35 As Useless As Jokes: The Sports Edition

Sport is built on equipment that is perfect in one context and comic in any other. A snorkel is a serious object at sea and an absurd one at a track meet, and the entire as useless as form runs on exactly that gap. Move a piece of kit two sports to the left and it becomes a joke without anybody having to write one.

These thirty-five are for the pub after the match, the group chat at half time, and the moment a substitution makes no sense at all.

Table of Contents

Thirty-five for the touchline

As useless as a goalkeeper in a swimming gala.
As useless as an offside flag at a darts match.
As useless as a corner flag in the middle of the pitch.
As useless as studs on ice.
As useless as a wet-weather kit in a drought.
As useless as a sun hat at a floodlit game.
As useless as a shin pad worn on the elbow.
As useless as a mouthguard at a chess final.
As useless as a bicycle helmet in a rowing eight.
As useless as a snorkel at a track meet.
As useless as a tennis racket with no strings.
As useless as a golf ball with a flat side.
As useless as a putter in a bunker.
As useless as a cricket bat made of rope.
As useless as a bowling arm with a plaster cast on it.
As useless as a stopwatch with one hand missing.
As useless as a whistle at a boxing match.

As useless as a yellow card at a sack race.
As useless as a video referee with the screen off.
As useless as a substitute board at a marathon.
As useless as a scoreboard stuck on nil-nil.
As useless as a season ticket for a club that has moved.
As useless as a rain cover on an indoor court.
As useless as a running machine with no power.
As useless as a rowing machine on a boat.
As useless as a bench press with no bar.
As useless as a skipping rope with a knot at both ends.
As useless as a swimming cap on a bald referee.
As useless as a diving board over a paddling pool.
As useless as armbands in a desert.
As useless as a starting pistol with no blanks.
As useless as a finish line ten metres before the finish.
As useless as a lap counter that counts down from three.
As useless as a fitness tracker that only counts Tuesdays.
As useless as a physio with the massage table in the car park.

Timing, which is most of it

Sporting versions of this joke have a short window. They work in the ninety seconds after the incident and they are dead by the following morning, which is why the best ones are about equipment rather than results — a stopwatch with one hand missing is funny in March and still funny in November. Aim at the kit, the fixture list and the weather. Never the player; that belongs to a different site.

For the all-purpose versions, take the complete fifty, or the office edition for Monday morning. There is also the reader-ranked version over at gotlines.com.