“Has the wrong trophy ever been presented to a team at the end of a competition?” asks Derek McHugh, suggesting a level of incompetence from the footballing authorities that you surely won’t fi … oh, yes, that’s right.
Examples of this exact brand of ineptitude seem a bit thin on the ground, but a couple of readers mentioned the 1992 FA Cup final, when losing team Sunderland were presented with a set of winners’ medals, rightfully owned by the victorious Liverpool.
“I recall Marco Gabbiadini talking about it on television afterwards, but a quick Google throws up an interview with some of his team-mates,” reports Thom Kennedy. Brian Atkinson, who played in midfield that day, told the Daily Mail: “I remember at the end of the game you got your medals and we got the winner’s medals. There were blue boxes and red boxes. The blue boxes were the winners, and the red ones were the runners-up. They gave us the blue ones. The Liverpool lads came over and asked us to swap. I cannot remember who I swapped with but we had the winner’s medals for a little bit.”
Colin Owens has another, similar example: “Cue then, the FAI (there’s an old saying in Irish football, ‘You can’t spell failure without f … a … i’) who presented the 2013 FAI Cup final medals to winners ‘Silgo Rovers’ instead of Sligo Rovers.” For more, here’s the Irish Independent.
“It’s arguable whether this really fits Derek’s criteria,” writes Sean DeLoughry, “but I’m brought back to the legendary 1994-95 League of Ireland title battle. Derry City topped the table on the final day and just needed to win at relegation play-off-bound Athlone Town to hold off Dundalk and Shelbourne, both a point behind. The league trophy was in Athlone for Derry’s inevitable coronation, but one missed penalty, two dropped points and a win for Dundalk over Galway United saw Dundalk pip Derry to the title. As there was no league trophy at Oriel Park some bright spark popped into the boardroom and brought a commemorative trophy from the club’s previous league title in 1991 down to the pitch where the club joyously presented themselves with the wrong trophy. Here’s skipper James Coll with the wrong trophy. There’s a great article from a Derry fan’s perspective here.”
Unforced errors
“Does anyone know of any teams that have scored an own goal direct from their kick-off without the opposition touching the ball?” wonders Mark Jones.
Dudley Armitage is straight in: “Yes! Portsmouth did so against Wimbledon at Plough Lane in October 1984. Here it is …” (Disclaimer: due to some rather relaxed camerawork, you don’t quite get, shall we say, the whole picture.)
“As a native from Székesfehérvár,” begins Peter Guber, promisingly, “home of the mighty Videoton, we have an excellent 1991 book on the history of our team. It explains how Videoton (Székesfehérvári VT Vasas at that time) played a game against BVSC: ‘Balogh passed the kick-off to Szőke who got it back to Bognár. The defender tried to find his keeper with a half-turn motion, but the ball passed the goalie, Tímár and found the back of the net. BVSC got the lead even though they hadn’t touched the ball in the game before.’”
Proving that bad football never sleeps, here is an example from Sunday, in a Finnish pre-season game between Tampere United and KTP Kotka. Tampere led 4-0, before Kotka added a fifth for them, free of charge:
Fine work by @TampereUnited - after scoring a 4th goal v @KTPKotka, they added a fifth without touching the ball... #owngoal #kakkonen pic.twitter.com/K12bejXkiX
— Escape To Suomi (@EscapeToSuomi) February 27, 2017
Then, of course, there’s an old Knowledge favourite. From the Guardian in 2002:
Madagascar’s soccer authorities have banned Stade Olympique de L’Emyrne (SOE)’s coach and four of the team’s players after they scored a world record 149 own goals in a match last month. SOE lost the match 149-0 to AS Adema in the last game of the league championship on 31 October, the players protesting at what they thought was biased refereeing. “The sanctions have been put in place,” Jacques Benony, president of the Malagasy Football Federation (FMF), told a news conference. Football authorities said SOE coach Zaka Be, accused of orchestrating the debacle from the stands, was suspended for three years and banned from visiting stadiums for the same period.
Pleading the fifth
“Lincoln & Sutton have reached the FA Cup fifth round,” asks Andrew Rynham. “How many current league clubs have never reached the fifth round?”
Well, there’s a simple answer to this, and a slightly more complicated one, and it depends very much what you mean by ‘current league clubs’. The wrinkle comes with regard to AFC Wimbledon and Newport County and whether you judge them formed in 2002 and 1989 respectively, or as continuations of the ones that began life way back in 1889 and 1912. If you think of them as ‘new’ teams, then the number of current league clubs to never reach the fifth round is eight. If you think of them as the same clubs, the number is six, Newport having reached the fifth round in 1949, and Wimbledon winning the thing in 1988.
The other, slightly less complicated clubs to never have bettered Lincoln and Sutton’s achievements have, unsurprisingly, spent a good portion of their history as non-league clubs. They are Accrington Stanley, Barnet, Burton Albion, Fleetwood Town, Hartlepool and Morecambe. If you’re interested, the worst performing current Premier League team is (again, unsurprisingly) Bournemouth, whose best effort was a quarter-final in 1957.
This answer was brought to you with the help and good work of the FA Cup Factfile blog, whose work you can read here, or follow on Twitter.
Knowledge archive
“Can anyone enlighten me as to how Alan Hansen received the huge scar that figures so prominently on his forehead?” pondered Charles Arnold back in 2004.
“The scar was the result of him running through a glass door when he was 17,” explained Edward Connor. Yep, Hansen and his schoolmates were late for a volleyball tournament, and he led from the front in the rush to get to the changing rooms, neglecting to acknowledge the minor detail of a plate of glass in front of him. Hansen was in hospital for four hours, and needed 27 stitches. “He sued the education authority,” concluded Rob Glossop. “As has generally been his wont, he won.”
Can you help?
“Which managers have been the most successful at a club where they’ve received a dreaded vote of confidence?” muses Stan.
“I noticed in the League Cup final, Southampton were taking part in their fourth major cup final without playing in their first-choice colours,” notes Jez Orbell. “They did play in stripes in the 1976 Charity Shield, but if we stick to major competitions, what’s the record?”
“Seeing that Harry Kane is looking mean, lean and keen in the quest for a second successive top-flight Golden Boot led to some hasty research that revealed that three players in the English top flight have managed three in a row,” reports Jack Roe. “Jimmy Greaves received the bauble six times overall including at the end of the 1962-63, 1963-64 and 1964-65 seasons. The trick was later repeated by Alan Shearer 1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97) and Thierry Henry 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06). My question is, can any players elsewhere improve on such an impressive achievement?”
“I happened upon the fact that newly-appointed Blackburn manager Tony Mowbray has managed each of the three clubs he played for during his professional career (Middlesbrough, Celtic and Ipswich in a caretaker capacity). Has any other manager bettered this feat?” queries Eddie Eyers.
“Passing through Bicester Village station, formerly Bicester Town but renamed to advertise the local shopping area, I wondered if the same thing had ever happened to a football club,” wonders Dan Levy. “Has a ‘City’ ever become a ‘Town’, or a ‘County’ a ‘City’ or a ‘United’ stopped being united? Or is the best we can do Meadowbank losing their Thistle when they moved to Livingston?”
“As reported in Sid Lowe’s blog, when Granada played Real Betis last week, their starting lineup was the first in La Liga history to have 11 players from 11 different countries,” writes Fern Lin-Healy. “Has this ever happened in other leagues?”
“Who was the first African-born player to captain a club in Europe?” asks Gerry Farrell. “And when? Specifically someone who was acknowledged as a club captain rather than just captaining a side in a single match.”
“Has any captain, in a top-flight competition, been ever booked at the coin toss?” wonders Declan Fitzpatrick.
- Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet@TheKnowledge_GU.
