Have Ipswich recorded the longest sequence of palindromic results?
Unless they have a longer one in mind and will lose 4-3 to Leicester on Saturday, Ipswich’s palindrome went haywire
when they lost 4-3 to Brentford over the weekend. Their unintentional nine-game winning streak isn’t exactly a
record for England’s top four divisions. Thanks to Chris Roe’s Magic DatabaseTM, we are aware of this.
Torquay United will start, having a 10-game run in March and April 2014 that went like this: 2-1, 0-1, 2-1, 0-1, 0-1, 0-
1, 2-1, 0-1, 2-1. Torquay broke the pattern in their penultimate League Two match of the season, winning 3-1 against
Mansfield (the Palindrome Pools Panel had them losing 1-0). However, it was a pointless win because they were
demoted to the Conference due to outcomes elsewhere. They
With an 11-game run in the 1975–76 Division Two season, Portsmouth sits at the top of this extremely, extremely,
extremely specialised list: 0-1, 0-2, 1-3, 1-0, 0-1, 3-1, 0-1, 1-0, 1-3, 0-2, 0-1. Given that eight of the eleven games
ended in defeat, it should come as no surprise that this symmetry wasn’t the talk of the town. In May, Portsmouth
finished last in the table, much like Torquay. Perhaps palindromic results are not a good idea when you take into
account Ipswich’s current situation.
Pitch battles, part two
We examined teams that purposefully altered pitch conditions to maximise home advantage in last week’s
Knowledge. There is more, the most of which involves intentional waterlogging. Greetings from the shitH₂Ousery
universe.
Many of you brought up the well-known friendly between Wolves and Honved in 1954, in which Wolves prevailed 3-
2 and the Daily Mail declared them the “champions of the world.” At halftime, Honved, whose team featured six
members of the Hungarian squad that had thrashed England at Wembley a year earlier, was leading 2-0. At this
moment, Wolves manager Stan Cullis gave several apprentices, including a teenage Ron Atkinson, instructions to
water the ground, which was already soaked from the rain.
Cullis intended for the pitch to be “nice and heavy” in order to hinder Honved’s ability to pass. “With their distinctive
long-ball style, Wolves gradually started to grind down the Hungarians as Honved slowly but surely started to get
bogged down in the growing mud,” Atkinson remarked years later. “I have no doubt that Honved would have won by
roughly 10-0 if Cullis hadn’t told me and my teammates to water the pitch.” This article from the archive contains
more information.
Brian Clough wanted his teams to play like Honved – no grass in the sky and all that – but he wasn’t averse to an
occasional bit of pragmatism. When Derby were drawn against Benfica in the 1972-73 European Cup, Clough
ensured the first leg was played on a Baseball Ground bog. “A team stuffed with famous Portuguese internationals,
including the legendary Eusebio, skidded and floundered in the mud and soot from Leys foundry next door and the
Rams won 3-0,” remembers Paul Whitehead.
Paul’s memory is that Clough had the groundsman do the deed, but we really, really want this email from Andrew Carter to be true. “Brian Clough turned the hosepipes on to the pitch then accidentally fell asleep, awaking to find the pitch resembling a bog,” writes Andrew.
“After Derby had won 3-0, the then head of Uefa, Sir Stanley Rous, asked Clough how it was that so much rain had fallen in Derby, when none had fallen in the vicinity of his nearby hotel. Clough explained it was a feature of the Derbyshire weather that when some areas received torrential downpours, it wasn’t unusual for surrounding locations to escape the rain altogether.” Derby reached the semi-finals of the European Cup that season before losing to Juventus, but that’s another story.
A couple more before we move on. Neil Johnston reminds us that Southampton installed triangular blocks on the
touchline to stop West Brom utilising long throws during last season’s playoff semi-final. But it’s only fitting that we
end with John Beck, whose soggy antics at Cambridge kicked off last week’s answer.
“When he arrived at my club, Preston, he couldn’t grow the grass long in the corner of the pitches due to North End
having a plastic pitch,” begins Mark Cassidy. “Undeterred, John instructed the ground staff to dump sand in each
corner to slow the ball up. He also amended our home kit, by gaining the Football League’s consent for the players to
wear blue tracksuit bottoms instead of shorts, so as to encourage them to slide-tackle on the abrasive surface.”
Loaned-in captains
“While on loan at Peterborough from Rotherham last season, Peter Kioso was made club captain,” mails Cameron McGlone. “Is this a common occurrence? What other examples are there of players being made captain (permanently, not just for a game) while on loan?”
When the centre-back James McPake joined Hibernian on loan from Coventry in 2011-12, he was made captain for
his debut against Rangers. Can you possibly guess what happened next? Yep, McPake was sent off after receiving two
yellow cards. Maybe it was a tribute to Graeme Souness, who was famously sent off on his debut as Rangers player-
manager when he nobbled the wrong Hibs mullet. McPake kept the armband when he returned from suspension and
joined Hibs on a permanent deal in the summer.
Knowledge archive
“While procrastinating this morning, I came across Ivorian striker Serge Djiéhoua,” wrote Christopher
Harding in 2016. “This itinerant big man up front appears to be among the frontrunners for fastest-
ever sending off, after just seven seconds on the pitch. Not only that, but those seven seconds seem
to be the only seconds he ever played for his club at the time, Glyfada. Has there ever been a shorter
on-field ca
Unless they have a longer one in mind and will lose 4-3 to Leicester on Saturday, Ipswich’s palindrome went haywire
when they lost 4-3 to Brentford over the weekend
reer with any given club? Obviously only counting players who have in fact made an
appearance.”
We’ve tackled the fastest red cards in football, plus the fastest debut sendings off, so it’s well worth us getting on to
this. “In the Arsenal v Manchester United game from 22 August 1999,” writes Tom Solan of one of the first matches
the Guardian ever did with minute-by-minute commentary, “Raimond van der Gouw got injured right at the end of
injury time when he was kneed in the face by Martin Keown. After a long delay while he was treated by the physios
(where the Sky Sports clock reached more than 100 minutes) the Dutchman was replaced by Nick Culkin for his
United debut.
“As soon as Culkin took the resulting free-kick, the referee blew the full-time whistle, meaning the young
goalkeeper’s debut was over after little more than a second. He never played for United again.” You can see Culkin’s
Manchester United career here. Culkin went on to play for QPR, Radcliffe Borough, Prescot Cables and FC United of
Manchester.
Can you help?
“England Under-21 winger and Bologna player Samuel Iling-Junior received rapturous applause from the home
crowd, when he came on as a substitute at Villa Park last week” writes Ian Clover. “Why? Because he’s a Villa player,
and this was his first appearance at Villa Park – albeit playing against his parent club. Has this ever happened
before?”
“Zé Carlos, who earned his sole cap for Brazil in the World Cup 1998 semi-final against the Netherlands, has died
aged just 56. Have any other players earned their only cap in such a high-profile match?” wonders Ian Williams.
“Kevin Muscat, Harry Kewell and Mile Jedinak have all been assistant coaches under Ange Postecoglou – they’ve
also all captained Australia,” notes Jack Hayward. “Which manager has hired the most former national team captain
as backroom staff?
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