“Andy King played for Leicester in a 3-2 defeat to Brighton in October 2008 which saw the club sink to their lowest ever position in its 131-year history (sixth in the third tier),” wrote James Root last week. “He also played against Newcastle this weekend which saw Leicester rise to their highest ever position (first in the first tier). Has any other player played for a club when they’ve been at their absolute rock bottom and when they’ve been at their absolute peak?”
There were dozens of suggested answers here, so we’ve had to apply the “absolute” element of the question pretty strictly. So although David Wetherall (Bradford City), Barry Lines (Northampton Town), Gary Bennett (Sunderland) and Ian Ashbee (Hull City) were at their clubs during the good times and the bad, others have better claims for having been around for the absolute zeniths and nadirs.
First, here’s Giles Elliott: “There would be a fair few Wimbledon fans out there who could tell you, especially in the wake of the publication of The Crazy Gang book (full disclosure – I did edit it) that Steve Galliers, aka ‘Midget’, was in the Dons team that went top of the First Division on Dave ‘Harry’ Bassett’s 42nd birthday with a 1-0 win at Charlton on 2 September 1986. Signed from Chorley for £1,500 following Wimbledon’s election to the Football League, Galliers played alongside Bassett in the Dons’ midfield when they lost 3-0 at Scunthorpe on 17 September 1977 to make it seven games without a win to start their first ever season in the League and slump to 23rd in the Fourth Division table. Bassett’s co-author Wally Downes was Wimbledon’s first apprentice at the time. Wimbledon were never lower (except in their non-league days, of course) and the rest is history.”
“Andy King’s record pales in comparison to that of Leon Britton at Swansea,” writes Iolo Cheung. “He, Garry Monk and Alan Tate played for the club in every division of the Football League throughout their rise to the Premier League.
Back in the 2002-03 season the club were almost relegated from the Football League, only surviving thanks to a last day 4-2 win over Hull. They were rock bottom of the fourth tier on 18 January 2003 after losing 3-1 to York City, a game both Britton and Tate played. Fast forward 10 years and Swansea were getting off to a lightning start in the 2012-13 Premier League season, beating QPR 5-0 and then West Ham 3-0 to briefly go second in the table, Britton playing in both games.”
Also in south Wales: “Robbie James, Alan Curtis and Wyndham Evans (and possibly others) were at Swansea when they had to apply for re-election to the Football League after being relegated in 1974-75, and when they were top of old Division One in 1981-82,” reports Rob Smyth.
“Ross Jenkins played for Watford when they lost 0-1 at Darlington on 30 August 1975 a result which left them bottom of the old Division Four,” writes Adam Cummings. “He was actually injured and missed the game against West Bromwich Albion on 11 September 1982 which the Hornets won 3-0 to go top of Division One but played (and scored twice) in the 8-0 rout of Sunderland two weeks later, a game many fans regard as Watford’s most complete performance of that remarkable season.
In Serie A Jörg Michner points to Alessandro Del Piero Gianluigi Buffon, Pavel Nedved, Mauro Camoranesi, Igor Tudor, Marcelo Zalayeta, Matteo Paro, and David Trezeguet all of whom won scudettos with Juventus and were with the club when they began 2006-07 at the bottom of Serie B on -9 points, while Giorgio Chiellini, Claudio Marchisio, Paolo de Ceglie and Sebastian Giovinco were with Juve in Serie B and went on to win the league later
And on a slightly different tack: “Although not a club side, the Icelandic national team found itself at lowly 131st no further back than in April 2012,” writes Sveinn Sigþórsson. “They had never been lower. Since then, the progress has been nothing short of incredible and the team reached an all-time high of 23rd back in October. The team that played in the final game of the qualifiers for Euro 2012 and the win against Holland in September was almost exactly the same, meaning those players had both experienced the lowest and highest rankings.”
INTERRUPUTED MATCHES (2)
Last week we looked at the extraordinary events at the 1974 World Cup, which saw four matches pause midway through the first half in order to observe a minute’s silence for the recently deceased Argentinian president Juan Perón.
Liam Derry gets in touch with another example: “In April 1989 Milan famously demolished Real Madrid 5-0 at the San Siro in the European Cup semi-final,” he writes. “This match was played just a few days after the Hillsborough disaster, therefore there was a minute’s silence (or applause as is traditionally done in Italy). This was not done at the start of the game though, and just over a minute in the referee picks up the ball and signals the start of the silence/applause.”
And Boris Cule writes of another political leader interrupting a match: “The most notable case I can think of is that of Hajduk Split v Red Star Belgrade on 4 May 1980, when Tito died.” Indeed it was 1-1 in the 41st minute when officials ran on to the pitch to inform the referee and the players of the news and stop the game. The public address system informed the 50,000 crowd of Tito’s passing and the game was abandoned. There’s a very good BBC documentary here, and some footage here:
INTERNATIONAL CALL-UP CAVALCADE
“There have been many players over the years who have represented more than one nation, and even more when you take into account appearances for the youth squads of one country before switching to another nation at senior level,” wrote Liam McGuigan last week. “Managers, of course, are unconstrained by such notions as eligibility, so that gets me wondering – has a player ever been called up to two squads, for different countries, by the same manager?”
“This might be cheating,” begins Boris Cule. “The case I’m aware of is that of Mirko Jozic, who managed Yugoslavia at the 1987 Youth World Cup, and then managed Croatia at the 2002 World Cup. Both squads included Davor Suker, Robert Prosinecki and Robert Jarni, as can be seen here and here.”
“I’m not sure if this counts, but I’ll send it in anyway,” begins Matthias Gläfke. “Saarland, today a German federal state which is about the size of Luxembourg, (bizarrely) used to have its own national team from 1950 to 1956. From 1952 onwards, it was managed by Helmut Schön, who won the European Championship and World Cup with West Germany in 1972 and 1974, respectively. There are at least three players (Karl Ringel, Gerhard Siedl, Heinz Vollmar) that represented Saarland during Schön’s reign, and then Germany during the period when Schön was their assistant manager (1956 to 1964). However, none of them represented Germany after 1964, when Schön was promoted to manager.”
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
“I heard recently that Steaua Bucharest’s goalkeeper in the 1986 European Cup final shootout win over Barcelona, Helmuth Ducadam, never played again after getting his arms broken by Valentin Ceausescu,” wrote Mick Scully in 2007. “The story goes that Ducadam was given a Merc by a delighted Real Madrid fan for stopping Barça winning the trophy but Valentin, who was Nicolae’s son, wanted it. When Ducadam refused to hand it over, Ceausescu ordered for him to be beaten up and he never played again. Is this really true?”
“Well, it is true that there is a tale, but what the truth is I don’t know,” says our man Jonathan Wilson. “This is from my book: ‘Truth is an elusive commodity in Romania, and it is still hard to be sure exactly what happened. There were rumours that he had been shot (or, in some versions of the story, had his arm lopped off) by one of Ceausescu’s henchmen, jealous of the car he had received as a bonus for winning the European Cup, but five years later Ducadam returned, briefly - but alive and with two arms - to play for Vagonul, a team in Arad. His absence, he said, had been caused by a life-threatening blood disorder that required an intensive course of transfusions. He has always been distinctly uneasy on the topic, though, and there are still those who believe Ceausescu himself had him beaten up - cruelly attacking the arms that made him great - after he complained at a dinner held in Steaua’s honour that a car was not adequate reward for the glory he had brought to Romania.’
“My attempts to track him down - he was working as a customs official on the Romania-Hungary border – failed, but an Italian journalist said he’d interviewed him about the 85-86 team, and when he asked about the ‘illness’, Ducadam’s eyes filled with tears and he changed the subject. I think it highly unlikely Valentin was behind any assault: he is so unlike the other Ceausescus that it’s widely rumoured he’s adopted, and he was a genuine fan who, even beyond the skulduggery, did great things as general manager of Steaua. There’s no evidence of violence being in his nature, and anyway, Ducadam was one of the best keepers around (he saved all four kicks in that shootout v Barça, remember); why would Valentin weaken the side? He also prided himself on driving a humble Dacia, as opposed to Nicu, the flashier brother, who had a fleet of sports cars. And he sorted out sponsorship with Ford, so if he’d wanted one he probably could have got a decent car from them anyway.”
For thousands more sepia-tinged questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive or pick up a copy of More Knowledge from the Guardian Bookshop.
Can you help?
“I noticed tonight that Yeovil Town dropped to the bottom of the Football League, whilst Leicester currently sit top of the Premier League,” writes Mark Millar. “Last year (as in: 2014) the sides met in a league match (which Leicester only snatched a late draw in). Has there even been such a gulf between teams by the next calendar year without a team being demoted for any reason?”
“Following a very poor run of form, York City recently dispensed of the services of manager Russell Wilcox, replacing him with ex-Celtic man Jackie McNamara,” writes Steve Castle. “Sadly, there has been no evidence of the fabled ‘new manager bounce’ so far, as Jackie’s first five matches have all ended in defeat – across three different competitions too. This leads me to ask, what is the record for most successive defeats a manager has suffered after taking a job?”
“Browsing a results page for matches across the world yesterday, I came across the attached club friendly results,” begins Dave Watson. “Wondering how teams could play two seemingly overlapping matches I dug a little deeper. I worked out that it was played over three halves in a round robin style but I’m still not sure why it was held. Could The Knowledge enlighten me? Also are there any other examples of Triangolare matches?”
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