“Bjorn Tore Kvarme scored for Liverpool Legends against Bayern Munich Legends in a 5-5 draw at Anfield recently. He played less than 50 games for the Reds. Has there been a player with fewer appearances to represent a former club in a Legends game? Also, which player has represented the highest number of different clubs as a ‘legend’?” ponders Gregg Bakowski.
Funny old game, isn’t it? We need not look very far to get the ball rolling, according to Julian Unkel. “While Tom Starke didn’t play in that specific game, he is part of the FC Bayern Legends. Starke has 12 appearances for Bayern in total, two of them this season, when he came out of retirement due to Manuel Neuer’s injury.” The 37-year-old was even drafted into Bayern’s Champions League squad but did not play. Back to Liverpool, and Rob Davies cannot quite believe why John Durnin – who played only twice, both times in the League Cup for the Anfield club – is a staple part of the Masters team. “God knows how many games he has played for them but he is always in the team every time I see them,” he huffs. Bob Bolder is also a fixture in the aforementioned legends’ team “despite having not made a single appearance for the Reds”, notes Tim Street.
Back to the early noughties we go, with Old Trafford in focus. “Surely there can’t be many players with less appearances for the club they represent as a ‘legend’ than Bojan Djordjic,” argues Tom Leonard, among others. “He only ever played two games for Manchester United, only one in the league and never a full 90 minutes. What’s more, he’s actually appeared as a United ‘legend’ on three different occasions, meaning he has appeared in more games for United post-retirement than he ever made in his playing career.” Mike Coxon adds that Danny Webber and Ben Thornley also represented Manchester United Legends v Barcelona last September despite appearing three and nine times respectively for the club.
Webber netted twice against Barcelona, with Dion Dublin entering late on too. Patrick O’Brien points out that Dublin made only 12 appearances across two seasons. “Djordjic came on as a sub,” he recalls, “equalling his first-team record of one sub appearance. So, two ‘legends’ with a combined career record in the red shirt of 15 appearances.” Then there’s Peter Beardsley, who turned out for United against Rangers despite chalking up only one appearance against Bournemouth in 1982. Or Alan McLoughlin and Fraser Digby, courtesy of Sean DeLoughry, who both mustered a big fat zero in terms of first-team outings for United.
Delving into the archive, we might have already found our winner in the shape of Nick Culkin, brought to these pages by Tom Solan a couple of years ago. The goalkeeper replaced Raimond van der Gouw during injury-time in 1999, meaning his debut lasted all of little over a second. You can catch the cameo at the end of this clip. Elsewhere, Matt Prior volunteers the lesser-spotted Edwin Congo. “I don’t know the reason why, but he’s played (and scored) for Real Madrid Leyendas despite not making a single first-team appearance during his time at the club.”
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A bit on births
“I noticed that 11 players from the 23-man Wales squad for the China Cup were born in England. Has a home nation ever named a squad where the majority of players were not born within that country? And what’s the highest percentage of any squad of any nation? Algeria had 15 French-born players in their 2014 World Cup squad (65%), but I’m sure there is higher,” muses Sam Waller.
In Morocco’s latest squad for their games against Serbia and Uzbekistan, they called up 28 players, with 20 of those being born outside of the country they play for. Eleven of those who were selected are French by birth, while another six were born in the Netherlands, another two are from Spain, while one started life in Canada. Overall this means 71.43% of the squad were not born in the African nation, greater than the Algerians in 2014. It is expected Morocco will be the best represented by players born outside their country to play at the World Cup in Russia.
Knowledge archive
“While playing his first game for Southampton, Russian full-back Alexei Cherednik was rumoured to have rolled the ball into play instead of the conventional throw-in. If this is true, is it the most extreme case of a professional footballer’s ignorance of the game’s most basic rules?” enquired Will Champion in 2006.
We couldn’t find any official confirmation of the Cherednik incident, Will, but we did unearth one report in which it was claimed that Barry Horne was called upon to give the Russian throw-in lessons. Nothing more substantial than that, we’re afraid. “Surely the best example involved that player from Zaire in the 1974 World Cup,” screamed dozens of readers (almost as many as those wondering whether the original questioner really is Coldplay tub-thumper Will Champion) regarding an incident etched firmly in the memory.
We’ll leave former England assistant manager Lawrie McMenemy - of all people - to recall exactly what happened, as he rates it his favourite World Cup moment. “I’ll always remember a player called Alunga Mwepu, from Zaire,” explains Lawrie. “He famously stood in the wall when Brazil were given a free-kick from 30 yards out. When the referee blew his whistle, Mwebu ran from the middle of the wall headlong towards the ball and, before the Brazilian [Rivelino] could take the kick, hoofed it as far as he could up the field. First of all everyone was baffled, then helpless with laughter. The ref only gave him a yellow card.”
For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive
Can you help?
“In the game between Crystal Palace and Liverpool, on 31 March, five players with double barrelled hyphenated surnames were involved (Fosu-Mensah, Loftus-Cheek, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Alexander-Arnold and Wan-Bissaka). Is that a record in the Premier League at least?” asks Torbjorn Karlsen.
“My beloved Peterborough United beat their rivals Northampton on Easter Monday which ended Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s reign at Sixfields. He took over after Justin Edinburgh was sacked ... following a defeat by Posh in August. So, has one team ever ‘got’ two managers from the same club sacked in one season before?” enquires James Bloodworth.
“In Group 1 of qualifying for the U-19 European Championship, the Netherlands beat Norway 6-1 in the opener,” writes Stephan Wijnen. “Despite this, Norway still managed to win the four-team, three-match group (with a goal difference of -1) and the Netherlands finished bottom. Has any other country or club team ever won a group stage after such a bad start, or finished bottom after such a good start?”
@TheKnowledge_GU Egri FC played their Hungarian 1st division match against Lombard Pápa on 26/10/2012 in front of 56 fans. Is this surely the lowest attendance at any 1st division match not being played behind closed gates?
— GuberPetya (@GuberPetya) March 29, 2018
Sources:https://t.co/crESwb3yY5https://t.co/ReTmgx4RFd
Dundalk have started the League of Ireland Premier Division with eight consecutive clean sheets. What's the record number of straight clean sheets in the league, from the start of the season, and in general?
— Sean DeLoughry (@seandeloughry) April 3, 2018
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