“League Two champions Portsmouth were top for just 32 minutes all season. Has any league winner been top for a shorter period?” asks Mark Funnell.
“The Burnley 1959-60 title-winning team were top for all of 68 minutes, according to this post from Game of the People,” writes Rob McEvoy. “This is more than Portsmouth but they won the first division, not the fourth.” What’s more, Burnley’s last game against Manchester City was played after their title rivals’ final games. Wolves ended their season top of the league but didn’t win the title.
Alejandro writes in with another more recent example from La Liga: “In 1991-92, Barcelona clinched the title on the very last day without having been top of the table before. Real Madrid were top pretty much all year, with Barcelona drifting into mid-table before climbing back up to second.
“On the final day, Madrid were leading by just one point and played Tenerife away, with Barça playing Bilbao at home. Barcelona got two early goals but so did Madrid – although Tenerife pulled one back before half-time. Real collapsed in the second half, conceding in the 77th and 78th minutes. With two points awarded for a win, Barcelona first went top as Tenerife pulled level and were top for 18 minutes if you count extra time.”
At the other end of the spectrum, here’s Steve Heald: “Manchester City were relegated from Division One in 1983 by a Raddy Antic goal for Luton, scored in the 86th minute on the last day of the season. Until that goal, they hadn’t been in the relegation zone all season and spent just four minutes there – the last four minutes.”
More 0-0 draws
Following on from last week’s Knowledge on consecutive goalless draws, here’s a new record, and a bleak tale, from Barry Graham:
“20 December 1997 was the day we marked my Tranmere-supporting friend Chris’s 18th birthday and he had the pleasure of watching them lose 2-0 to Oxford. We went out afterwards, he forgot to bring any ID and struggled to be served all night long.
“That was reminiscent of the service that the Tranmere strikers would receive over the next six league games: 0-0 v Bury, 0-0 v Birmingham, 0-0 v West Brom, 0-0 v QPR, 0-0 v Man City and 0-3 v Middlesbrough. Seven games without a goal and five consecutive stalemates. Player-manager John Aldridge hung up his shooting boots at the end of the season.”
- Have you sat through a longer run of goalless draws? Drop us a line at knowledge@theguardian.com or @TheKnowledge_GU
Players jumping two divisions on loan
“When Southampton were in League One, they loaned Jason Puncheon to QPR in the Premier League, two divisions above them,” begins Ricardio Sentulio. “Is this unique for an outfield player? Is there a player who has jumped more than two leagues higher on loan?”
Puncheon actually joined QPR from Southampton in September 2011, by which time the Saints were playing in the Championship.
However, Puncheon did jump two divisions from Southampton the previous season, having been loaned to Blackpool in 2010. Ian Holloway trawled the lower leagues with a transfer budget of £5m, also bringing in Derby’s Luke Varney on loan. Speaking of which …
“Tom Naylor joined Derby in the Championship for six weeks on loan from Mansfield Town, at the time in the Conference,” emails Matt Knowd. “A mighty leap of three leagues! Admittedly, it was just six weeks before the transfer became permanent in the January window but, hey, they all count.”
“When Wolves were relegated to League One in 2013, a number of players were loaned out to top flight clubs around Europe” says Tom Bason. “Roger Johnson went to West Ham in the Premier League, while Razak Boukari and Tongo Doumbia went to Sochaux and Valenciennes, both in Ligue 1. Bjorn Sigurdarson went to Norway’s Molde on loan and won the league and cup double with them. And finally, Georg Margreitter was sent on loan to Copenhagen, where he played in the Champions League, on loan from a League One club.”
Former players buying pubs (2)
Michael Haughey can add another name to our list – Nicky Reid, once of Manchester City and Blackburn. “Nicky is changing careers from being a sports physio and has bought the Masons Arms in Chorley, Lancashire. It will open next month, serving five cask ales.” Sounds lovely.
Lukas Podolski offers a twist on the theme, with the former Arsenal striker buying a pub and an ice cream parlour in Cologne – and he’s not even retired yet. Thanks to Ian McDonough for the tip.
Knowledge archive
“Which was the last team to win the English top flight playing in a striped home kit?” asked Stuart Young in 2007.
Well, Stuart, it basically all depends on how discerning you are about your stripes. Obviously, we’re not going to count teams with a few skinny lines down their sleeves and shorts, nor indeed will we accept Blackburn’s half-and-half blue and white blocks, but would you accept the alternating shades of red on Arsenal’s title-winning top from 1988-89? If not. then the white pinstripes Liverpool sported during their triumphant 1983-84 campaign (and indeed in 1982-83), are a little more clear cut.
If you’ll only settle for wholehearted, chunky, even slices of markedly different colours, then you actually have to go all the way back to 1935-36, when Sunderland won the old First Division in their traditional red and white. As for the last blue and white winners, that would be Sheffield Wednesday in 1929-30, at the end of a run of six striped champions in seven seasons.
Can you help?
“Marine FC’s new shirt has a line from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales on the front. Are there any other examples of literature on the front of shirts, or anywhere else?” asks our own Gregg Bakowski.
“When I was reporting on Morecambe, then in the Northern Premier League, they turned up for a match at Scarborough with only 11 men” says Tim Hamlett.
“There ensued a lengthy discussion as to who should be the substitute – the alternatives being the trainer, the coach driver or me. The coach driver got the gig, although he never got on. Any other examples of unusual emergency substitutes?”
Look who’s back: “I’m sure you remember my last email in February 2007 asking about the hardest recorded shot in football You don’t? That’s ok, I hardly ever think about it either. Anyway, over a decade has passed, so I was wondering if it might be time for an update?” It’s Archi Campbell, everyone!
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