“Has an injury ever delayed play by so long in a televised Saturday lunchtime game that the final whistle came after 3pm, so the broadcasters were unable to show the conclusion of the match because of the black-out laws?” asks Ian Burnett.
Well we immediately thought of the day when Arsenal’s Eduardo da Silva broke his leg at Birmingham City in 2008 but that match finished before 3pm. William Gallas stayed on the pitch for a little longer, though.
But help is at hand, Ian. “I distinctly remember the Chelsea v Everton FA Cup fourth-round replay in 2011 being played on a Saturday lunchtime,” says Sam Huxley. “As the game went to extra-time, and then penalties, the game finished at 3.10pm, and I’m pretty sure was shown on ESPN. Therefore, the blackout rule wasn’t observed in this instance.”
And Steve Williams adds: “Although it is true that live football isn’t permitted to be shown on British TV between 2.45 and 5.15 on a Saturday, in practice the situation described would never happen as matches in progress are allowed to be broadcast to their completion. This doesn’t mean an enterprising broadcaster would be able to get around it by showing a match kicking off at 2.44pm but they can continue as long as they can reasonably have been expected to finish before the black-out.
“Hence in February 2011, ESPN showed Everton vs Chelsea in an FA Cup fourth round replay with a Saturday 12.45 kick-off which went to extra time and penalties and wasn’t finished until about quarter past three. But ESPN were still able to show the whole thing.”
Ah, the romance of the cup. We do have one problem, though, namely that all available evidence suggests that while the match was indeed televised on ESPN, it actually began at 12.30pm. See, look here – and if you can’t trust the Guardian squad sheets, which would be understandable, then here’s more proof on the FA’s website. Meanwhile the Guardian’s minute-by-minute report shows no sign of kick-off being delayed until 12.45pm.
Nonetheless it seems that the match, which was won by Everton on penalties after finishing 1-1 and took roughly 127 minutes to complete, did end after 3pm, continued to be televised and did not cause any of the afternoon’s kick-offs to be delayed.
A fat lot of good it did Everton, though. Having beaten Chelsea, they then went and lost at home to Reading in the next round. Oh Moyesie!
HAT-TRICK OF HEADERS (2)
Last week we discussed players who have scored hat-tricks of headers and you good people have come up with a few more.
“On 13 September 1994, Newcastle United’s first game in Europe for 17 years saw a headed hat-trick by Robert Lee against Antwerp in a 5-0 away win,” says Leonardo Manfredi. “Happy days.” Happy days indeed and a shameful show of ambition from Lee. Doesn’t he know that’s not the way things are done at Newcastle?
Stig Wallerman also writes in with news from Sweden: “Swede Ralf Edstrom, only 20 years old and earning his second cap, headed home three times when Sweden came back from 1-3 to 4-4 in a friendly against the Soviet Union in 1972. He went on to score four goals in the 1974 World Cup (and a total of 140 from a career of 303 top flight games), and to become league winner in Sweden, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.”
MANAGERIAL CHANGERS VERSUS LEAGUE POSITION
“What with Watford on their fourth manager, sitting third in the Championship, have any clubs previously had more managers in a season than their finishing position in the table,” Ewan Minter asks. “And probably excluding teams with two managers and finishing first, which I imagine has happened quite a few times.”
Here’s an answer from James Straughan: “In the 2005/06 season, Heart of Midlothian finished second in the SPL, despite numerous changes in manager. George Burley lasted until 21 October, before being replaced by John McGlynn (caretaker), followed by Graham Rix (8 November 2005 – 22 March 2006) who was in turn replaced by Valdas Ivanauskas; 3 permanent managers for a team which finished second.”
LEAGUE GAMES AGAINST TEAMS WHOSE NAME START WITH THE SAME LETTER
“Amidst Watford’s current policy of replacing their manager every other week, their last five league fixtures have been against Brighton, Brentford, Blackburn, Bournemouth and Blackpool, all of whose team names start with the letter B,” Owen Keating last week. “Has any other team ever played so many consecutive league games against teams whose names start with the same letter?”
Well everyone loves alphabet banter, no one more so than Eran Rabl. “It might be a bit of a cheat, but the best answer I could come up with is 14, in Israel. It’s a bit of a cheat since most of the teams’ names start with either Hapoel or Maccabi.
“Back in the late ‘60s there was a bit of a match-fixing problem in Israel, mostly by teams affiliated to the same sport organisation (Hapoel, Maccabi and Beitar) aiming to help each other to championships, promotions and avoiding relegation. In order to fight this, the IFA fixed the league schedule so that a team would play other teams from its sport organisation first, and then against teams from other organisations.
“This meant that Shimshon Tel Aviv, affiliated to the Hapoel organisation, started the league against all teams whose name started with Hapoel, and since there were 7 of those in the league, this meant 14 consecutive matches against “H” teams.
“For example, in 1965-66: Hapoel Haifa (rounds 1 & 2), Hapoel Mahane Yehuda (rounds 3 & 4), Hapoel Petah Tikva (rounds 5 & 6), Hapoel Ramat Gan (rounds 7 & 8), Hapoel Be’er Sheva (rounds 9 & 10), Hapoel Tel Aviv (rounds 11 & 12) and Hapoel Jerusalem (rounds 13 & 14). This was repeated in 1966-68, 1968-69, 1970-71, 1971-72 and 1972-73.”
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
“I wonder if you can help me,” Aladair Maughan asked in 2002 . “I remember reading about a match being played in an African cup competition (I think) where both teams were trying to score own goals in order to try to make/try to prevent the game from going into extra time and being won on a golden goal. Does anyone know the exact details of this, or if it’s just an urban myth?
It might sound like an urban myth, Alasdair, but it’s (almost) 100% true. The crazy events you describe took place in a Shell Caribbean Cup match between Barbados and Grenada in 1994.
Going into the last group game Barbados needed to beat Grenada by two goals to qualify for the final stages. Anything less and Grenada went through.
So far, so simple. Except that the organisers had decided that, in the case of extra time, a golden goal would count as two goals.
You don’t have to be Einstein to work out what happened next. Barbados raced to a 2-0 lead before Grenada made it 2-1 with seven minutes remaining. The Barjans were heading out unless they scored a goal; any goal.
Fortunately for them, with three minutes left, they did just that - only not in the right net. Their deliberate own goal made it 2-2 and propelled the game towards extra time.
Now, farcically, Grenada needed to score a goal (at either end) to go through. Cue frantic defending of both penalty areas by Barbados until the final whistle.
Such dubious shenanigans were rewarded, however, when Barbados scored the golden goal - this time in Grenada’s net - four minutes into extra time to win the match 3-2 (or 4-2 according to the rules of the tournament) and qualify for the finals.
Incidentally, the match is detailed in more depth here
However this isn’t the only example of a blatant own-goal being scored to further a team’s ambitions. As James Syme points out, it also happened in the infamous 1998 Tiger Cup game between Thailand and Indonesia.
“Whoever won would get to face hot favourites Vietnam in the next round, so both teams tried to throw the match,” he says. “At 2-2 and with a few minutes left, the Indonesians dropped all pretence and turned on their own goal, now defended by Thai players.
“In injury time the Indonesian keeper-captain Mursyid Effendi ‘saved’ the ball, turned round and thumped the ball into his own goal for a 3-2 final result.”
Justice was eventually served, however. For not only did Indonesia and Thailand lose their semi-final games (to Singapore and Vietnam, respectively) but both were also fined $40,000 for “violating the spirit of the game.” Meanwhile Mursyid Effendi was banned for life.
• For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive.
CAN YOU HELP?
“The starting line-up for Man Utd last night versus West Brom featured 7 naturally left-footed players: Rojo, Shaw, Blind, Januzaj, Di Maria, Mata, and van Persie,” remarks Fergus Brady. That left only De Gea, Rafael, Jones and Herrera as right-footed players in the team. Given that around only 10% of the world’s population are left-footed, surely this is exceptional? Are there any other examples of high-profile teams where the majority of players favoured the ‘more cultured’ left side?
“In the A-League, Brisbane defender James Donachie has scored an own goal in each of the season’s first two matches,” cheers Dean Kelly. “Has this season start ever been replicated or even “bettered” elsewhere by another unfortunate soul before?”
“There are currently four former Southampton managers managing other clubs in the Premier League - Alan Pardew (Newcastle), Harry Redknapp (QPR), Mauricio Pochettino (Spurs) and Nigel Pearson (Leicester),” states Martin Smith. “Is that a record?”
• Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com.
