“What are the most random football rivalries and why?” wonders Julie Ferriston.
“Gillingham would consider their main rivals to be Swindon Town,” begins Michael Pilcher. “It’s odd when you consider there are more than 120 miles between the teams. When I take friends to Priestfield and the anti-Swindon chants come out, I always have to explain the rivalry. It started with some bad-tempered games in 1979 and some perceived dodgy refereeing and gamesmanship from Town’s Ray McHale helping Swindon overturn a 2-0 deficit. Legend has it that Gills goalscorer Danny Westwood was the victim of a horrific tackle, only to be red-carded while prone for ‘abusive language’; a Gills fan then ran on to knock out the referee. In the return fixture at Swindon (3-1 to the home side), there were more McHale shenanigans and another Gills red card. A post-match tunnel fracas resulted in two Gills players appearing in court, though they were later acquitted. The Gills missed out on promotion by one point, and a long-distance rivalry began.” This offers further explanation.
There’s no geographical reason for Bolton and Tranmere to hate each other, either, but they do. It stems from the niggly business of Rovers over-celebrating at the Division Three play-off final in 1991. There was further aggro between the two in a 2000 League Cup semi-final when Tranmere moved advertising hoardings to benefit long-throw expert Dave Challinor in their 3-0 second-leg win that took them to the final. Shrinking violet John Aldridge poured more fuel on the fire by giving Sam Allardyce a personal dance to celebrate the win. “Every dog has his day, but you don’t ever forget,” growled Allardyce who, in gloriously petty style, did not let his players get changed or showered at Prenton Park after Bolton’s win the following season.
Norwich fans have a fierce hatred of Wolves because of the Kevin Muscat tackle that left a young Craig Bellamy with a broken leg in 1998, while Brighton and Crystal Palace’s mutual loathing goes back to a feud in 1977. And Sheffield United fans are still hopping mad over West Ham’s 1-0 win against Manchester United in 2007 courtesy of a Carlos Tevez goal. It kept the Hammers up and relegated the Blades. Tevez’s signing was later deemed illegal.
We’re grateful to Kári Tulinius for doing the hard yards on random international rivalries for us. “There are a few that are odd because of the enormous distance separating them,” writes Kári. “Uruguay-Australia is probably the longest, at over 13,000km. It dates back to the Socceroos keeping La Celeste out of the 2006 World Cup.
“There are more than 8,000km separating Brazil and France, but they’ve had enough World Cup meetings to build up a long history. Arguably it dates back to the 1958 semi-final, but it certainly goes back to the 1998 final, Zizou’s top, Ronaldo’s collapse, and all that. More than 6,000km separate Iran and South Korea, but that hasn’t stopped these two Asian football giants from developing a fierce rivalry, which started when Team Melli tonked the Taeguk Warriors 6-2 at the 1996 Asian Cup. At a little less than 5,000km, Canada’s rivalry with Honduras isn’t as storied, but originates in an even more eye-watering loss, when Los Catrachos ended the Canucks’ 2014 World Cup dream with an 8-1 home win.” Ouch.
Winning the double Treble
“Has any other manager in world football won a double Treble apart from Brendan Rodgers at Celtic?” tweets Ben Owen. “And has anyone ever done the treble Treble?”
Here’s Sean DeLoughry: “Back-to-back Trebles are pretty rare, but two other managers have done it recently. Laurent Blanc won back-to-back Trebles at PSG in 2015 and 2016, and was rewarded by being ‘mutually agreed’ out of a job in the summer of 2016. Craig Harrison led The New Saints to successive Trebles in Wales in the same two seasons. A handful of other managers have achieved two non-consecutive Trebles, including Jock Stein at Celtic, Jock Wallace at Rangers and David Jeffrey at Linfield. I believe a treble Treble for Celtic would be a world football first.”
Real-life football popping up on the big screen (3)
Your examples are still flooding in …
… but a slightly more obscure answer comes from James Beesley. “I seem to recall that, early in the brilliant Children of Men, a match is playing on a background television in a café while Clive Owen’s lead character, Theo, purchases coffee,” he writes. “The footage is so blurry that it is impossible to make out the teams. However, the commentary mentions Raúl who was in his prime during the film’s production, in or around 2005. Given the film’s plot, the suggestion appears to be that Raúl and others of his era are still playing in 2027 since there are fewer and fewer younger players to take their place. On reflection, that is probably a flawed detail seeing as Children of Men supposes that global infertility began in 2009. Surely by 2027 there would still be more than enough younger players emerging, dystopia notwithstanding, to allow a 50-year-old Raúl to hang up his boots.”
Knowledge archive
I’d like to know who is/was the cheapest player in modern football (not counting free transfers),” asked Monty Reeve in July 2004.
We had a variety of answers on this one, most of them as far wide of the mark as a Jaap Stam penalty. Adrian Cooper got close with his tale of Guliano Grazioli, the 21-year-old who transferred from Peterborough to Stevenage, in 1998, for “three packets of crisps and a Mars bar”, according to the Borough manager, Paul Fairclough. But this was merely a turn of phrase – the lad actually went in a loan deal. Winner of the dubious title of “cheapest player in the modern era” went instead to Tony Cascarino, plucked from the obscurity of Crockenhill FC and placed into the obscurity of Gillingham FC in 1982 – for a new strip and some corrugated iron.
Yes, after being passed up on by Millwall, Cascarino headed for Gillingham while his new club forked out £180 for a new Crockenhill strip and some bits and pieces to patch the ground up. The irony is that six years and 76 goals later, the big striker was snapped up by none other than Millwall – for £200,000.
Can you help?
“Has any player ever made more debuts for one club than Steven Pienaar at Everton?” asks Tom O’Brien. “He joined on loan from Dortmund in 2007 (debut one), then signed permanently (two), left for Spurs, came back on loan (three) and signed permanently again (four). He’s retired, but is a club ambassador at Everton, which presumably also involved a debut appearance of some sort.”
Manchester City will play 4 successive matches in London - Fulham, Brighton (at Wembley), Spurs and Palace plus another 2 in Manchester against Spurs to extend the London connection to 6 games. What's the longest sequence playing in and against clubs from another city? https://t.co/dAfFcuY1uH
— jeremyorbell (@jeremyorbell) March 19, 2019
“After mention of Garth Crooks presenting a politics show back in the day, which other footballers have presented TV or radio programmes with nothing to do with sport?” asks George Jones.
What is the first documented case of a celebrity exhibition football match? By which I mean at least one of the teams fielded an XI with people who were known but weren't known for being professional footballers.
— Liquid 🏴 (@GTPLiquid) March 19, 2019
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