“Chelsea have won the title in the last four general election years. Has any English team got a better record when Britain goes to the polls?” asks Jamie Navarro. “What governments do title winners deliver?”
This is right up Gary Fairclough’s street. “It turns out that Chelsea are far from the most prolific title winners in election years,” he writes. “In England that honour lies with Liverpool: they have won seven titles in election years (1906, 1922, 1923, 1964, 1966, 1979 and 1983), scoring three Labour, three Conservative and one Liberal government. But in the rest of the UK that record is dwarfed by our Scottish and Irish brethren.
“Rangers and Linfield have each won the title 17 times in election years, Rangers delivering the most Labour governments (nine) and Linfield delivering the most Conservative governments (also nine). Rangers’ third-place finish this season does not bode well for Jeremy Corbyn but Linfield’s 52nd Northern Irish title looks even more promising than the early polling figures for Theresa May. On the plus side, Linfield have also delivered the most Liberal governments but that, like Lib Dem MPs in parliament, is only a fraction of the other parties with two, most recently in 1910. Sorry Tim, don’t get your hopes up.”
Luca De Angelis has more by the way of this exhaustive effort. He has kindly scribbled a x2 in brackets next to the party who won both general elections in years when there were two, 1910 and 1974. “First of all, I have looked at all the general elections held since the foundation of the Football League, starting from the one that took place in 1892,” he muses. “I know that in some occasions a coalition/national government has been formed after the election, so I want to make a list of the general elections won by each party:
National/coalition Government: 1918, 1931, 1935, 2010. Liberal: 1892, 1906, Jan 1910, Dec 1910. Labour: 1923, 1929, 1945, 1950, 1964, 1966, Feb 1974, Oct 1974, 1997, 2001, 2005. Conservative: 1895, 1900, 1922, 1924, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 2015.
“As has been said, Chelsea have just won the title for the fourth time in a row in a general election year, while before them no club had won the title more than two times in a row in those occasions. But which club have won the title in those years, how many times they won in those circumstances and which party won in the same year? Here’s the list: Arsenal two (two National/coalition), Aston Villa two (one Conservative, one Liberal (x2)), Chelsea five (three Conservative, one Labour, one TBD), Everton two (two Conservative), Huddersfield Town one (one Conservative), Leeds United two (one Labour (x2), one Conservative), Liverpool seven (one Liberal, three Conservative, three Labour), Manchester United two (two Labour), Portsmouth one (one Labour), Sheffield Wednesday one (one Labour), Sunderland two (one Liberal, one Conservative), Tottenham Hotspur one (one Conservative), Wolverhampton Wanderers one (one Conservative).”
Tough times at Raith
“I can’t remember the last time I read of a club P45-ing a manager without a statement declaring: ‘The club would like to place on record its thanks to [wotsisname] …’” begins Dom Smith. “Wolves are the latest example at the time of writing. Someone’s to blame for this Ctrl+C/V-ery and I want to know who. So, who was the first club to use this firing formula?” [And how about the least thankful club statement on a manager’s departure? – Knowledge Ed.]
“You’d be hard-pressed to rival the double-whammy of ingratitude from Raith Rovers this year,” Iain Wallace writes. “An annus horribilis that resulted in our unexpected, and largely self-inflicted, relegation to League Two also resulted in two managers leaving without much love being lost. After Gary Locke’s calamitous reign was brought to an end on 7 February 2017, the Rovers had only the following to say:
The board of directors of Raith Rovers FC announces that we have parted company with manager Gary Locke and assistant manager Darren Jackson, with immediate effect
“They were similarly laconic when releasing the following regarding John Hughes, mere minutes after the final penalty confirmed relegation through the play-offs.
Raith Rovers FC announces that we have this evening parted company with manager John Hughes and assistant manager Kevin McBride
“It’s been a tough year …”
Super Séka
“I was browsing through some recent editions of The Knowledge, and spotted the segment on shortest international players, and wanted to bring your attention to a contribution of my own,” Nikolai von Stieglitz writes.
“Some years ago my brother and I tuned in to catch a group stage match between Nigeria and Benin during the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations,” he continues. “With fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the game we were astonished by the introduction of the fabulously miniature Arnaud Séka, replacing Nouhoum Kobéna. Listed at just 5ft 1in, the remarkably tricksy attacking player had little time to influence the result in a rather humdrum 1-0 loss to the Super Eagles, courtesy of a Yakubu penalty, but he was majestic to watch. Séka went on to play a further 20 minutes as a substitute during the 2-0 loss to Egypt, taking the place of Mickaël Poté. Surely he deserves an honourable mention on your list (here’s a video – featuring a wonderful dinked goal)?”
Knowledge archive
“Who was the first player to wear fluorescent boots?” wondered our very own Rob Smyth in 2014.
Black boots were under threat as early as the 1950s. Here was Simon Burnton in 2013 and his brilliant Joy of Six: tales from the boot room:
“Rewind to December 1959, when the Mansfield boot-manufacturing firm Ward Bros closed its doors with the loss of 60 jobs. “Fashions in football boots these days are as fickle as the indies’ shoe trade, if not more so,” said Harold Ward, a director of the family firm. “Until about three or four years ago a football boot was a football boot, varying only in size and weight, but following a sound basic design. Now the latest creation is likely to be in black and tan with silver eyelets, and in a couple of months’ time it will be out of date, replaced by something else. We can’t risk building up stocks that won’t sell.”
But the beginning of the end for the traditional black boot came in the early 1970s. The German sportswear company Hummel was looking to break into the UK market and signed up several professionals to wear its new white boots. Not that they were worn for sartorial elegance. Alan Ball, who debuted his white boots in the 1970 Charity Shield, used to paint an old pair of Adidas boots white, while Derby’s Alan Hinton risked Brian Clough’s wrath for the money. “The background to me wearing them was simple. A company called Hummel approached me and offered me a grand,” Hinton told the Star in 2011. “That was a fair bit of money back then. I thought Cloughie would crucify me, but he didn’t for some reason.”
They then dropped out of fashion for a time, with the next reference in the newspaper archive we could muster coming from David Lacey’s report on the 1995 European Cup final between Ajax and Milan in Vienna, where the Rossoneri’s Marco Simone was a trendsetter. “For a time it looked as if the amount of room Simone and his white boots were being allowed by Ajax would eventually return the trophy to San Siro. However, he was to come no closer to scoring than the volley, from Donadoni’s centre, which Van der Sar turned round a post at the end of the first half.”
When it comes to the first luminous footwear, things, ironically, are a little murkier. The mid-90s are the turning point once more and the earliest definitive reference we’ve uncovered comes in a report from Dundee’s Dens Park. “It was perhaps a portent that the afternoon was going to be a rather grim affair,” Archie MacGregor wrote in the Sunday Times in November 1996, “when St Johnstone’s Attila Sekerlioglu decided to dispense with his notorious yellow boots.”
Can you help?
“In seasons 1955-56, 1956-57 and 1957-58. Leeds United drew Cardiff City in the third round of the FA Cup at Elland Road,” Stephen Crump writes. “The score in the three games was 2-1 to the away team, Cardiff. Has there ever been a similar pattern and coincidence in the FA Cup – or other cup competition?”
“Following the John Terry farewell, have any other games been subject to pre-planned interruptions, either officially sanctioned or not?” David Gibson asks.
“As I was perusing the Liga MX page on Wikipedia, I noticed that Santos Laguna just finished the Clausura in fifth place despite losing only one game,” notices Brad Hill. “This makes me wonder … what is the lowest position a team has finished in the league despite losing only one game?”
Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.
