Plus: has any team started faster than Liverpool did against Arsenal recently? And the most prolific own-goal scorers at Old Trafford. Send your questions and answers to [email protected] and follow the Knowledge on Twitter
BIRTHDAY XIS
“I noticed that my brother shares his birthday (5 February) with Gheorghe Hagi, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Vedran Corluka, Manuel Fernandes, Neymar and Adnan Januzaj,” begins Richard Bald. “This is the beginning of a fairly tasty looking team, which got me wondering which day of the year could field the best team of players born that day?”
“I imagined that there were some fairly tasty outfits no matter what day of the year you picked (maybe 29 February aside),” says Tony McDermot, kicking things off. “On the 5 February you could have: Frank Moss in goal.” Not according to our records, Tony – he was born on the 5 November, if we’re all talking about the Arsenal and England goalkeeper. Still, let’s check out the rest of the team.
“A defence of Corluka, Van Bronckhorst, Gustavo Benítez and Cesare Maldini, a midfield of Hagi, Fernandes and Stefan de Vrij, and a front three of Neymar, Tevez and Ronaldo.
“For subs you’d have Micky Hazard (F), Savvas Kofidis (M), Tebaldo Bigliardi (D), Rodrigo Palacio (F) and Januzaj (M). And they’d be managed by Sven!”
A good start to our birthday XIs, and Tony’s not finished there. “I picked Messi’s birthday [24 June] as a random jumping-off point and got this fairly handy XI, too: GK Diego Alves; RB Thomas Helveg, CB Micah Richards, CB David May, LB David Alaba; DM Pantelis Kafes; CM Kevin Nolan; ARM Shunsuke Nakamura; ACM Juan Román Riquelme; ALM Luis García; F Lionel Messi. Subs: F Arturo Lupoli, MF Ricardinho; MF Gianni Munari; DF Andrea Raggi; DF Cicinho; DF Plamen Nikolov; DF Mikael Nilsson. If you can convince Richards to sit at centre-back, this leaves a pretty nice lineup with plenty of talent, and David May.”
David Willbe also picked a 24 June XI, noting with disappointment that Jean Tigana, Patrick Vieira and Zinedine Zidane were born on 23 June. “If they’d just come along a few hours later, that team would be world-beating,” he says, “and I could play Kevin Nolan up front, just for giggles.” (Rob Kettle asked us to take a closer look at that 23 June XI, at the heart of which would be Zidane, Vieira and Tigana, on account of it being his dad’s birthday too, but we couldn’t scratch together much more than a seven-a-side team playing rush goalies in an after-work league.)
David wasn’t finished there, however. “My favourite lineup would be the daring 3-4-3 of 25 January, with a front three of Eusébio, Tostão and Stefan Kiessling off a midfield four of David Ginola, Ricardo Bochini, Xavi and Robinho, with a defence of Víctor Ruiz, Stathis Tavlaridis and Franco Pancheri. We’ve even got decent subs, including Jason Roberts up front and Mart Kosemets in defence. If appointed manager of 25 January Wanderers, I would propose to solve the most immediate problem (ie lack of a goalkeeper) by convincing Franny Jeffers to apply his foxiness to his own team’s box. Problem solved.”
The Knowledge got a little hot under the collar upon starting to build a 3 March XI and finding that the date brought us Nandor Hidegkuti, Zico, Zbigniew Boniek, Dragan Stojkovic AND Darren Anderton. (Alas Anderton would probably have to play at full back to prevent the team being massacred every week.) A lingering obsession with Winston Bogarde led us to the realisation that 22 October is a good day for producing goalkeepers: poor old Arsène Wenger, also born on that day in 1949, would have to keep Bert Trautmann, Lev Yashin, Doni and Andrés Palop happy. Our favourite date, though, is the day that would allow us to don a duvet coat and field Dean Windass and David N’Gog in the same starting XI as Ferenc Puskas. That’d be 1 April, of course.
FAST STARTS
“Liverpool led Arsenal 4-0 inside 19 minutes on Saturday,” emails Josh Smith. “I remember Manchester United leading 3-0 after six minutes at Reading, and Plymouth being 5-0 ahead after 18 but have there been any faster starts to a game?”
Having once arrived 10 minutes late at the City Ground to find the scoreboard already showing Forest 1-1 Manchester City, and leaving 80 minutes later with the scoreboard not having moved, the Knowledge is not the biggest fan of fast goals. But let’s press on. Leicester City were involved in a number of high-scoring matches in the 1997-98 season, particularly as the campaign wore on, but none punished the latecomer so much as April’s win over east Midlands rivals Derby County. Emile Heskey scored after less than 90 seconds to give Leicester an almost instant lead, which Muzzy Izzet doubled within a minute. In the eighth minute Heskey scored his second, and Ian Marshall added another to put Leicester 4-0 up after 15 minutes. That’s how the match, played at Pride Park, ended. Liam Derry sent us a link to these highlights so that we could marvel at the fact that all four goals were headers (worth a bookmark, Mr Moyes? Look at those crosses!). But what really tickled our nostalgia receptors was the fact that when the commentator said, “Heskey’s pace is always going to cause problems”, he meant for the opposition.
That’s not the fastest four goals we could find, though. “My club Tranmere Rovers got off to an absolute stormer in October 1998 away to Crewe Alexandra,” says Kevin McDonnell. “If I recall correctly, Rovers scored four times in the opening nine minutes, and then proceeded to park the bus for the rest of the afternoon.” Alas you do not recall correctly, Kevin, but Tranmere were still faster than Leicester – just. Kenny Irons scored the first after five minutes, and Gary Jones scored a minute later, but it wasn’t until the 12th minute that Scott Taylor added the third, and Rovers fans had to wait until the 14th minute for the fourth, from Alan Mahon. “Due to an accident on the M6,” Kevin adds, “some fans arrived at the ground 15 minutes late, with the game as good as over.” Well, they didn’t miss Colin Little’s 82nd minute consolation, at least.
But that’s still not the fastest four goals we could find. At the start of that same season, Roy Hodgson’s Blackburn Rovers defeated Sheffield Wednesday 7-2, and if our stopwatch is correct, it was 3-1 after 10 minutes. “Blackburn began like they would score with every attack,” said the Independent’s match report.
Kevin Gallacher put Rovers ahead in the third minute, stretching the lead further with his second on seven minutes. Benito Carbone (who would be sent off after an hour for head-butting Gallacher), pulled one back for Sheffield Wednesday to keep them in the game after eight minutes, but things were looking ropey again when Graham Hyde scored an own goal after 10 minutes.
MORE ON GOALS (AND OWN GOALS) AT OLD TRAFFORD
Last week we looked at Opta’s claim, which had been met with suspicion by a number of readers, that Darren Bent was the Premier League’s highest opposition scorer at Old Trafford. Despite including all competitions in that period, we couldn’t come up with anyone who’d equalled or bettered Bent’s four goals, though there were plenty of players to have notched up three. We failed to mention Middlesbrough’s Juninho, however, so Garry Brogden emailed to put us right. “I reckon Juninho has scored three against United at Old Trafford, back in the days when Boro had probably the best record against United of any Premier League team; we used to beat them regularly. Big sigh! Anyway, I think Juninho got one in a 3-3 draw at Old Trafford in 1997 [we checked, he did], and two more in a 3-2 win in 2004 [ditto].” Jim Jagger also emailed to point out that Ronaldo [the Brazilian one] scored a hat-trick at Old Trafford in a Champions League match; his three goals in April 2003 meant that Manchester United exited the competition despite winning 4-3 on the night. “The key was keeping them out,” Sir Alex Ferguson said at the time, “and we simply couldn’t do it.”
“Didn’t Dennis Bailey score a hat-trick there for QPR many years ago?” says David Ljunggren, and he’s right you know – Bailey’s goals on New Year’s Day in 1992 helped Rangers to a 4-1 win in the middle of a lengthy unbeaten run in the last season of the old Division One. Stats for the pre-Sky era are harder to come by, and however much we dislike the distortion of history that the words “in the Premier League era” bring, it is fair to say that scoring away goals at Old Trafford has carried greater cachet in that time, which coincided with the best of the Fergie years. That said, Mitchell Stirling’s nod to Martin Peters is well worth mentioning: Peters scored five goals at Old Trafford, including four in Tottenham’s 4-1 win in October 1972. United hadn’t lost at home to Spurs since 1963, but they struggled in the 1972-73 season, particularly when it came to scoring at home. Peters took Alan Gilzean’s place on the right side of midfield that day, and when he headed in his fourth, you could have heard a Tottenham fan wetting himself inside Old Trafford, it was so quiet.
“Is this a trick question?” wonders Stephen Campbell, still doubting that any opposition player has outscored United’s own defenders at Old Trafford. “Is the correct answer not Gary Pallister or Nemanja Vidic?” Vidic did score a peach of an own goal against Fulham at Old Trafford not so long ago, and Pallister scored three own goals in his United career – but only the first two were at Old Trafford; the last, against Arsenal in 1994, was at Highbury. Wes Brown scored four own goals while at United, but only one of them (for Marseille a few years back) was in a home match. In fact, while we’re on the subject, Nobby Stiles and William Foulkes are actually the leading own-goal scorers for United, having done it five times each. Only one of Stiles’s – against Manchester City in 1961 – was at Old Trafford, but Foulkes scored three of his five at home, against West Bromwich Albion, Birmingham City and Bolton Wanderers. Noel Cantwell also scored three own goals at Old Trafford in the 1960s. Mark Jones, playing at centre half for much of the 1950s before losing his life in the Munich air disaster, once scored three own goals in one season, but all were away from home. He did start the following season with one at Old Trafford against Birmingham City, mind.
And finally a word from Stu in Hong Kong, whose hobbies include opening cans of worms: “Bent may be the highest scorer against United at Old Trafford, but in all competitions Robbie Fowler has scored five – the three you mentioned plus two against Aston Villa in the 1996 FA Cup semi-final.”
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
In 2010, Jim Cordes wondered if any player had ever been sacked by his club after his manager said he was too fat.
It’s probably lucky that William Foulkes strained into his shorts in a bygone era; can you imagine him turning up for pre-season these days tipping the scales at 24st? Not that the goalkeeper himself cared, once saying: “I don’t mind what they call me as long as they don’t call me late for my lunch.” Nonetheless, Foulkes was never ditched for being too big-boned, unlike Neil Ruddock, who would eventually have weight clauses inserted in any contracts offered to him.
When Ruddock joined Crystal Palace in 2000, the chairman Simon Jordan recalled that: “Harry Redknapp told me to make sure I had a weight clause in his contract – 98 kilos, or whatever. And if he’s over that then fine him 10% of his wages. That is the only way to ensure you get a fit and focused Ruddock.” Amid struggles to meet the weight limit, Ruddock’s contract was cancelled by mutual consent a year later, before the bulky defender moved on to Swindon.
Things were no better at the County Ground, even after Ruddock lost a stone, and in August 2002 he was transfer-listed for being overweight (it was reported he could not fit into any of the 86 pairs of shorts owned by the club and had to have some custom-made). “The manager, Andy King, has indicated that the player is not fit to play first-team football,” sniffed the chief executive Mark Devlin. “He is also unable to complete a full training regime alongside the other players.” Ruddock eventually left, winning £57,000 in unpaid wages at an employment tribunal in December 2002.
In 2005, the Albion Rovers striker Mark Yardley left in acrimonious circumstances, claiming the club were attempting to ditch him after newspaper reports he was troubling the scales. “Yes I am overweight, but I am not 20st, that’s nonsense,” he said. “I have not played a competitive game since last November so I am obviously not match-fit. But I don’t know where all this talk came from about my weight.”
Reader Matthew Vierboom recalls the case of Michael Keane, “who was sacked in 2008 by St Patrick’s Athletic and it pretty much ended his career. He had a trial with Dundalk FC later that year but they didn’t offer him a contract and he hasn’t played professionally since.” The Eircom League disputes resolution committee ruled that St Pats were wrong to sack him and the Irish Independent said Keane was “set for a six-figure windfall”.
Weighty issues transcend continents, and the Vasco de Gama manager Renato Portaluppi had to battle bulging members of his squad in 2008. He eventually decided to fine any players unable to shed excess pounds. “A footballer only learns in two ways: when he loses his place in the team or when he is fined,” declared Portaluppi, setting a $164 levy if they failed to shed the inches around their midriffs. “Players eat a lot of junk. Everyone needs to be down to their ideal weight.”
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Georgina Turner
theguardian.com