It’s a common misperception that musicians and jocks are mutually exclusive commodities. Au contraire, mon frère: many of music’s most innovative and popular acts are major fans of sport – if not stellar athletes themselves. Nowhere is that more apparent than the World Wide Web:  Cincinnati musicians meet up on a forum to sing the praises and failures of the Cavaliers and the Bengals, and hater sports blog Idislikeyourfavoriteteam.com interviews musicians indie-rockers about their sports fandom. Blur even make their fave athletic pastime clear on their tour t-shirts (see above). Below, some musicians with a jock past, secret or otherwise, you might not expect:

1. Richard Ashcroft: Before he was singing bittersweet symphonies with The Verve, this psychedelic shaman was considered a top candidate for a pro football/soccer career. Apparently, he took part, albeit briefly, in the Legends football match against Germany in June.

“My leak was the football. To the age of thirteen years he was one of the best in the football team of the school. At the age of fifteen to being present at Soccer Bobby’s Charlton School. The football was replaced by another obsession: The music.”

via Myspace

2. Greg Dulli: This dark and stormy confessional rocker was a high school baseball and football hero before he became an anti-hero in the Afghan Whigs.

“I played basketball all through school and then even played in this 30-and-under league for a little while. It’s funny, as long as I’ve known him [Lanegan], I guess we’ve never been around a basketball court, but at some point this run [we should]. We threw a baseball on the last Twilights tour, in North Carolina, and my arm hurt for a week after that. But Mark pitched in high school.”

via Pitchfork

3. Scott Weiland: The STP/Velvet Revolver frontman wasn’t always a scrawny junkie – he once played basketball on his Orange County high school team.

“I started playing music as well and when I hurt my back junior year, it was right before the season started and I told the coaches that I didn’t think I was going to continue. So I said I think I’ll continue with my band, and I was in the Magical Ensemble, this top singing group in school. The varsity football coach and wrestling coach told me how I was going to ruin my life and I was letting everybody down.”

via  Journal Gazette

4. Rod Stewart: Mr. “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” was making his way up the ranks of junior soccer clubs before rock stardom struck.

Very early, Stewart realized that soccer was a chance for him to earn a good living. He practiced hard everyday, and in his late teens he signed an apprentice contract to play with the Brenton Football Club.

via Oral Cancer Foundation

5. Topper Headon: Few people know that the ‘Human Drum Machine’, drummer for the Clash was an ambitious footballer that seemed to come to music by fate.

This punk rock drummer who played for the Clash remains hugely underrated, so it comes as a surprise to learn that he arrived at the profession by accident. Aged 13, a broken leg put paid to his footballing ambitions and it was a doctor who suggested the drums as a way of venting his frustration. Within six months he was playing for a jazz band in a Dover pub.

Via The Independent