“Fenerbahce have started the season with a perfect record in all competitions: 19 matches played, 19 wins,” writes Dirk Maas. “Has any team had a longer winning run at the start of the season?”
First things first: Fener went and lost 3-2 at home to Trabzonspor on Saturday, so their winning start has ended at 19 games. A pretty high bar, but one Warren Lyons can vault over on his Penny Farthing as he takes us back to the 19th century.
“In 1898-99, Rangers won their first 23 matches in all competitions, stretching from August 1898 to April 1899 – in fact the only game they lost all season was the final game they played,” Warren explains. “Starting on 20 August 1898, they won all their 18 league games and then reached the Scottish Cup final with four straight victories.
“On 22 April 1899, however, they surprisingly lost the final 2-0 to Celtic – the only time they failed to score a goal that season. Rangers’ record for 1898-99: P24 W23 D0 L1 F90 A31.” They did lose the odd game in local tournaments, including the Glasgow Cup final to Queen’s Park in November 1898, but in national competitions they raise the bar to 23 matches.
We thought another Scottish Lowland League club, East Kilbride, might be in with a chance of beating 23 games after they were sent 27 crates of beer by Edwin van der Sar to congratulate them on a record 27-match winning streak in 2016, but the results were spread across two seasons and the run at the start of the 2016-17 season stretched only to 16 league matches. Stats weren’t available for cup games.
Any advance on 23 games? Mail us or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.
Caring is sharing
“Leicester’s 29 league goals so far have been scored by 13 different players, with nobody scoring more than five and eight players having just a single goal. Can anybody beat this level of sharing things around?” asks Doremus Schafer.
Patrick Willis reckons the answer to who can match stats from Leicester’s excellent start this season is the team one place below them in the Championship. “Ipswich have scored 31 league goals so far this season (from one match fewer), with 12 different scorers and a top scorer with six. However, if you include the League Cup, Leicester still have 13 different scorers in all competitions, while Ipswich have 15.”
Chris Matterface has a good example of sharing from League Two. “Here’s an example from a complete season rather than only up to the end of October,” begins Chris. “Last season Gillingham scored only 44 goals in all competitions, but these were spread around 19 different players (an average of 2.3 goals per scorer). Tom Nichols was top scorer with an unimpressive six goals.”
Sibling referees
“My local team in Spain, Ayamonte CF, who play in the fifth tier, have had their last two games refereed by a brother and sister,” writes Nicholas Head. “Are there other instances of a team’s consecutive games being refereed by relatives?”
“This happened to West Brom in the Championship last season,” notes Boris Cule. “On 18 October, their home game against Bristol City was refereed by Bobby Madley. Four days later, the Baggies’ away game against Millwall was refereed by his brother, Andy Madley.”
“This wasn’t the first time this has happened,” Boris adds. “Back in 2012, in League One, Bobby was in charge of Notts County v Bury on 21 April, with Andy refereeing Bury v Oldham a week later. In League Two, Bobby had the whistle for Morecambe v Accrington on 6 November, and Andy for Accrington v Northampton on 10 November.
“Finally, Bobby refereed Birmingham v Cardiff in the Championship on 1 January 2013, with Andy taking charge of the Bluebirds’ FA Cup trip to Macclesfield four days later. Interestingly, in all four cases it was Bobby followed by Andy, and never the other way around.” Andy, who turned 40 in September, is the elder sibling; Bobby is 38.
Knowledge archive
“Neil Warnock has just become manager of Rotherham United a mere 45 years after last playing for them. My question is thus: can anyone even approach this in terms of length of hiatus between playing for and managing a club?” asked Phil Rebbeck in February 2016.
As Chris Wardle, Michael Gahler and Matthias Gläfke pointed out, Otto Rehhagel can see Warnock’s 45 years and raise it. “It looks like Rehhagel’s ill-fated 2012 return to Hertha Berlin has Warnock beaten, but only just,” wrote Chris. “I can’t find the exact date in 1966 that Rehhagel left Hertha for Kaiserslautern, so let’s call it 10 September, the date of his debut for the latter. Warnock was at Rotherham for their 1970-71 team photo, and we think he was still around to score against Torquay on 20 October. If date and scorer are both accurate, Rehhagel beats Warnock by a month and a half.”
Meanwhile, if being in a club’s youth system rather than the actual first team counts, Harry Redknapp could be your man, as Marcos Garcia noted. Redknapp was spotted by Tottenham as an 11-year-old, playing for East London Schoolboys against Wandsworth Boys, and trained there for a while before eventually signing schoolboy forms with West Ham. “I trained there as an 11-year-old, 12-year-old, so I know the history of the club,” he once said.
Quite when Redknapp last played in a Tottenham youth team is unknown, but if it was when he was 12 it would have been some time before March 1959. He eventually returned to Tottenham as manager in October 2008, very nearly (and possibly over, depending) a full half-century later.
Can you help?
“Union Berlin are in awful form in Bundesliga and a relegation battle looks on the cards,” writes Gregg Bakowski. “Has a team playing in the Champions League or European Cup (as they are) ever been relegated from their domestic league in the same season?”
“I was talking with a friend, raised in Germany, about Harry Kane’s Bundesliga goals. He pointed out the reporting that his tally has included three hat-tricks is not strictly true. Despite scoring three in three separate league games, he officially only has one Bundesliga hat-trick. In Germany, the rule is that you have to score all three goals consecutively, with nobody else scoring in-between, for it to qualify as a hat-trick. A perfect hat-trick in Germany is all three goals, uninterrupted, in the same half. A different feat altogether to the perfect hat-trick of left-footed goal, right-footed goal, headed goal. It got me thinking, are there any examples of a player scoring a perfect perfect hat-trick [or is perfect ‘German’ hat-trick better? – Knowledge Ed]? Three goals, uninterrupted, in the same half and scored with left foot, then right foot and then a header?” – Alec Austin.
In 97/98, Marco Negri scored his 19th league goal after 8 games.
— Derek Brosnan (@DerekBrosnan) November 7, 2023
The Scottish Golden Boot runner-up was Kjell Olofsson on 18 goals, so Negri had the Golden Boot won after 8 games or 22% through the season.
Is this a record?
What are the records for other leagues/competitions?
“On Thursday, West Ham will host Evangelos Marinakis’ Olympiakos in the Europa League. Then on Sunday, West Ham will host Marinakis’ Nottingham Forest in the Premier League,” writes Steve Fate. “Are there any other occurrences of an owner enjoying the same prawn sandwiches so close together?”
What examples are there of players who have won trophies at opposite ends of the pyramid? For example, Adam Lallana winning both the Club World Cup and the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. Has anyone won both FA Cup and FA Vase?
— Owen Collins (@OGBCollins) November 7, 2023
“Amid the chaos of Chelsea’s 4-1 win over nine-man Tottenham, I noticed that Sky’s xG counter read Tottenham 0.94-4.04 Chelsea. Are there other examples of xG totals so incredibly close to the actual result?” asks Niall McVeigh.
“What’s the lowest score in football that hasn’t happened?” muses Shane McVeigh. “In the interests of not ruining someone’s week, let’s narrow this to major professional football leagues.”
With the Arsenal U-18 squad going to Bournemouth instead of Brighton, it got me thinking - has a team ever travelled to the wrong country for a match? Many neighbouring country names are ripe for mix-ups - e.g. the Congos, the Guineas, or even Slovakia/Slovenia.
— Ben (@BenJaneson) November 7, 2023
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