“Ipswich. Leicester and Southampton have a combined total of 47 points. Are they on course to be the worst bottom three in Premier League history?” asks Will Hollis.
In a 24-season period from 1999 to 2023, there were no cases of all three promoted clubs being relegated from the Premier League. Now it is probably going to happen for the second successive season. In 2023-24, Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United gained 66 points between them, easily the lowest combined total of the Premier League era.
That unwanted record is on course to be smashed. With seven games remaining, Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton have 20, 17 and 10 points respectively. That gives them projected totals of 25, 21 and 12 for a 38-game campaign; a combined total of 58.
To put that in context, Crystal Palace were relegated at the end of the inaugural Premier League season with 49 points. Middlesbrough (44) and Nottingham Forest (40) joined them. There were 42 games rather than 38, but if you adjust their totals for a 38-game season their combined total is still more than double the projection for this season.
English football was more democratic in the past, so it is probably fair to assume the lowest total of the Premier League era is the lowest for the English top flight, full stop. It is with no particular pride, then, that we present this as the five worst bottom threes.
2024-25 (projected)
58 points (Ipswich 25, Leicester 21, Southampton 12)
2023-24
66 (Luton 26, Burnley 24, Sheffield United 16)
2018-19
76 (Cardiff 34, Fulham 26, Huddersfield 16)
2020-21
77 (Fulham 28, West Brom 26, Sheffield United 23)
2005-06
79 (Birmingham 34, West Brom 30, Sunderland 19)
The bottom three also picked up 79 points in 2009-10 but Portsmouth were deducted nine points so the on-field total was 88.
The 2007-08 season, when Derby set an unwanted record of 11 points, does not make the list because the other relegated sides were relatively competitive: Reading and Birmingham went down with 36 and 35 points respectively.
The aforementioned 1992-93 season tops the list of the best bottom three. Here’s the top five.
1992-93
120 points (Crystal Palace 44, Middlesbrough 40, Nottingham Forest 36)
Adjusted from 42 to 38 games. The actual points totals were Crystal Palace 49, Middlesbrough 44, Nottingham Forest 40
1996-97
113 (Sunderland 40, Middlesbrough 39, Nottingham Forest 34)
Middlesbrough were deducted three points so the on-field total was 116, though it would have been 115 as Coventry would have been relegated with 41 points
2010-11
111 (Birmingham 39, Blackpool 39, West Ham 33)
1997-98
108 (Bolton 40, Barnsley 35, Crystal Palace 33)
1993-94
101 (Sheffield United 38, Oldham 36, Swindon 27)
The above is adjusted from 42 to 38 games. The actual points totals were Sheff Utd 42, Oldham 40, Swindon 30
1998-99
101 (Charlton 36, Blackburn 35, Nottingham Forest 30)
Finally, a couple of notes on this subject.
In the short Premier League era of 42-game seasons, Crystal Palace were relegated with 49 points (1992-93) and 45 (1994-95, when four teams were relegated to help reduce the league to 20 teams).
The last team to be relegated with 40 points or more was West Ham in 2002-03. If you adjust the early seasons to 38 games, six teams have gone down with 40 points: Crystal Palace twice, Middlesbrough in 1992-93 (if you round up an adjusted total of 39.81 points), Sunderland (1996-97), Bolton (1997-98) and West Ham.
First XIs with names that begin with same letter (2)
In last week’s Knowledge we looked at teams full of players whose surname begins with the same letter. But as 1,057 West Ham fans pointed out, we missed the real B team: the Hammers’ FA Cup-winning XI of 1964. “I’ve been waiting 60 years for this question,” says Andy Wright. “The West Ham team that played Preston in the 1964 FA Cup final included seven Bs:
Jim Standen
John Bond
Jack Burkett
Eddie Bovington
Ken Brown
Bobby Moore
Peter Brabrook
Ronnie Boyce
Johnny Byrne
Geoff Hurst
John Sissons
“In that 1963-64 season, three other Bs (Martin Britt, Dave Bickles, Peter Bennett) played, making it 10 in a squad of 22, but I don’t think more than seven ever played together. It was two seasons before the era of substitutes.”
Seven is good, but the aptly named Stuart McGill can beat it. He cites the Scotland team that lost 1-0 to the Netherlands in their opening game of Euro 92. It included eight players whose surname begins with the letter M, seven of them beginning ‘Mc’.
Andy Goram
Richard Gough
Paul McStay
Maurice Malpas
Ally McCoist
Brian McClair
Gordon Durie
David McPherson
Stewart McKimmie
Stuart McCall
Gary McAllister
Believe it or not, those squad numbers are correct – they were based largely on the number of caps a player had won. Jim McInally and Alan McLaren were also in the 20-man squad. Brian Cloughley has another example of eight Ms starting for Scotland – another unfortunate 1-0 defeat, this time to Brazil at Italia 90. They were reduced to seven Ms before half-time when Murdo MacLeod took a Branco free-kick flush in the face. He had to be replaced by Gary Gillespie and needed a brain scan three weeks later because he was still suffering with headaches.
Thanks for all the other answers you sent in, including this little lot.
8 players
7 players
6 players
Watford 1970-71, various matches
Finally, Javier Cabana tells a surely unbeatable tale. “There’s a club up north in Argentina called Argentinos del Norte with a curious story,” he writes. “ It had up to 16 players named Resina in the roster; curiously all of them were related. Here’s a link to the story from an Argentinian newspaper.”
Long time coming
“It’s 98 matches and 25 months since Carlisle won consecutive league games. Is this an unwanted record?” asks Brendan Jackson.
“Not even close,” beams proud Stockport fan Ben Walker. “Stockport County beat Cheltenham Town and Carlisle in League One in February 2009. Three-and-a-bit years later, we beat Wrexham and Darlington in consecutive games. By that point, we’d dropped to the Blue Square Premier after consecutive relegations. This run spanned 142 league games in three divisions.
“Even if you ignore the non-league spell and just count Football League, it was still 121 games without consecutive league victories from Feb 2009-May 2011, and then Aug-Oct 2022, ending with wins against Salford City and, in a nice bit of symmetry, Carlisle.”
Either way, they are trumped by Bradford Park Avenue. As Lars Bjering Husum pointed out at The English Football Record, they failed to pick up consecutive wins in their last 145 games as a Football League club. The run started in April 1967 and continued until they finished bottom of Division Four in May 1970. Bradford Park Avenue were not re-elected and are now in the eighth tier of English football. In that 1970-71 season, they won their fifth and sixth games in the Northern Premier League, ending a run of 150 league games without consecutive victories.
Knowledge archive
“Did the father of Gil Scott-Heron, jazz radical, play for Celtic in the fifties (maybe sixties) and, if so, for how long and to what effect?” asked Greig Aitken back in 2000.
Gilbert Heron began his footballing career in the Canadian air force and went on to play for the Detroit Wolverines, Chicago Sting and Detroit Corinthians. He signed for Celtic in 1951 after scoring twice in an open trial. Heron would play one league game for the Hoops, although he made four appearances in the Scottish League Cup, scoring two goals. He was released by the club in 1952 and went on to enjoy short spells with Third Lanark and Kidderminster Harriers.
His son – who made his name in 1970 with the superb jazz-funk polemic The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – was recently asked about his father’s exploits by the Scottish magazine One: “It’s a blessing from the spirits. Like that’s the two things Scottish folks love the most; music and football, and they got one representative from each of those from my family. I support Rangers and I’m going to wear my Celtic scarf and Rangers hat when I come over.”
Can you help?
“On 18 January, my team, Walsall, were 12 points clear at the top of League Two and had a game in hand on several of the teams directly below them. Now they are third, and if Doncaster win their game in hand Walsall will drop out of the top three. We all know about Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle in 1995-96 but they still managed to finish second. If Walsall fail to make the top three would this be the greatest example of a team throwing away a lead?” weeps David Sanders.
“Dundee’s Simon Murray has scored in the second minute in consecutive games against Rangers and St Mirren. What’s the longest streak for a player scoring in the same minute?” asks Stephen Flynn.
“I was at Valley Parade on Saturday to see Bobby Pointon score after 11 seconds. Not only was it the fastest goal in Bradford’s 122-year history, it was the third shot of the game without a Crewe player touching the ball. Is this the quickest goal/multiple shots combination?” wonders James Mackenzie.
“Three players were given second yellow cards in the Crystal Palace/Brighton match on Saturday,” notes Chris Carter. “What’s the highest number of red cards shown in a game where none were a straight red?”
“On Saturday, every game in Scottish League One resulted in an away win and the away teams scored a combined 16 goals while the home teams scored once between them. Admittedly, this covered only five games, but has there been another match day where the away teams have dominated as much as this?” asks Chris Matterface.
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• This article was amended on 10 April 2025. Bradford Park Avenue won consecutive games in the Northern Premier League in the 1970-71 season, not the National Premier League as an earlier version stated.
