“I noticed today that seven out of the 24 teams in the Championship this season begin with the letter ‘B’ (Birmingham, Blackburn, Bolton, Brentford, Bristol City, Brighton, Burnley) - 29.17% of the division’s clubs, if you prefer a percentage,” writes Dan Carney. “This was also the case last season, albeit with slightly different personnel (for Burnley and Bristol City, read Bournemouth and Blackpool). Has this ever been bettered anywhere, in a single division, in a single season?”
Readers, sit yourselves down. It is very hard to describe the precise level of excitement that you are about to experience, but suffice it to say that the next few minutes of your life are going to be extremely alphabetical. Extraordinarily so. You are about to go on a journey that will take you from the railways of Mozambique to the universities of Chile, a journey that has required The Knowledge to examine the top-flight tables of every country in the entire world known to have a top flight, during which we discovered, among so many other incredible things, the unlikely popularity of the letter V in Samoa.
But first, let’s make sure we’ve got England covered. “Dan Carney’s seven Bs are close to the English record,” writes Colin Bell, who has done the legwork for us. “The percentage record is held by Barnsley, Blackpool, Bolton, Bristol City, Bradford City, Burnley and Burton United: these seven teams formed 38.89% of the 18-strong Second Division in 1903-04 and 1904-05. The absolute record is eight Bs (Second Division 1934-35 and 1993-94, Championship 2013-13 and 2013-14). Blackpool and Burnley are the only ever-presents here. Runners-up on six teams, or 27.27%, are C (1983-84 Second Division) and S (Second Division 1925-26, 1958-59, 1960-61) in 22-team leagues, plus another six for W (2003-04 Championship), but with 23 teams, so only 26.09%. Oddly, of these 10 alliterative leagues, nine are second-tier.”
And with that, let’s set off on our journey. Sean DeLoughry smashes a figurative bottle of Champagne on our notional hull to get our voyage started, noting that this year’s Championship B-percentage “will often be topped in a small division” and pointing out that 30% of Scottish League One begins with A thanks only to Airdrieonians, Albion and Ayr. “In the 10-team 2010 League of Ireland Premier Division 40% of the top flight were S clubs (Shamrock Rovers, Sligo, St Pats, Sporting Fingal),” he continues. “Cyprus might provide a winner though. They’re fond of the A Team in Cyprus. In 1996-97, for example, eight out of 14 clubs (57.14%) began with A (Anorthosis, Apollon, AEK, APOEL, APOP, Ali, Aris, and APEP).”
Nice try, Sean, but Cyprus is nowhere near the top of this league. But if small divisions help, small countries do too - especially if they only have two towns of any heft and their names both begin with the same letter. And so to Swaziland, whose capital, Mbanane, was represented in the 2014-15 MTN Premier League by Mbanane Swallows and Mbanane Highlanders. Manzini, the nation’s second-largest urban centre, contributed Manzini Sea Birds, Manzini Sundowns and Manzini Wanderers, as well as Moneni Pirates. Malanti Chiefs, meanwhile, play in the delightfully-named Piggs Peak, leaving the entire 12-team top-flight 58.33% M-commencing.
Daniel Shilson points out that 10 out of the 18 clubs in the Indonesian Super League have names that start with the letter P - and not only that, he can explain why. “This is due to the popularity of the prefix ‘Persatuan Sepak Bola Indonesia’, coming before the city or town name,” he explains. “This would translate roughly as ‘Football Club/Association/Unity of Indonesia’. Therefore the major team in Jakarta is called Persatuan Sepak Bola Indonesia Jakarta. However, because this is rather unwieldy, and because the Indonesians love a portmanteau, the club is almost always known as Persija. Another example would be Persipura, who hail from Jayapura.”
Therefore this season’s Super League features Persipura, Persib, Perseru Serui, Persebaya, Persela, Persija, Pusamania Borneo, Persiram Raja Ampat, Pelita Bandung Raya and Persiba Baikpapan, as well as PS Barito Putera and PSM Makassar, though we’re not sure if they count, and Semen Padang, whose name doesn’t really start with a P at all, but does sound a bit smutty.
But even Indonesia’s Ps can’t win this particularly pitched battle, with Matthew Vierboom pointing us in the direction of the Saudi Arabian top flight, otherwise known as the Abdul Latif Jameel League. The 14 teams scheduled to take part in the 2015-16 competition include Hajer, Najran, and 12 others whose names begin with the letter A. Or, more specifically, the word “al”. In alphabetical order, which isn’t straightforward in the circumstances, and with approximate translation as provided by Google in brackets, they are Al-Ahli (national), Al-Faisaly (prayer), Al-Hilal (crescent), Al-Ittihad (union), Al-Khaleej (bay), Al-Nasr (victory), Al-Qadisiyah (not sure about this one), Al-Ra’ed (pioneers), Al-Shabab (youth), Al-Taawun (town), and Al-Wehda (one).
Of course, the letter A is pretty common, particularly in Arabic-speaking countries (and actually Saudi Arabia isn’t even top of the A-league: the last Libyan top flight featured 14 Al-Somethings and two others, one of which came last (making it 87.5% A-commencing, which we’ve been unable to better), while in Sudan there were 13 Al-Somethings and two others, and one of those came last too). Similarly Jordan’s Manasir Jordan Pro League had eight A-teams out of 12 last season - and it seemed to do them some good as well: they all finished in the top nine - and it’s a similar scene in the likes of Yemen, Kuwait, Syria and Jordan. More impressively, Oman’s 14-team top flight last season, in addition to six names beginning with A, had five names beginning with S (Sur, Saham, Suwaiq, Sohar and Seeb; it’s since gone down to four because Seeb were relegated).
Obviously it is less amazing that lots of team names start with the same letter if most of them have the same reason for having it there. So all those Arabic leagues should be marked down, as should, for example, the University-related popularity of the letter U in Chile (where Universidad Católica, Universidad de Concepción, Universidad de Chile and Unión Española all play in the top flight, though strangely there are no university teams in the second division), or the proliferation of railway-related outfits in Mozambique (where Ferroviario Maputo, Ferroviario Beira, Ferroviario Nacala, Ferroviario Nampula and Ferroviario Quelimane all played in the 2015 Mocambola), or for that matter saints in Reunion (where positions two, three, four and five in a 12-team league this year were all occupied by Saint-Someones).
So perhaps more remarkable is Kyrgyzstan’s Top-Liga, which is 66.67% A-starting without any obvious repetition, thanks to the involvement of Alay, Abdish-Ata Kant, Alga Bishkek and Ala-Too (they’ve only got six teams). The nine-team top flight in New Zealand is 44.45% W-commencing, with Waitakere United, WaiBOP United, Wellington Phoenix Reserves and Wanderers all involved, as well as the nearly-W Team Wellington (in case you’re wondering, Wellington Phoenix’s first team plays in Australia’s A-League), while of the 12 teams who play in the Upolu Premier League (in Samoa), six begin with the letter V (Vaimoso, Vailima Kiwi, Vaitoloa, Vaitele Uta, Vaivase-Tai and Vaipuna).
Other unusual initial-letter popularity-peaks include Bulgaria, whose top flight is 40% L-initialled (Litex, Ludogorets, Levski and Lokomotiv), and this year’s Greek Super League, which is 43.75% P-based, with Panaitolikos Agrinion, Panathinaikos, Panionios, Panthrakikos, PAOK, PAS and Platanias all involved. But if we’re weighting things in favour of more unusual initial letters then Moldova and Georgia might sneak into the rankings on the basis of having a couple of Z’s. To be fair, Georgia have been left with one Z following the relegation of Zestaponi, but make up for it by having six teams (37.5%) in the Umaglesi Liga that start with an S (not quite as good as Slovakia, who with Spartak Myjava, Slovan Bratislava, Skalika, Senica and Spartak Trnava are on 41.67%).
Finally, back in England, not only are teams beginning with B unusually likely to play in the Championship, once they get there they’re unusually likely to get knocked out of the Capital One Cup in the first round: this year Blackburn, Bolton, Brentford, Bristol City and Burnley all fell at the first League Cup-shaped hurdle, forming fully 55.55% of all second-tier sides to do so.
Right, you can relax now. The excitement’s over.
MORE SHARED SPONSORS
“In a pre season friendly between Real Madrid and AC Milan I noticed that both clubs had the same sponsor. Has this ever happened before?” asks Mark Pucci.
“The starkest example I’ve ever witnessed is in Argentina,” writes Mark Turner, “where the indescribably bitter rivals River Plate and Boca Juniors had the same main sponsor in the 2012 seasons. That was the bank BBVA Banco Frances (the local wing of Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), which has a strong presence in Argentina.”
“South Africa’s mobile phone market is dominated by two providers, MTN and Vodacom,” writes Ian Williams. “During the 2008-09 season, MTN sponsored Ajax Cape Town and Golden Arrows, and Vodacom sponsored Bloemfontein Celtic, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.” Cue a lot of same-sponsor derbies, then. Ian’s email inspires a little digging of our own, which unearths the fact that the following season the final of South Africa’s oldest cup competition, then as now known, because of its sponsor, as the MTN 8, was contested by Ajax Cape Town and Golden Arrows, both also sponsored by MTN. This sponsorship triple-whammy must surely be some kind of record.
THE ONLY WAY IS UP (PART 2)
“After joyously learning that if things go the way Football Manager expects them to over the next 1,000 years,” writes Michael Corbett, “then my team, FC Halifax Town, will one day win the Premier League I have come to wonder: what’s the lowest that any team has ever been in a Football League system before winning the league in the top division?”
A few readers read last week’s summary and considered it insufficient. “I think that Aston Villa deserve a mention for rising more quickly than the examples given,” sniffs Steve. “From the Third Division in 1971-72, Villa not only won the league within 10 years, topping the table in the 1980-81 season, they also went on to win the European Cup the following season, a mere decade after they escaped the third tier.”
“Never mind Forest and Derby, despite being co-founders of the Premier League in 1992 my team, Manchester City, were relegated in 1998 to the third tier,” writes Paul Hammond. “In doing so City also earned the not-so-glorious honour of being the first English side to have previously won a European trophy and then be relegated to the third tier (Forest managed to emulate this in 2005). Having struggled for a good chunk of the season and actually been in 12th place on Boxing Day, closer to the relegation places than the promotion spots, City then embarked on a run culminating in famously winning the play-off final on penalties against Gillingham to be promoted.” The rest is sheikh-funded, title-chomping history.
“Me team Blackburn Rovers spent a number of seasons in the 70s in the old Third Division and on at least one occasion were in serious danger of being relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in their history,” writes John Myles. “It was therefore a meteoric rise with the help of uncle Jack Warner to lift the Premier League title in season 1994-95, still the only town club to have done so.”
Michael Corbett, meanwhile, appears to have the definitive, no-messing, historical facts at his fingertips. “You write that ‘as far as we can work out no team has ever sunk from the top flight to the Fourth Division then risen again to win the league’,” he notes. “This is true. In fact no Fourth Division team at all has ever gone on to be champions. Watford lead the pack with their runners-up placing in 1982-83. To answer Michael’s question (which doesn’t assume teams have played at the top level previously) five champions previously played in the Third Division north or south (Derby, Ipswich, Forest, Portsmouth and Wolves), of which Ipswich record the lowest position: 17th in both 1949-50 and 1951-52.”
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
“I was watching ITV’s terrible coverage of the terrible Arsenal v Manchester United match in the Champions League, and at half-time Jens Lehmann claimed that these new balls actually speed up in the air in an attempt to justify Almunia’s fluff of Ronaldo’s long-distance free kick,” wrote Navin Patel in 2009. “With my basic knowledge of physics, this sounds like complete baloney. However, the thought did occur to me that it could be something to do with a spin imparted by the boot – top-spin perhaps? Can anyone explain how this might happen, or alternatively confirm that Jens Lehmann talks rubbish?”
Well, Navin, this sort of thing goes way over the head of the Knowledge, so we contacted some of Oxford University’s top bods in physics and put the question to them.
First up is Dr Tony Weidberg of St John’s College: “If the ball had no spin on it then of course it could never accelerate (conservation of energy). However if the ball was kicked in the correct way it can certainly acquire spin (the famous example of this is of course the Beckham free-kick which bends because of the spin). If you can create spin in the forward direction, then it is possible that this spin energy could be transferred to forward kinetic energy. I don’t know how difficult it is to do this in practice with a football. If the event was filmed then you could examine this frame by frame to see if the claim that the ball accelerated in the air was actually true.”
Professor Ian Walmsley, head of Atomic and Laser Physics at Oxford University: “I agree with Tony’s view based on conservation of energy in principle, but I don’t see the physical mechanism that could couple the angular and linear momenta of a football in free space. Maybe it requires a particularly viscous atmosphere; not that one would wish to attribute such to the Arsenal ground.”
And finally to Dr Alan Barr, lecturer in particle physics, to add to the debate: “A non-spinning ball cannot speed up (unless there’s a good strong tailwind behind it!). A spinning ball can easily be made to swerve (a la Becks). In principle a spinning ball can be made to speed up by transferring energy from spin to linear speed – but only under the right conditions, eg when a tennis ball with top-spin hits the ground. It’s difficult to see how this could happen to a football in normal air. Convincing evidence would be needed – as Tony says, a good scientist would check the film footage to see if the ball ever travels larger distances in later frames.”
So we can conclude that Lehmann is probably talking rubbish. Anyone prepared to fund further research into the subject – and we believe they have excellent freeze-frame recording facilities in the Bahamas – feel free to get in touch.
CAN YOU HELP?
“There’s been a lot of talk about how the league tables won’t mean a lot come the end of the season,” writes Danny Bowdler, “but have the league positions after the first weekend of the season ever been the same come the end of the season?” And failing that, we wonder, when is the earliest that any league has appeared in its final form?
“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?” asks Paul Berry.
“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?”
“I noticed last week that during Newcastle’s 2-2 draw with Southampton all the goals were headers, which I thought was rather rare for a high-scoring game,” writes Tom Fieldhouse. “My question is, what is the highest-scoring game in which all the goals were headers?”
Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or get in touch via Twitter @TheKnowledge_GU
