“The New England v Houston game this week kicked off just after 7.30pm and, thanks to two weather breaks [lasting a total of 170 minutes – ed], went to a second day, finishing around 12.25am. What’s the longest match on record?” asked Paul Berry last week.
As Alun Thomas points out, it took six days to complete the Women’s U19 European Championship qualifier between Norway and England in April this year thanks to a refereeing cock-up. The game kicked off on Saturday 4 April and finished on Thursday 9 April. “On the Saturday, a last minute England goal from a penalty was disallowed for encroachment with the referee incorrectly ordered a free kick to Norway,” writes Alun. “Uefa ordered the penalty be retaken the following Thursday. England scored, securing a 2-2 draw and qualification.”
But that five-day fixture pales in comparison to the epic tie between Aab Aalborg and Brondby in 1995-96. Kristian Enstrom has the full tale: “In the 1995-96 season in the Danish Superliga, AaB Aalborg were hosting Brondby. When Brondby scored to make it 2-0 the Brondby supporters set off several flares, and the eccentric referee Knud Erik Fisker decided to stop the game due to heavy smoke (which was generally considered as a overreaction since the smoke disappeared quite fast). At that time the game had lasted 73 minutes and 53 seconds.
“Since flares were not illegal in the Danish Superliga in 1995, there were no rules that could declare Brondby loser of the game. So when the two teams faced each other in the Danish cup on 6 April 1996, it was decided that they should finish the remaining 16 minutes and seven seconds of the league game, after they had played the cup match.
“Eventually, Brondby won the cup match, and managed to score another goal in the final 16 minutes and 7 seconds of the Superliga game, which gave them a 3-0 win. The first part of the game was played on the 1 September 1995, and with final part being played on the 6 April 1996 (with another referee) – so the game lasted six months and five days from the first to the last whistle. In Denmark, the game is only known as Romerlyskampen (The Flare Game).”
The 3-0 scoreline is in the official records. The teams who lined up for the final 16 minutes were different to the ones who had played in the original game, but the teams did make one concession in an attempt to replicate the match situation – AaB’s Henrik Rasmussen had been sent off not long after half time in the original fixture, so they named only 10 players for the final 16 minutes.
NOMINATIVE DETERMINISM REDUX
“Christian Fuchs, whose name means Fox in German, joined Leicester this summer,” notes Harry Bronsdon. “Are there other examples of players joining teams with similar names or nicknames to theirs?”
We’ve covered this nominative nickname determinism in varying guises several times before – step forward Wolfsburg manager Wolfgang Wolf, John de Wolf of Wolves, Fernando De Napoli of Napoli, Eddie Lyons of Millwall, Mat Sadlier of Walsall, Crystal Palace goalkeeper Bill Glazier and Mark Robins of a loan spell at Bristol City – but here at the Knowledge we’re always happy to return to old topics when new horizons can be explored.
In that vein, then, we turn to Kari Tulinius, who has word from Iceland: “As a number of Icelandic teams have names which are also reasonably common given names, e.g. Mani, Fjolnir, Armann, it is not uncommon to find players who share a name with their team,” he writes. “For instance, there was a Sindri Ragnarsson who played for the team Sindri.
“Furthermore, because of the Icelandic patronymic naming system, most people have last names that are simply their father’s name, and then -son or -dottir, depending on gender. Therefore there are also a bunch of players who are in teams who share names with their fathers. One example is Bryndis Valsdottir (daughter of Valur), who played for the team Valur. The ultimate example of this also comes from Valur, who once had a player on their books called Valur Valsson, which means Valur son of Valur. The word valur means falcon, incidentally.”
And there are also a couple of current players living up to their names. “Bilbao Athletic (that would be Athletic Bilbao’s B team, not a mild attack of dyslexia) have a young centre-back on their books by the name of Unai Bilbao,” writes Gareth Roberts. “I imagine, given the club’s cantera mandate for local players, they must be weeping with joy at that one.”
Several readers pointed out that Bolton Wanderers have recently signed Liam Trotter, while Clayton Freeman has a couple of suggestions from around Europe.
“Internazionale had defender Mauro Milanese for a year and a half,” he writes. “Inter also fielded striker Aurelio Milani for two years in the 1960s, and he scored in the 1964 European Cup final against Real Madrid.
“In Spanish-speaking countries, the surnames Rojas (red) and Blanco (white) are quite common, so instances of players with these names representing clubs with red or white in their nicknames must be common. Perhaps the most prominent (though easy to overlook) is the former Real Madrid sharpshooter Raul [Gonzalez Blanco], scorer of more than 300 overall goals for Los Blancos.”
WORST AWAY RUNS
“Quite recently I stumbled over the really worst away record in (West) Germany’s Bundesliga as Nürnberg managed to lose all 17 away matches of their 1983/84 campaign,” begins Felix Ney. “Digging deeper into it, it turned out, this ill-fated run started as early as 1982 (matchday 11, 1982-83, 1-3 at Fortuna Düsseldorf) and lasted until 1984 (matchday 33, 1983-84, 2-4 at Kaiserslautern) which means at the time Nürnberg – by the way the then reigning German record champions – put together all in all 29 away losses in the national top football league on the trot.
“On top of it came two German Cup away losses. After the subsequent relegation another two away losses followed in the second tier of German football so Nürnberg lost 31 league away matches in the row as well as their two away fixtures in the German cup during that time. My question therefore is: has any other team recorded a longer losing streak (or more league away losses in a row) in any other nation’s top division?”
The English record, as far as we can tell, is held jointly by Crewe Alexandra and Nelson, who both lost 24 times on the bounce away from home (Crewe in 1894-95 and Nelson in 1929-30).
Can anyone do any better around the globe? Send your answers to the usual address: knowledge@theguardian.com
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
“Francis Jeffers, I have just discovered, is the joint top all-time leading scorer for England Under-21s with 13 goals in 16 games,” observed Luke Jackson back in the halcyon days of 2006. “Having played just one senior international for England in which he scored a goal against Australia, does this make Franny the most prolific goalscorer in international football?”
Don’t bring that kind of trash to this house, Luke. Granted, the Charlton frontman may have a goals-per-international ratio of 1.00, but this one-game statistic still leaves him well adrift of the most prolific international strikers the game has known. Thankfully.
In terms of England players with greater records (and we’ll use 20 caps as a minimum throughout), we can start with Steve Bloomer (1874-1938), former Derby striker, cricketer, baseball star and all-round celebrity of his day. In 23 internationals, Bloomer scored 28 times, a ratio of 1.22 goals per game. Overlapping Bloomer’s England career was that of Viv Woodward, who represented his country between 1903 and 1911, scoring 29 times in 23 internationals (1.26). And though George Camsell didn’t make 20 caps, he’s still worthy of a mention for his record of 18 goals in nine memorable internationals.
As far as other international players’ record ratios are concerned, the ever-reliable www.rsssf.com comes up trumps with a list of selected country’s record goalscorers, most of which put poor Mr Jeffers somewhat in the shade. First off, there was Hungary’s Sandor Kocsis, who racked up 75 goals in an eight-year career comprising 68 internationals (1.10). Sharing that ratio from his 62 caps for West Germany is Gerd Müller, who scored 68 times, and Sweden’s Sven Rydell banged in 49 goals in just 43 games (1.14). Even further in front, however, are Rydell’s fellow Scandinavians: his compatriot Gunnar Nordahl’s 1.30 ratio came courtesy of his 43 international strikes from 33 games, while Denmark’s Poul “Tist” Nielsen performed even better. In a career spanning more than 15 years, but just 38 caps, Nielsen scored 52 times - a ratio of 1.37 goals in every international he played.
For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive.
Can you help?
“Having read about my local team AFC Rushden & Diamonds being granted special dispensation by the FA to retired the No1 shirt in tribute to former goalkeeper Dale Roberts it got me wondering which team club or country has the most retired numbers?” writes James H from Irthlingborough. “On a side note what kind of team could you put together using players with retired numbers only?”
“In their first five competitive matches of this season (including cups), I noticed that Dunfermline Athletic had scored three, four, five, six and seven goals in the five matches: 3-0 v Forfar, 7-1 v Cowdenbeath, 6-1 v Brechin, 5-1 v Cowdenbeath again, 4-1 v Arbroath,” writes Gareth Owen. “This got me wondering whether any other teams had managed a run of scoring a different number of goals in consecutive matches and, if so, how many? When checking this, however, I then noticed that Dunfermline’s last three matches from the 2014-15 season had them scoring nought, one and two goals: 2-3 v Airdrie, 1-3 v Forfar, 0-3 v Brechin. Which means that in Dunfermline’s last eight competitive matches, they have scored 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 goals. Surely no one else has managed a longer run of scoring a different number of goals in each game?”
“I live in the Netherlands and over the years I’ve noticed that certain local fans will gravitate to a Premier League game if there are Dutch playing,” writes Niall Cleary. “Come Saturday morning the pub was packed! With Krul, Wijnaldum, Anita, De Jong (bench), Blind, Memphis, van Gaal and Schteve (and missing the suspended Janmaat) was Man Utd v Newcastle the most Dutch game of English Premier League ever?”
“Someone reminded me the other day that in the Premier League era (currently 23 years), no English manager has won the title,” writes Ankur Jain. “Has there been any other domestic league which can match such an absence of a domestic title winning manager?”
“Last Saturday, Callum Wilson of Bournemouth scored the season’s first EPL hat-trick which made me wonder when was the last time (if ever) that the first hat-trick of the season in the top flight was scored by a player from a promoted club?” writes Allastair McGillivray/
“This is a question on slow starters,” begins Mike Kilner. “If my team Carlisle United fail to return from Victoria Park, Hartlepool with three points this Saturday, it will mean an unbroken and unwanted sequence of 15 consecutive winless league games in the month of August going back to the 2012-13 season. Has any past or present league side been asleep in the blocks for longer?”
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