| 25/4/2014 | Spanish manager and footballer, Francesc "Tito" Vilanova, dies at the age of 45 of throat cancer. After a professional playing career in La Liga, where he played 26 games in three seasons for Celta de Vigo, Vilanova went on to work with Barcelona as an assistant coach under Pep Guardiola, being part of the squads that won 14 titles. In 2012, Vilanova was appointed first-team manager, winning the La Liga title in his first season but he resigned as Barcelona coach due to ill health in July 2013. |
| 25/4/2007 | Allan Ball dies at the age of 61. He was the youngest (aged 21) member of England's 1966 World Cup winning team and played for various clubs, participating in 975 games and scoring more than 180 league goals in a career spanning 22 years. His playing career also included a then national record £220,000 transfer from Everton to Arsenal at the end of 1971. He played for Blackpool (1962-66, 116 app., 40 goal), Everton (1966-71, 208/66) and Arsenal (1971-76, 177/45). After retiring as a player, he had a 15-year career as a manager which included spells in the top flight of English football with Portsmouth, Southampton and Manchester City. |
| 25/4/2006 | Missas Pandazopoulos, the so-called “czar” dies aged 82. As a player-coach of Panathinaikos he won the team’s first two basketball championships (1946 and 1947) and that of 1951. As a player, he had 5 caps with the national basketball team. As a coach, he won 5 championships with AEK and he coached the national team during the Eurobasket of 1969. |
| 25/4/2001 | Former F1 pilot 44 year-old Michele Alboreto is killed during a test drive at a circuit in Germany. He had won 5 Grand Prix in the 1980s |
| 25/4/1999 | Former IOC president (1972-80) Lord Killanin dies in Dublin aged 84 |
| 25/4/1995 | Juventus player Andrea Fortunato dies of leuchemia aged 24 |
| 25/4/1990 | Michael Jones of Aris Salonica is charged with possession and use of drugs and flees from Greece. He came to Greece to PAOK in 1988 and he was the first foreign player in the history of the team |
| 25/4/1966 | Malik Mir Sultan Khan, perhaps the greatest natural chess player of modern times, dies at the age of 61. He was a servant from British India, but also the strongest chess master of his time from Asia. He travelled with his master, Sir Umar, to Britain, where he took the chess world by storm. In an international chess career of less than five years (1929–33), he won the British Championship three times in four tries (1929, 1932, 1933), and had tournament and match results that placed him among the top ten players in the world. In December 1933, his master took him back to India, where he gave up chess and returned to his humble life and the chess never heard of him until his death of tuberculosis in Sargodha, Pakistan. |
| 25/4/1959 | Mario Andretti makes a victorious debut in races at the Nazareth Speedway, driving a 1948 Hudson |
| 25/4/1952 | The American Bowling Congress approves for the first time the use of an automatic pinsetter invented by Fred Schmidt |
| 25/4/1950 | Chuck Cooper of the Harlem Globetrotters is drafted by the Boston Celtics and becomes the first black basketball player to play in NBA |
| 25/4/1925 | Alfiedi Maserati makes a successfull debut in car races in Targia Florio, driving a Tipo 26 |
| 25/4/1901 | New York becomes the first state to enforce by law car license plates |
| 25/4/1901 | Erve Beck hits American League's first home run |
| 25/4/1850 | Paul Julius Reuter uses 40 homing pigeons to bridge the gap in the telegraph lines and speed up news service between Brussels and Berlin. In 1865, Reuter's private firm became a limited company (a corporation) called the Reuter's Telegram Company. |
