“I was wondering, as England were on ITV for their game against Slovakia, which of the various broadcasters has the best record. Do England have a better chance of winning a major championships with one TV channel over another?” asks Stephen Turner.
Reader Matt Bryant had his eye on the ball. “Ever since I was a child I have seen appearances on ITV as a sign England could be in trouble,” he begins. “This has been validated by standout moments of glory/despair; think Motty’s “England have done it!” v Belgium in 1990, as opposed to Brian Moore’s “Well you know him better than anyone …” v Argentina in 1998. So imagine my self-righteousness when I came across this graphic earlier this month. At World Cups and Euros since 1996 [before Euro 2016]:
“So there you go. A gulf between the two broadcasters, not helped by this year’s efforts. Once again Glenn Hoddle is the villain of the piece.”
Well, we had better update that with England’s four games so far at Euro 2016 to offer a nice balance in historic fixtures. Just the one was on the Beeb, which they won. Sadly for Roy Hodgson, Tyldesley, Hoddle and co were at the tiller for Monday’s Iceland beatdown. So …
BBC: P22 W13 D1 L8 … win rate of 59.09%
ITV: P22 W6 D9 L7 … win rate of 27.27%
Then again, there could be a better option for England, as Marc Jones suggests. “S4C shows Wales games during major tournaments (Euro 2016 being the first) so broadcasted the Wales v England game,” he noted. “As far as I’m aware, they have never previously shown an England tournament game, meaning a 100% win record for the English. Statistically, the best chance England have of winning the European Championships (based on TV channels) is for a Wales v England final …”
Dead rubbers
“This has puzzled me for longer than is healthy, but where does the term ‘dead rubber’ originate from?” asks Peter Egan. “I’ve heard some say it originates from chess, but there’s nothing conclusive.”
“According to Chambers Dictionary ‘rub’ was an initially a term in bowls, to denote two balls hitting each other (which is easy to understand),” emails Paul Mitchell. “From there ‘rubber’ became used to refer to a set of three games of bowls and eventually to contests or series of contests in other sports and games (especially cards). ‘Dead rubber’ to mean a contest with no importance to the overall result obviously follows from this. The slightly odd thing is that we never refer to ‘live rubbers’ and indeed rarely use the word ‘rubber’ to mean a single contest in sport. I think bridge players still use ‘rubber’ in this sense.”
Hapless politicians with football (2)
Further to last week’s query about “foolish/funny quotes from leaders or politicians about football”, Jonathan Wray directs us towards the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. OK.
“Poor Mrs Thatcher,” reads an entry regarding the 1978 FA Cup final, when Ipswich beat Arsenal 1-0. “After looking very much at home at Wembley and being delighted that the Blues won, her afternoon ended in tatters. After the Cup final she was asked on Radio 2 who she considered man of the match. Without hesitation she replied: ‘The Ipswich No10, Trevor Whymark.’ Erring officials had forgotten to point out to her that although Whymark was in the programme, injury had kept him out of the team. But the actual No10, David Geddis, did play a blinder.”
Winning the Golden Boot after a slow start
“Has any player won the Golden Boot in a World Cup, European Championships, or any other international tournament without having scored in the group stage?” asks Rael Roberts. “What is the latest in a tournament the top scorer has opened his account?”
It has never happened in the European Championship, which has only had a group stage since 1980, but it has occurred a few times at the World Cup. In 1962, both Garrincha and Vava – who were joint top-scorers along with four other players, all of them on four goals – did not trouble the scorers until the quarter-finals. The same was true of Argentina’s Mario Kempes in 1978; he did not score in the first group stage but came to life in the first match of the second group stage when he struck twice against Poland. He got two more in the controversial 6-0 thrashing of Peru, and another two against the Netherlands in the final.
In 1982, Italy’s Paolo Rossi went one worse: he failed to score in the first four games but still picked up the Golden Boot. There were calls for Rossi to be dropped for their second and final game in the second group stage, which they had to win against the great Brazilians to avoid elimination. Enzo Bearzot kept him in the side, and Rossi scored a legendary hat-trick in a 3-2 win, the greatest match ever played. He added both goals in the semi-final against Poland, and the opener in the 3-1 win over West Germany in the final. That gave him the Golden Boot ahead of Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, and he rounded off a perfect year by winning the Ballon d’Or in December.
Can you top Rossi’s four games? If so, email knowledge@theguardian.com or get in touch via Twitter @TheKnowledge_GU.
Knowledge archive
“With two pretty rubbish teams as host nations this year, which host country has fared worst in European Championship history?” wondered Rory Saunders during Euro 2008.
Belgium’s 2000 benchmark of one win was, before this year’s tournament, the least any host had achieved since the introduction of the group stages in 1980. After their defeat to Germany, however, Austria – as widely anticipated – are now officially the worst ever hosts of a European Championships, with just one point to their name. Switzerland, meanwhile, thanks to their 2-0 win over Portugal’s reserves, actually leap above Belgium’s tally of eight years ago courtesy of a superior goal difference.
The Yugoslavia side of 1976 also deserve a mention, however, in the eyes of Jostein Nygård. As hosts of the semi-final stages Yugoslavia lost 4-2 to West Germany in their first game and 4-2 to the Netherlands in the third-place play-off.
Since 1980, the record of host nations in the European Championships have been generally excellent. Belgium were, before this year, the only host country not to make at least the semi-finals (In 1980, with group winners contesting the final,Italy lost a third-place play-off to Czechoslovakia).
Euro 2012 update: both co-hosts failed to get out of their groups, though neither fared quite as poorly as Austria. Poland managed two 1-1 draws, against Greece and Russia, before losing to the Czech Republic while Ukraine beat Sweden before losing to France and England.
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Can you help?
“The USA Network has recently premiered a TV series named Queen of the South, which of course shares the same name as the Scottish club based out of Dumfries,” notes Ayan Banerjee. “Is this a unique scenario or there have been cases of such an occurrence in the past?”
“If Manchester United complete their expected signings of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, they’ll have three players in their squad who are the all-time leading goal scorers for their country (Ibrahimovic for Sweden, Mkhitaryan for Armenia and Wayne Rooney for England),” writes Pat Bulford. “Has this ever happened at another club? Or, indeed, can another club top it?”
“Who has missed the most penalties missed in a career?” muses Richard Dennis.
“There is an estimated 8-12% of the entire Icelandic population of around 330,000 at Euro 2016 in France,” writes Pardeep Parmat. “The 30,000 Icelandic fans inside the stadium for their final group game comprised around 9% of their entire population. My question is; has their ever been a higher percentage of a countries population either visiting a tournament or alternatively inside a stadium?”
“Nomadic Australian goalkeeper Liam Reddy signed for Perth Glory last week,” begins Phil Withall. “They will be the seventh A-League side he has played for following stints at Newcastle Jets, Brisbane Roar, Wellington Phoenix, Sydney FC, Central Coast Mariners and Western Sydney Wanderers. I’m fairly sure that playing for 70% of teams in one (major) league is a record but has any player appeared for more sides in the same division?”
“Has there ever been in a major tournament in which every team that qualified for the group stages earned at least a single point?” wonders Ignatius J Reilly.
“My friend recently stated that José Mourinho had ‘got the cheque book out’ to make his first signing for Manchester United (he does love a good cliche),” begins James Lambert. “Presumably signings are no longer made via cheque, so I want to know, who was the last player purchased via cheque? Who was the first?”
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