“I know of clubs having fan shops and sometimes even playgrounds close to the stadium, but Union Berlin have their own petrol station, and it’s not even close to the ground,” notes Daniel Bickermann. “Any other clubs who own strange shops or businesses that seem unrelated to football?”
Kevin Dennehy points us in the direction of another German club. “Not sure if this counts, but you could for a time buy a complete house from Bayern Munich. It’s a standard prefabricated job and includes a garage, which is very common in Germany and costs €190,000, which is actually good value for what you get. There’s one featured in this article: the house is finished in matching light switches, tiles, etc in red. It seems his wife (who refused to be photographed for the article) drew the line at the bedroom being bedecked in Bayern Munich tat, mind.”
Cameron Shields sends in evidence of the Real Madrid Cafe in Dubai (where else?), while Marco De Luca gets his eyes down to bring us this little nugget of information. “My club, CF Os Belenenses is also the owner of a petrol station outside the Estádio do Restelo that was earlier leased to BP and now to Repsol. The club has also just taken back ownership of the Belenenses Bingo Hall located near the city centre (and actually much closer to Sporting and Benfica’s stadiums). Bingo Hall ownership is common among Portuguese clubs and an important source of revenue for some of them.”
All this talk of sideline interests got us wondering about Superleague Formula, the motor sport league that involved cars representing football clubs, including Liverpool, Spurs, Milan, PSV Eindhoven, Porto, Galatasaray and Borussia Dortmund. It began in 2007 and went belly up in 2011. And guess what, Liverpool fans? While all that nasty business with Tom Hicks and George Gillett was going on at Anfield in 2009, you won the league – the Superleague! In a car driven by Adrián Vallés.
Here’s the former Liverpool commercial director, Ian Ayre, talking about the club’s involvement in that uninspiring way only financial bods are capable of. “We get a guaranteed signing-on fee and each year we have a guaranteed revenue stream. We’re licensing our colours, our brand, into the series. The race series, the drivers, the tracks – all of that is covered by the race organisers and the series organisers,” said Ayre, which is pretty disappointing as the sight of Rafa Benítez furiously scribbling in his notepad after each lap would have been an entertaining one. It also got us thinking about what happened to the cars. Is Ryan Babel racing around Turkey in the Liverpool one? Maybe you bought one, or the clubs could have them on display? Is the winning 2009 car in the Anfield trophy cabinet? If you know, do get in touch.
Known Unknowns
“I wonder if any of your readers know where Bray Unknowns FC got their name?” asks Mischa Atkinson. “I would guess that it’s on a similar basis to the various Wanderers, Rangers, and Rovers (Bolton Wanderers, I understand, were so called because they had to leave their original ground) – but the Unknowns name seems altogether stranger, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
“I am not 100% sure about this, but I have been told it is to do with the first world war,” writes Phil Farrell in Dublin. “Before the conflict, a team called Wicklow FC (Bray town is in County Wicklow) played at the club’s Carlisle Grounds (one of the oldest football stadiums in the world circa 1861). The team became the Unknowns around 1922.
“Bray, as a seaside town, was exposed to the war with many Irish troops passing through on their way to ships. In addition, about 1,000 men from the town alone served in various Armed Forces (mainly British). After the war, a large cross was erected to the memory of these men, with 155 names listed. This cross currently stands beside the Carlisle Grounds. I have been told that the team re-formed after the war and renamed themselves the Unknowns out of respect to the unknown war dead from the town and its surroundings. They were admitted to the new League of Ireland in 1924. In the mid-1940s they fell out of the League but joined with a junior club called Wanderers, and together they became the Bray Wanderers of today.
“Interestingly, a nearby club have a war-related name too. In South Dublin there is a side called Tel-el-Kebir United, whose crest features a sphinx. Founded in 1946, they are named after the 1882 British victory over the Egyptians. I guess a follow-up question to the Knowledge is: how many teams have war- or battle-related names?”
A web trawl throws up this on Tel-el-Kebir:
Tel El Kebir dairies were based in Monkstown and later became the Premier Dairies depot there, more famously they gave their name to TEK United who play in Rockford Park, a stone’s throw from where the old dairy used to be.
Knowledge archive
“Who was the first player to miss a penalty in a shoot-out in a football match in Britain?” asked Albert Lippett, in 2001.
On 1 August 1970, a full-strength Manchester United team found themselves in Hull, playing in the semi-final of the Watney Mann Invitation Cup. The tournament was restricted to the two highest scoring teams from each division - excluding those recently promoted, relegated or in Europe. United made it by scoring 66 goals as they finished 8th in the First Division, while Hull qualified by topping the Second Division scoring charts with 72 goals in 42 games.
The FA had decided to allow – for the first time – penalty shoot-outs to be used if the matches were tied. Both Hull and United made it through their quarter-finals (against Reading and Peterborough respectively) and, when their match finished 1-1 after extra-time, the scene was set for the world’s first penalty shoot-out.
George Best took the first penalty, scoring low to the keeper’s right. The next five penalties were also dispatched with ease. And then Denis Law stepped up and saw his penalty saved by Ian McKechnie, thus becoming the first player ever to miss in a shoot-out. Not that it mattered too much. Hull missed their next two penalties and United sneaked through to the final. You know the rest: that year the shoot-out was adopted by Uefa and Fifa, and before long England and missed penalties were going together as nicely as butter and hot toast.
Can you help?
“Which club’s badge has remained unaltered the longest?” asks Philip Genochio. “Derby have had the ‘ram’ for over 40 years but there must be badges with much greater longevity?”
“Marx Lenin has just signed his first contract with Flamengo,” writes Nick Howe Bukowski. “Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be a left winger (at least on the pitch that is). Are there any other footballers named after political leaders and thinkers?”
“Thanks to a USA/Panama draw, Martinique’s win over Nicaragua means they lead Group B after one game in the Gold Cup, Concacaf’s regional tournament. Curious about a low-ranking team leading a group, I learned Martinique is not a member of Fifa and therefore not ranked (they are members of Concacaf and CFU). Are there other notable examples of a very low or non-ranked country leading a group in a regional or bigger tournament?” wonders Joseph T.
“FK Partizan, current Serbian league and cup holders, are due to start their Champions League qualifying campaign; however, something even more interesting has come up during their 2017-18 pre-season: the fact that they now have two Nemanja Miletić’s in their squad,” exclaims Leo Crnogorcevic. “Both were born in 1991 and neither of them has a middle name. It appears as if they have collectively decided to be referred to as Nemanja ‘G’ and Nemanja ‘R’ after their fathers’ first names, respectively (in turn showcasing what a patriarchal society we live in where they’re not even using their mothers’ maiden names, although that’s a matter for another time). My question therefore is: has a club ever had two (or more) players with the exact same name in their squad, and how have they differentiated them?”
- Send questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet@TheKnowledge_GU
