Nordmann wrote of a crap football team that never won; fascinating. Makes one wonder why and what they were like - happy go lucky? all good friends...… or very well paid for some odd reason. Failure can often lead to fame...… it's the taking part.....but some people need the challenge or enjoy it despite knowing they will lose. I have several friends of differing parties who have stood for election  knowing they would fail. The problem I have with that is they were all sincere, able people who would have  been diligent, honest assets had the electorate been more perceptive. Anyone any thoughts on great losers?

Surely the majority of people who have ever stood for election have lost. That’s the nature of the concept. In a Westminster parliamentary election, for instance, many candidates who appear on the ballot paper of any given constituency would have already taken part in at least one selection process just to arrive at that point. They would have left a string of ‘losers’ in their own wake in doing so. Despite its faults (e.g. the single-largest-wins voting system) a Westminster election, whether it be general or by, still carries an element of the fun of the fair about it and participants often speak of their sense of honour or privilege simply for having been able to take part in one.
  
Real losers would perhaps be those who, despite having all the trappings of wealth and/or power and with all the benefits of education, contacts, networks, doors opening, deference, influences and sundry other opportunities etc, then somehow manage to contrive to lose it all.  Obvious examples of this would be monarchs who fell as a result of revolutions such as Russia’s Nicholas II, France’s Louis XVI and England’s Charles I. Then there are those who were defeated in battle and subsequently fell from grace such a Darius III of Persia, Moctezuma II of the Aztecs and Atahualpa of the Incas. Away from statecraft then history is littered with those who made a fortune (or inherited a fortune) but then frittered it away ending their lives in relative or even abject poverty, a famous 20th century example being Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton. Each case, of course, has its own nuances and each depends upon a greater or lesser extent on such variables as character defects, being overly optimistic, being overly pessimistic, taking ill advice, making poor judgements and, of course, sheer bad luck.

Perhaps this thread should be called Worthy Losers to have once had it all and lost it whiffs neither of greatness or worthiness..... but your examples  from a pick and mix history selection are most interesting, too...….. I once enjoyed that at Woolworths.  I was thinking more along the lines of those who had a bash but failed but are respected for it. I think that's what I mean...…..well I did this morning.

Ah, my example won't do then. I know I go on about her a lot, but Mary, Queen of Scots, certainly had - then lost - it all.

To be eighteen - beautiful, vivacious and utterly charming - and to be Queen of Scotland, Queen of France and, in the eyes of all Catholic Europe, Queen of England, yet somehow manage to end up with absolutely nothing - no crown, no husband, no head - could be assumed to indicate not misfortune, but a rather dreadful carelessness.