“I thought Harry Winks of Spurs played pretty well in the EFL Cup match at Liverpool but was saddened that his shirt number wasn’t 40,” sighs Tony Crawford. “Does any player’s name/number make an interesting connection?”
“I present to you The Moroccan Magician, Hicham Zerouali, who played with the number 0 on his back in the 2000-01 SPL season for Aberdeen,” presents Scott Allan. “If memory serves, Zero received special permission from the governing bodies to be numbered as such, which was then rescinded the following season. Tragically, Zero died in a car crash a few years later but will be fondly remembered in the north-east of Scotland. Once a Don, always a Don.”
There was also a lightbulb moment for Chris Weaver. “Julian Watts played for Luton Town during the not-so-glorious years 1999 to 2001,” reports Chris. “He had the playing No40 (at least when I watched him on my occasional visits from Germany), supplemented by his surname. Perfect – oh, how we laughed (there wasn’t much else to laugh about at the time, and his playing was about as much of a bright highlight as his relatively low wattage rating might suggest). Watts was something of a journeyman, even spending time playing football in Australia, but apart from the name/number combination, there wasn’t much else to make him stick in the memory. For the record, his career details are here.”
Jim Hearson chimed in with Andy Legg’s 11 at Swansea City, while Simon Betterton has another: “There was a player in Spain in the 1990s-2000s called José Manuel Suárez Rivas, who for some reason was only ever known as Sietes, literally meaning Sevens.” Well, Sietes in Asturias was his birthplace, so we’re assuming it came from that. Carry on, Simon. “At the clubs I saw him play for – Oviedo, Valencia and Racing Santander, he was given the No7, despite being primarily a left-back. He did go to Watford for a season later in his career but never played for the first team. I hope they at least gave him the No7 there, too.”
Eye-catching attendances
“I noticed during last week’s EFL Cup games that the attendance at Elland Road for Leeds v Norwich was given as 22,222,” notices Liam Hughes. “Has there ever been a higher attendance where all the digits are the same?”
Yes, and impressively so. Seb Dunn mails in to point out Spurs 3-2 Ipswich at White Hart Lane on 30 August 1969, with an attendance of 33,333, and then also about the 2003 Copa Libertadores,” which Gareth Bell-Jones also spotted. “In the last-16, second-leg tie between Corinthians and River Plate at the Morumbi, São Paulo, there was a 66,666 official attendance,” notes Gareth. “River Plate won the leg 2-1 and 4-2 overall.” It’s good but it’s still not quite the largest …
“Santos beat Flamengo 3-2 at the Estádio do Morumbi in the 1983 Campeonato with 111,111 spectators allegedly in attendance,” writes Stuart Sale. “Assuming Santos didn’t fudge the numbers, anticipating this trivia question arising, this surely has to be the record. Highlights of the match are here.”
Car sponsors
“Coventry City have been sponsored by three different car makers in Talbot (1980-83), Peugeot (1989-97) and Subaru (1997-2005),” points out Christian Stoermann-Næss Holum. “Can another club beat them for number of different car makers?”
You can add Isuzu if we’re expanding to all vehicles, which Kevin Dennehy is doing when offering Bayern Munich, “who have been sponsored by truck manufacturers Magirus Deutz, Iveco and Opel in the past. Oddly enough, their far less glamorous neighbours, 1860 Munich have been sponsored by far more glamorous car makers; Lancia in 1991-93 when they were still winning World Rally Championships, Aston Martin in 2011-13 and now by Volkswagen.”
Ford’s focus
“Frank Brady Sr has two Irish caps, from 1926-27. He picked up the first against Italy, while his second was against Italy B (it seems to have been a full Irish team so caps were given). What is the highest number of caps a player has picked up, whereby he has played against the same country every time?” wonders Jerry Higgins.
“A likely guess would be Canadian centre-forward Leslie Ford,” writes Clayton Freeman. “According to Canadian Soccer Association records, he was part of a tour of Australia in 1924, playing for Canada in six matches against the host nation. Six other Canadians (full-backs George Anderson and Mitch McLean, half-backs Fred Dierden, Bob Harley and Dick Stobbart, and outside-right George Forrest) also played in all six matches, but Ford was the only one not to earn subsequent caps when the tour continued into New Zealand.” This just eclipses Robert Gardner, who made five appearances for Scotland, all against England between 1872-78. Tip of the hat to reader Matt Lewis.
Knowledge archive
“I was just reading about how Belgian striker Gilles De Bilde has got himself in trouble with his current team, Willebroek, for missing a match to mourn his dog’s death,” wrote Charles Bland in 2006. “Am I right in thinking this isn’t the first time his relationship with his pets has got him into trouble?”
It certainly isn’t, Charles. Animal enthusiast De Bilde, who has publicly campaigned for a European ban on dog and cat fur in the past, was the subject of an attempted News of the World exposé shortly after he arrived in England in 1999. He had been with Sheffield Wednesday for a couple of months when the newspaper claimed to have proof that he had smuggled his two pet dobermans past customs illegally without having them go through quarantine.
“Quarantine laws are shit laws because they affect dogs’ health. That’s not a good thing,” bellowed De Bilde at the time, although he denied the newspaper’s allegations and insisted the dogs he kept in his English home belonged to a friend.
But they also got him into a spot of bother with Paul Jewell [Wednesday’s manager at the time] just over a year later, after he had demanded a move to the Premiership. “I fixed him up with three months on loan at Aston Villa,” said Jewell. “But when I called him in to tell him, he said: ‘I’ve got a problem. I’ve got nobody to look after my dogs if I go there’. I said, ‘Give us your house keys, I’ll feed the bloody dogs’. That was the sort of thing I was up against.”
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Can you help?
“I’m pretty sure Shoot magazine ran a weekly feature in the 1990s visiting different league clubs to measure the player with the hardest shot and longest throw,” recalls John Hyde. “They may have also done the keeper’s throw as well. I think I vaguely remember Andy Legg winning the longest throw but who were the other winners?”
“Andy Mangan joined Tranmere Rovers on Friday for the second time,” says Ross Knight. “Just like the first time, he joined from Shrewsbury Town – so his last four clubs have been Shrewsbury, Tranmere, Shrewsbury, Tranmere. Earlier in his career, he also rejoined Accrington (on loan) and Forest Green after leaving. That makes a total of four clubs to which Mangan has gloriously returned. Can any current or past player match this?”
“Are any football grounds named after people even less recently alive than Skopje’s Philip II stadium (for reference: 382-336 BCE)?” tweets Kat Petersen.
“I’ve always enjoyed individual teams having unique chants and songs,” emails Mark Pether. “From this interest, I’ve noted the prominence of Beatles songs that make the tune for many chants. My question is: which musician or group can claim to have penned the music to the most chants? My bet so far is with The Beatles.”
“During his nine seasons playing for the red half of Manchester, Peter Schmeichel was never on the losing side in the local derby,” begins SalfordianBlue. “Then, when he joined the Blues for a season, he repeated the feat on a smaller scale. In the two derbies with played with the Dane between the sticks, we won one, drew the other. Are there any players out there with comparative, or perhaps even better derby records?”
“I was researching the history of the man bun and noticed that Roberto Firmino’s first four international goals were scored in four different countries (Austria, England, Brazil and Chile),” posits Richard Powell. “I’ve no doubt this run can be emphatically beaten – but what’s the record?”
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