“I’ve just stumbled across a photo of Newcastle United doing an open-top bus parade emblazoned with the words ‘FA Cup finalists 99’. Are there any other examples of bus parades after defeat?” enquires Mark Cookney.

How about after two defeats and a draw that led to relegation? “Rather sadly, my lot Middlesbrough had an open-top bus ride through the town after the 1996-97 season,” writes Garry Brogden. “That was the season we lost the League Cup and FA Cup finals, and were relegated from the Premier League following a three-point deduction. Our star player Juninho didn’t turn up for it. At the final stop at the stadium, Fabrizio Ravanelli announced that he loved us all, and would be back next season. He lasted two games in the Championship before arguing his way out of the club.”

At least Boro didn’t have to share their misery with their local rivals. “There’s a very famous one, in 1986,” begins Dara O’Reilly, “when defeated FA Cup finalists and league runners-up Everton accompanied their victorious double-winning opponents Liverpool on a pre-planned parade designed to showcase the unity of the city after a tumultuous and troubling couple of years. The photos show a disconsolate and increasingly drunk Everton squad gazing miserably at their triumphant opponents.”

One player was conspicuous by his absence, if not his sobriety. Peter Reid was so devastated by the defeat that, instead of flying home with the team the morning after the game, he got a friend to drive him back to his local pub in Bolton. “I told him: ‘Pick me up at the team hotel,’” said Reid in his autobiography, Cheer Up Peter Reid. “He started to question whether that was a good idea, so I responded: ‘Just fucking be there and get me up that motorway to the Red Lion.’”

Reid missed the parade, with rumours he had flown to Germany to talk to Köln and/or Bayern Munich, and his absence became such a huge story that even his mum was compelled to defend him in the press. Reid wasn’t fined by Everton but did receive a considerable rollocking from the manager Howard Kendall.

Nine years earlier, as Michael Haughey points out, Manchester United were stunned by second-division Southampton in the 1976 FA Cup final but went ahead with their planned bus trip. “With no cup to wave,” reported this organ, “United had a flat cardboard replica fastened to the front of their bus instead.” It was during this wake that the United manager Tommy Docherty famously promised to return to Wembley and finish the job in 12 months’ time. He kept his promise, denying Liverpool an historic Treble, before being sacked for falling in love with the physio’s wife.

This kind of thing – bus tours after defeats, that is – happens more often in international football, where success isn’t so binary. England (Italia 90) and Wales (Euro 2016) both went on open-top bus tours after reaching the semi-finals. Scotland went even further by enjoying a triumphant parade before they set off for 1978 World Cup in Argentina. You know the rest.

Top of the pops

“Because of the moving bits, has there ever been a national league that hosted no ‘top-of-the-table’ clashes (ie, 1st plays 2nd),” posts Paul Savage. “And same question but backwards: what’s the most times it’s happened in a league season?”

The answer depends partly on whether you go by matchdays or calendar dates. For example, going into matchday five of the Premier League this weekend, Manchester City v Arsenal is also first versus second. But by Sunday morning it’s likely that one or both will have been overtaken.

Dan Seppings has used dates rather than matchdays to produce a thoroughly comprehensive answer. “I’ve had a look at this for all English top-flight seasons,” he writes. “In 125 seasons, first have met second on 228 occasions, meaning that this fixture takes place on average 1.8 times per season. The last time that there were no top-of-the-table clashes was 1981-82 and this has happened in the English top flight on 10 occasions (the others being 1891-92, 1895-96, 1896-97, 1904-05, 1911-12, 1920-21, 1923-24, 1949-50 and 1961-62.”

That 1981-82 campaign was notable for Liverpool rampaging through the field in the second half of the season, having been 12th on Boxing Day after an infamous defeat to Manchester City. Their two games against the eventual runners-up, Ipswich, were played in September (Ipswich 2-0 Liverpool, 7th v 10th) and February (Liverpool 4-0 Ipswich, 6th v 4th).

Dan has also answered the second half of the question, so we don’t have to. “The record for 1st v 2nd fixtures in the English top flight is five, which happened in both 1937-38 and 1953-54.” Brentford were involved in three of the five games in 1937-38, including a 5-2 win at Charlton in October. And West Brom were involved in all five in 1953-54, but the last two proved costly. “It’s also worth mentioning,” adds Dan, “that Wolves beating West Brom twice in 1953-54 was enough to stop the Baggies becoming the first double-winning team of the 20th century!”

Changing of the guard

“What was the last game anyone can remember which had more substitutions in the first half than in the second?” asks Ian Duveen.

There’s a surprisingly recent example of this. In February 2019, Manchester United drew 0-0 at home to Liverpool in a match that included four first-half substitutions, all because of injury. United lost Ander Herrera, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard (who had come on for Mata), while Liverpool were forced to replace Roberto Firmino. This was in the antediluvian age when teams were only allowed three subs apiece, so there were only two available to Jürgen Klopp, and none to Ole Gunnar Solskjær, after that. Final score: first half 4-2 second half.

Knowledge archive

“What is the first instance of surname + ball to describe a manager’s football philosophy? I thought it was Sarriball but a friend pointed out that for a time Stoke played Pulisball. Are there any earlier examples?” asked Daniel Marcus in 2022.

The earliest mention we can find of Pulisball came from the Stoke Sentinel in 2009, when the late writer Stephen Foster was interviewed before the publication of his book, And She Laughed No More:

Foster used the word a few times and it slowly became part of the lexicon, to the point where we now have TenHagball, Southgateball and the rest.

Pulisball was anathema to the style of play at Arsenal during that period. That style already had a name: Wengerball, which seems to date back to the early-2000s. The first mention in the newspaper archive comes from the Observer in October 2006, in a piece by Amy Lawrence about Wenger’s 10th anniversary at the club:

The earliest mention we can find on the entire world wide web of managerball is from the Arsenal Mania site in January 2004, when Arsenal signed José Antonio Reyes from Sevilla.

Can you help?

“The 1982 European Cup-winning Aston Villa team collected, by my dodgy maths, some 34 caps,” notes Will Johnson. “Has any team won a major European club tournament with fewer?”

“Last week China lost 2-1 to Saudi Arabia in a World Cup qualifier, with all three goals scored from corner kicks. What’s the highest-scoring game in which all the goals came from corners?” wonders Michele.

“Nicolas Jackson had seven years left on his Chelsea contract but has extended it to 2033,” notes Brendan Gregory. “Has anyone had more time left when they extended a contract? And what’s the longest contract a footballer has signed?”

“Everton have lost their last two matches after being 2-0 up,” begins Steve Richards. “Has any team managed three in a row?”

“There are four Scottish internationals playing in Serie A: Scott McTominay, Billy Gilmour, Ché Adams and Lewis Ferguson,” notes Innes Macleod. “If all four are called up to a Scotland squad would this be the most players from a single non-British league to be included in a Home Nations squad?”

“I recently noticed that Viktor Gyökeres’ first seven international goals were scored in seven different countries (Qatar, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Belgium, Portugal and Azerbaijan). Can this be beaten?” asks Ollie de Hoest.

“Apart from Denmark in 1992, have any teams won tournaments for which they didn’t originally qualify?” enquires John Palfreyman.

“Last week, Wycombe Wanderers announced the signing of Fred Onyedinma for the fourth time,” writes Joseph Guntrip. “Has any player ever signed for a professional club more often?”

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