“Sunderland’s decision to sack Gus Poyet with just nine games left got me thinking,” writes Len Watson. “What’s the latest point in a season that a club has sacked a manager?”
Sunderland have gone fairly early compared to some clubs over the years, Len. While Poyet’s replacement will have nine matches to save them from relegation some managers have been given their P45s with just one game of the season remaining.
West Ham had one game to go in 2010-11 when Avram Grant got the boot, although they had just been relegated. “Just” is the operative word – he was sacked in the tunnel following the defeat against Wigan that sent them back into the Championship. “It is a very sad day, the saddest since I started football almost 40 years ago,” said Grant. “I cannot put it into words. I am very sad.”
Impressively Coventry City managed sacked their manager with one game remaining in two out of three seasons between 2001-02 and 2003-04. The club’s dream ticket of 2001-02, manager Roland Nilsson and assistant Jim Smith, could only guide the side to mid-season obscurity in the second tier and with one game of the campaign remaining they were told to clear their desks. “It has come completely out of the blue,” said Nilsson.
The suggestion from the former chairman Bryan Richardson, who had appointed the pair, was that they had been dumped “not because of results but because of who gave them the jobs in the first place” and the sense that decisions were being made not wholly based on events on the pitch reared its head again two years later when Richardson’s replacement, Mike McGinnity, repeated the trick.
Gary McAllister had taken over from Nilsson and managed to avoid the boot in 2002-03 but then left the club to care for his ill wife in December 2003. Eric Black replaced him and after 20 actually rather successful games in charge in 2003-04 was sacked the day after the penultimate game of the season – a 5-2 win over Gillingham – in order for the board to bring in the more “high-profile” Peter Reid. How did that work out? “I always knew this would be a hard job but it proved to be harder than I envisaged,” said Reid after his departure from the club before 2004 was out.
In May 2011 Luigi Del Neri was told he was being sacked by seventh-placed Juventus with one game to go … and then took charge for one final time against Napoli. “I hope it is the right decision,” he said before the game. “Good luck to whoever replaces me.” (Del Neri also had a good line when asked if he was about to take over at another Serie A club: “Am I going to Atalanta? No, I’m going to the Maldives.”)
All those teams had little or nothing to play for at the time. But in 2008-09 Arminia Bielefeld fired Michael Frontzeck on 17 May 2009 with one game of the Bundesliga season remaining and the team still battling against relegation. “We have come to the view that we have too few points at the end of the day,” said the sporting director, Detlev Dammeier, after Bielefeld were hammered 6-0 by Dortmund, leaving the club third-bottom: the relegation play-off spot.
A day later Bielefeld appointed escape expert Jörg Berger for the final league game – against Hannover – and then any potential relegation tiebreaker. But the last-ditch firing didn’t pay off – on the final day, while Felix Magath was steering Wolfsburg to the title, a Berger-coached Bielefeld could manage only a 2-2 draw with Hannover. They finished bottom, were relegated and Berger left the club.
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RELEGATION UNDERTAKERS
“I was recently looking at Spurs’ run-in to work out those tricky games against relegation-threatened sides who are playing for their lives,” writes Nick Pettifer. “In the penultimate game Spurs play Hull at home. The final game sees them play Everton away. It is not likely, but it is feasible that both of these teams could be relegated after results against Spurs (despite the fact the schedulers were probably hoping for a top four battle on the last day). Has a team ever been responsible for putting the nail in the coffin of all three relegated teams?”
“I believe my beloved Birmingham City in our inaugural Premiership season (2002-03) hosted all three relegated teams on the day they went down: West Brom, Sunderland and West Ham,” writes Justin Rothwell. “We defeated the first two so can take the credit but grey area on West Ham as Bolton’s result meant even if the Hammers had converted their one point into three they were doomed.”
Close, but no cigar Justin. Sunderland and West Ham were both relegated following games against Birmingham but not West Brom. Albion’s trip tp St Andrews on 22 March saw Geoff Horsfield score the only goal of the game 15 seconds from full-time to give Blues a 1-0 win and left Albion nine points adrift. Although it didn’t confirm Albion’s relegation, it was a huge blow. “The scene on the final whistle was more in keeping with a cup final than March league fixture,” wrote Ian Whittell in the Obsever, “as West Bromwich Albion players collapsed to the ground in a state of disheartened exhaustion. Nigerian wing-back Ifeanyi Udeze, for one, left the field in tears.”
Sunderland visited St Andrews on 12 April and were beaten 2-0 thanks to goals from Bryan Hughes and Christophe Dugarry – a 10th successive defeat that meant they were down. “We’ve known it was coming for a long time,’ said manager Mick McCarthy. “It does hurt the players. I’ve been there. It’s a hollow, empty feeling. But we’ve still got a magnificent football club.”
And on the final day – 11 May – it was between Sam Allardyce’s Bolton Wanderers or Trevor Brooking’s West Ham for the final relegation spot. Both stood on 41 points with Bolton ahead on goal difference. Bolton hosted Middlesbrough at the Reebok while West Ham, ominously, had to visit St Andrew’s. Bolton raced into a 2-0 lead thanks to Per Frandsen and Jay-Jay Okocha but Boro pulled one back with 30 minutes to go through Michael Ricketts and when Les Ferdinand put the Hammers ahead five minutes later pulses began to race. Geoff Horsfield and Stern John, though, each scored in the final 10 minutes and Paolo Di Canio’s 89th-minute equaliser wasn’t enough to save them.
Two out of three ain’t bad, but Mansfield Town can claim a 100% record in 2014-15. “Mansfield Town played Torquay United in our penultimate game and although we tried our best to help them by losing 3-1, they were condemned to relegation at the final whistle,” writes Mike Politt. “The next weekend we beat Bristol Rovers 1-0, doing the same to them - they only needed a draw. To add insult to injury we did it wearing their away kit for some reason.”
CROSS-CONTINENTAL CHAMPIONS LEAGUE WINNERS
“I want to know if a player (or indeed manager) has ever won a Champions League on more than one continent?” writes Jack Kirby. “So the CAF and Uefa Champions League or the CAF and the AFC?”
“There are quite a few of them,” emails Kees Haasnoot, promisingly. “The latest is Ronaldinho, winning the Champions League with Barcelona in 2005-06, and then going back to Brazil to win the Copa Libertadores with Atlético Mineiro. Another player who pulled this off is Carlos Tevez, who did it the other way around, winning the Copa Libertadores in 2003 and the Champions Leauge in 07-08. Walter Samuel won the Copa Libertadores in 2000 and the Uefa Champions League with Inter in 2009-10. Other players who did this were Roque Júnior (Palmeiras/Milan), Dida (Cruzeiro/Milan), and Cafu (São Paulo/Milan). I’m sure there are some others out there.”
Well we’ve looked and can’t find any. Unless you count Santiago Solari, who won the Champions League with Real Madrid in 2002 having been at River Plate when they won the Copa Libertadores six years earlier, though he didn’t make an appearance in that competition.
“More challenging are the other overlaps,” Kees continues. “Neri Cardozo won the Copa Libertadores with Boca Juniors in 2007, before moving to Monterrey to win the Concacaf Champions League three times. With two Copa Sudamericanas to his name as well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the most decorated international club footballer there is. On the other side of the world, Lee Ki-hyung managed to win the OFC Champions League with Auckland City in 2008-09, and won two AFC Champions Leagues as a player of the Suwon Bluewings in 2000-01 and 2001-02.”
There’s also Christian Giménez who, as Tim Dockery points out, won the Concacaf Champions League twice, with Cruz Asul in 2014 and Club América in 2006, and the Copa Libertadores with Boca Juniors in 2001.
As far as managers are concerned, there’s always Marcelo Lippi, who as several correspondents reminded us won the Champions League with Juventus in 1996 and the Asian Champions League with Guangzhou Evergrande in 2013.
And counting both managerial and playing careers allows a couple more entrants: “Anghel Iordanescu won the Asian Champions League as a manager twice, in 2000 with Al-Hilal and 2005 with Al-Ittihad,” writes Tom Aldous. “He had previously won the European Cup with Steaua Bucharest as a player in 1985. As a manager he also led Steaua to the European Cup final in 1989.” Argentina’s Guillermo Rivarola also makes the list, having, Tim Dockery writes, “won the Copa Libertadores as a player in with that glorious River Plate team in 1996 and the Concacaf Champions League as the manager with Pachuca in 2010.”
That second success by Rivarola contributed to his club also securing a place on our list, Kees Haasnoot pointing out that Pachuca – winners of the Concacaf Champions Cup/League in 2002, 2007, 2008 and, as we know, 2010 – also won the 2006 Copa Sudamericana, Mexican teams being allowed to play in both. A small sackful of players won both medals with the team – the Knowledge’s far-reaching investigations revealed that every member of the team that started the second leg of the 2007 Concacaf Champions Cup final against Guadalajara had been involved in the second leg of the previous year’s Copa Sudamerica decider against Colo Colo.
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
“On Wikipedia it says: ‘The supporters of Rotherham United still maintain the record for the most pies consumed at a football match, with a consumption of pies 40% above the Football League average,’” wrote Mark Ireland back in 2010. “Is this true? There doesn’t seem to be a reference for this amazing fact.”
Never one to shirk a challenge, the Knowledge got on the phone to Pukka Pies to find out if Rotherham United really can claim to be the pie capital of English football. And the answer is – well, sort of.
Though the Millers (average attendance 4,214) clearly don’t shift pastry in the same numbers as the Premier League giants, in terms of the pie-eating percentage of those coming through the gates at Don Valley they are top of the league.
“Among the 35-40 clubs we supply, you usually get 15%-20% of supporters at the ground buying a pie,” says Peter Mayes of Pukka Pies. “At Rotherham that jumps to 40%-50%. So, relatively, they’re our best-performing football customer. They do like their pies.”
But, of course, no pie-based coronation could be complete without reference to Wigan, whose Pooles Pies often come up trumps in fan surveys and, slightly weirdly, are now available in the region’s health clubs. Tom Dickinson, in his book 92 Pies, also gave a thumbs up to the pie-credentials of Morecambe. But while Rotherham may not have the definitive crown, they certainly have a legitimate claim to the throne.
For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive.
CAN YOU HELP?
“With Bhutan getting a 1-0 win over Sri Lanka in World Cup Qualification over three years before the tournament starts, I want to know which team has the record for the earliest match in a successful World Cup qualification campaign and which team’s successful qualification took in the most matches?” demands Matt Gilbertson.
“Have brothers ever scored a brace each in the same game before?” ponders Ben Bagnall. “It happened in Ireland last week with the Dennehy brothers both scoring twice for Cork City in their 5-0 win over Limerick.”
“Who was the last goalkeeper penalised for holding the ball for more than six seconds in a top-flight match?” wonders Taufiq Akbari Utomo on Twitter.
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