. Incidentally, Churchill was quite active as a fencer, marksman, rider and polo player at a young age. In his autobiography of 1930 My Early Life (German: My Early Years: World Adventures in service ) he had his cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst written horses were there been his greatest pleasure, and how did his friends, he spent all his money on it which to rent. "Not an hour that you spend in the saddle is lost."
- Horses were the greatest of my pleasures at Sandhurst. I and the group in which I moved spent all our money on hiring horses from the very excellent local livery stables. We ran up bills on the strength of our future commissions. We organized point-to-points and even a steeplechase in the park of a friendly grandee, and bucketted gaily about the countryside. And here I say to parents, especially to wealthy parents, 'Don't give your son money. As far as you can afford it, give him horses. ' No one ever came to grief - except honorable grief - through riding horses. No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle. Young men have often been ruined through owning horses, or through backing horses, but never through riding them unless of course they break their necks, which, taken at a gallop, is a very good death to die. (p. 45)
Churchill was later a lieutenant ("Cornet") of the 4th Queen's Own Hussars Cavalry Regiment, whose polo team. Before retiring from the army in April 1899, he took part in the military polo tournament in Meerut near Delhi in February 1899 - bandaged over and over because he fell down a flight of stairs on February 8 and sprained both ankles and his right Dislocated shoulder; the right upper arm was therefore fixed to the chest. Still, the tournament was won. In the final against the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards , Churchill reported three of the four goals his team scored. Two days before his 74th birthday he showed himself on horseback and in hunting clothes hunting the Old Surrey & Burstow foxhounds .
In fact, there is no serious evidence that the "No Sports" quote was from Churchill. According to Christoph Drösser , the saying “is apparently only known in German-speaking countries, at least you won't find it on a single English website, but on hundreds of German websites - without any evidence, of course. You will look in vain for the quote in the renowned Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. "