“The other day in their Women’s Champions League match against Manchester City, Chelsea fielded a back four of Bronze, Bright, Björn and Baltimore,” emails Asad Butt. “Are there other examples of this in defence, midfield or attack?”
Back in 2017, we answered a question regarding men’s teams fielding three or more players with the same first name, with five Johns starting in an England XI against Switzerland in 1948: John Aston, John Haines, John Hancocks, John (‘Jack’) Rowley and John (‘Jackie’) Milburn all featuring. As mentioned by Asad, Chelsea fielded a back four beginning with the same surname letter against Manchester City earlier this month (plus Aggie Beever-Jones in the first leg). But we can do better than that.
It is difficult to overlook the Brazilian side of the early 2000s who had a plethora of attacking stars beginning with R. Perhaps giddy from their World Cup triumph in June 2002, manager Luiz Felipe Scolari fielded a front four of Ronaldo, Ricardinho, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho in a friendly against Paraguay two months later (the Seleção remarkably lost 1-0). Roberto Carlos also started that day, while goalkeeper Rogério Ceni made it off the bench. It’s debatable if he would have counted here but World Cup winner Zé Roberto was given the afternoon off, as was Roque Júnior, while Romário continued to be left out by Scolari despite the veteran’s excellent form for Vasco da Gama (Romário had previously been left out of the World Cup squad after withdrawing from the 2001 Copa América to go on holiday, something Romário later issued a teary apology for).
Related: Football teams fielding three or more players with the same first name | The Knowledge
At the 2022 World Cup group-stage match against Uruguay, South Korea not only named a defence with four names beginning with the same letter, but all four names being the same: Kim. Kim Moon-hwan, Kim Min-jae, Kim Young-gwon and Kim Jin-su lined up in the back four, while goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu also started between the sticks, with those five keeping a clean sheet in a 0-0 draw. Of the 15 South Korean substitutes, Kim Tae-hwan failed to make it off the bench and complete a half-dozen of Kims for the Asian nation.
South Korea are not the only country with a dominant surname or prefix to a surname. Only last week against Kuwait, Oman started 11 players in their World Cup qualifier all beginning their surname with A. Ibrahim Al Mukhaini, Thani Al-Rushaidi, Ahmed Al-Khamisi, Amjad Al-Harthi, Ali Al-Busaidi, Arshad Al-Alawi, Jameel Al-Yahmadi, Salaah Al-Yahyaei, Abdul Rahman Al-Mushaifri, Harib Al-Saadi, and Issam Al-Sabhi all started for Oman, with Ahmed Al-Kaabi, Khalid Al-Braiki and Muhsen Al-Ghassani coming off the bench in the second half. Of the 23 Oman squad members that day, only Abdullah Fawaz did not have a surname beginning with A.
In amateur football, it will be tough to beat a charity game in Bungay, England back in 2012. Around 70 people with the surname, Bungay, travelled to the Suffolk town of the same name with two teams of players, the officials, the mascots and a doctor, all called Bungay, involved in the match at Bungay Town’s ground in Bungay. The game ended 6-6, with qualified referee John Bungay sending off Chris Bungay – who had travelled from Queensland, Australia, to play – for swearing.
Ignoring teams with the same name or prefixes, can you do better than the above? Emails to the usual place: knowledge@theguardian.com.
Scrabble rouser (2)
“There are a couple of problems with the answers to the Scrabble scores question from last week,” interjects Julian Borrill. “Firstly the Scrabble board is only 15 letters wide, so anything longer than that – such as Bosnia and Herzegovina – doesn’t fit. Secondly in the English tile-set there are only 1 of each of the high-scoring letters (Z, Q, X, J, K), so Kyrgyz Republic vs Kazakhstan exhausts the available Zs and Ks. On the other hand, however, there are the various word-and letter-multiplier squares. In particular a 15-letter word can be placed across 3 triple-word scores for an overall 27x multiplier. Unfortunately the winners here (Falkland Islands and French Polynesia – both 810 points including the 50 point bingo bonus) aren’t Fifa members, while the Dutch East Indies (783, pre-1945), US Virgin Islands (588, post-1992) and Northern Ireland (567, post-1950) have never played one another. However Northern Ireland’s lack of high-scoring letters makes it a great candidate in combination, and their 1958 World Cup matches against Czechoslovakia (as it then was), with the latter played across 2 triple-words with the C and K on the double-letter squares, scores a handy 972 points.”
What’s in a name?
“Both the new Plough Lane and Kingsmeadow have been renamed the Cherry Red Records Stadium while AFC Wimbledon played there. Have any other clubs carried the same name across multiple grounds?” asks Adam Thoroughgood.
Related: David Squires on … Harry Redknapp’s FA Cup quarter-final review
This is a very nice response from Andy Kerr, of the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden. “There are several Scottish teams who have done this,” emails Andy. “In recent years, St Mirren moved from St Mirren Park (better known informally as Love Street by their fans) to their current home of St Mirren Park in 2009. Going further back, Celtic built a new stadium in 1892 a stone’s throw away from their previous home of Celtic Park. Kilmarnock also had several grounds which were named Rugby Park before settling in their current stadium in 1899 but, even more famously, there have been three stadiums with the name Hampden Park (not including Lesser Hampden) as when Queen’s Park moved from the first and second Hampdens, they took the name along with them. Scotland and Queen’s Park’s home ground takes its name from a street called Hampden Terrace which overlooked the original Hampden Park – this street may have been named after the English Roundhead politician John Hampden, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell.”
Keeping up appearances
“One fact I’ve always enjoyed is that in 2003-04, Marlon Harewood played 19 league games for Forest, then joined West Ham, who had a game in hand, for whom he played 28 times,” emailed Simon Treanor a couple of weeks ago. “Therefore he played 47 times in a 46-game league season (plus three in the playoffs). Can anyone beat this?”
“I believe Kyle Knoyle’s 2022-23 season fits the bill,” answers Ian Waterhouse. “Having been an ever-present at Doncaster Rovers in the first half of the season (25 games), an injury crisis at right-back at Edgeley Park saw Knoyle switch to Stockport County. After being brought on a sub on his debut, he started all the remaining 22 fixtures. That’s a total of 47 starts and 1 substitute appearance, all in the league in one season. What’s more, like Harewood, he made it all the way to the play-off final, starting the two semi-finals and the final. Alas, he was on the losing side at Wembley though. So that’s 51 appearances in league competition in one season.”
Knowledge archive
“Which English top-flight champions had the smallest ground at the time when they won the league?” pondered Roland Tye, back in 2014. “Might be worth dividing into pre- and post-war, dunno. I’m guessing Blackburn in the modern era.”
You guess quite correctly for the Premier League era, Roland, as Ewood Park is in more or less the same state as in 1995, and has a capacity of just over 31,000 [updated amend: Leicester City’s King Power Stadium held 32,262 in 2016]. Highbury is next on the list, which could fit 38,419 in when Arsenal last won the league in 2004. Before that is trickier, obviously because of the changing nature of every ground and their capacities, and it’s probably best to stick to post-war, if only because it serves as a useful (if a little arbitrary) cut-off point for when records were reliable, each team had a settled home etc. The best guess we can give you is Portman Road, home of the 1961-62 champions Ipswich, is the smallest ground to call a post-war league title winner home, with a capacity of around 29,000.
Can you help?
“Following an idle thought earlier, I wanted to find out if any players have played at all of ‘The 92’ football stadiums?” asks Demetri Loizou. “I see that this was a question on The Knowledge over 21 years ago! However, this was an entire generation of careers ago and I would love an update with active players and the current 92 stadiums, so who would be the leaders if we can’t get to 92 in this respect? Would accept the inclusion of managers as this might help up complete it.”
“After Iran sealed their place in next year’s World Cup, rumours about fans and even players not being able to get visas if they have to play matches in the USA started,” notes Pablo Miguez. “I know it has happened in qualifiers, but has there ever been a case of a player not being able to travel to a World Cup due to visa issues?”
“In the 1947-48 Hungarian top division (Nemzeti Bajnokság I), Ferenc Puskás scored 50 out of the 82 goals scored by his team Kispest AC (later known as Budapest Honved), an astounding 60.98%,” emails Ben. “Has any other player in any league ever scored more than 60% of their team’s goals (for the sake of excluding very short seasons, let’s say with at least 15 goals scored by the player)?”
After Weston-super-Mare’s Luke Coulson scored a long-range strike (from approximately 100 yards) to complete his hat-trick against Hornchurch in the National League South,” writes Michael Butler, “has there been an outfield player (excluding keepers who have scored goal-kicks) from further out?”
“Currently in the Spanish Third Division B, there are just 10 points between the final play-off spot (fifth) and the final relegation spot (16th),” writes Niall Fogg. “My team Alcorcón are slap bang in the middle in 11th and, with nine games to go, could realistically either be promoted or relegated. I was wondering: what is the closest gap between promotion and relegation there has been in a major league?”
“If Spain were to play Wales any time soon, and if Wales fielded the same defensive lineup they played versus North Macedonia, there could well be a direct confrontation between Nico Williams on Spain’s left wing and Neco Williams at right back for Wales,” notes Robert Heath. “Has there ever actually been a similar direct one-v-one battle between two players with (almost) the same name?”
