At the Parma
ground in Italy, there is a perimeter
advertisement for "Smeg".
Sean McCarthy
had an eventful debut for Bradford City in 1990.
He missed a penalty, scored a goal and got sent
off.
Stephan Stanis
scored 16 goals for Racing Club de Lens in 1942
in one match.
The home of
Athletico Madrid is known as the "Mattress
Makers Ground" because of the red and white
decoration in the Vincente Calderon Stadium.
In 1975,
Glencraig United were including the name of the
referee of their match in their pre-match
dressing room chants. The references were none
too complimentary, so the man in black booked
all eleven players and the two substitutes before
they had even left the dressing room.
A 16-year old,
Tommy Spratt, scored 14 goals on his debut for
Manchester United's fifth team in 1957-58, in a
25-0 win.
French club
Lens are sponsored by "Shop".
MTK-VM of
Hungary are nicknamed "The Goose
Eaters".
On the same day
that Arbroath set a goalscoring record by
beating Bon Accord 36-0 in 1885, Dundee Harps beat
Aberdeen Rovers by the score of 35-0. Bon Accord were
formed from Orion Cricket Club, who received an invitation to
enter the Scottish Cup in error. It should have gone to
Orion FC of Aberdeen. They had no pitch so moved the game to
Arbroath, turned up without kit or boots and made up the name to
hide their origins. The score was 15-0 at half time, the
referee disallowed six other perfectly good goals to keep the
score down and the Arbroath goalkeeper was so untroubled during
the match that he took shelter underneath an umbrella, as he did
not touch the ball at all in the 90 minutes. John Petrie,
the Arbroath centre forward ended the match with 13 goals, a
record for an individual in a first class match in the UK.
Just to round things up, 16 goals were scored in the final half
hour of the match, with seven of them being struck off for offside
!!
In the 1890's,
England were forced to play Ireland and Wales on
the same day on three different occasions. They
won all six games too.
In 1934,
S.Milton's debut for Halifax Town could not have
been any worse. Stockport County stuck 13 goals
past him. How unlucky.
Everton and
Aldershot were involved in the Cod War against
Iceland in 1973 - both teams had boats named
after them.
Meadowbank
Thistle's ground - the Meadowbank stadium in
Edinburgh was known as "The Concrete Lavvy
Pan".
Thomas Grice of
Ashton died in 1897, when, during play, he fell
on his belt buckle which pierced his stomach.
Bert Llewellyn
played only 11 minutes for Northampton Town
before injury ended his career at the club.
Genk, of
Belgium, have supporters who dress up as the
Smurfs.
Stoppages and
extra- time in a Libertadores Cup match between
Santos of Brazil and Penarol of Uruguay in 1962
ended at 1 a.m. after three and a half hours.
Newcastle
United appeared in no less than five FA Cup
finals between 1905 and 1911. They were all
played at Crystal Palace and they lost the lot.
Extra-time was
used in the FA Cup final as long ago as 1875. In
1880, when the fourth round tie between Sheffield
and Nottingham Forest finished with the scores
level, Sheffield refused to play on and were
disqualified from the competition.
A 1946 FA Cup
tie between Stockport County and Doncaster Rovers
was played until a result was achieved. It went
on for so long fans went home for tea and came
back to see the score at 4-4 and the game had to
be stopped because of bad light after 203 minutes
play.
Leicester
City's 3rd Round FA Cup tie on 3rd January 1998 against
Northampton Town was noted for the fact that not one foul was
committed by the home side during the game.
There is a team
in Poland called Aluminium Konin.
In a recent
round of French Cup games, one team in each tie
had "Lion Bar" as their shirt sponsors.
There is a team in Sweden
called "Kings Head" !!
Laughter Chilembi, Gift Kampamba, Shy
Kumwenda and January Zyambo are all members of the 2000 Zambian
national squad.
There is an Argentinian Second Division
team called Morons.
Some strange awards
in the French Toulon U-20 tournament over the years ...
In 1989 the 'most
courteous player award' went to... England's David Batty!
In 1991 the best
'keeper prize went to... England's David James !
Nigel Quashie had the unenviable
reputation of being relegated with four teams in his first seasons
with them -
Queens Park Rangers 1996-1996 - relegated from Premiership
Nottingham Forest 1998-1999 - relegated from Premiership
Southampton 2004-2005 - relegated from Premiership
West Bromwich Albion 2005-2006- relegated from Premiership
An Argentinian fan
wanted a back tattoo of his team's badge, but ended up with a penis
because the tattooist was a fan of his club's rivals