According to Dirk Maas, Fenerbahce has achieved a flawless record of 19 wins in all competitions so far this season. Maas wonders if any team has had a longer streak of wins at the beginning of a season.
To begin with, Fener suffered a 3-2 defeat at their home ground against Trabzonspor on Saturday, ending their winning streak of 19 games. This may seem like a difficult feat, but Warren Lyons can easily surpass it with his Penny Farthing as he transports us back to the 19th century.
“During the 1898-99 season, Rangers achieved a remarkable record of 23 consecutive wins in all competitions, from August 1898 to April 1899. The only loss they suffered that season was in their last game,” Warren elaborates. “Beginning on August 20, 1898, they triumphed in all 18 league matches and then proceeded to secure four consecutive wins to reach the Scottish Cup final.”
On April 22, 1899, Rangers unexpectedly suffered a defeat with a final score of 2-0 against Celtic. This was the only time they were unable to score a goal throughout the entire season. In the 1898-99 season, Rangers had a record of 24 games played, 23 won, 0 drawn, and 1 lost, with a total of 90 goals scored and 31 goals conceded. While they did lose some games in local tournaments, such as the Glasgow Cup final against Queen’s Park in November 1898, they excelled in national competitions with 23 matches played.
We believed that East Kilbride, a Scottish Lowland League team, had a possibility of surpassing a 23-game winning streak after receiving 27 crates of beer from Edwin van der Sar as a congratulatory gesture for their record-breaking 27 consecutive wins in 2016. However, the wins were spread out over two seasons and the streak at the beginning of the 2016-17 season only reached 16 league matches. Data for cup games was not provided.
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Caring is sharing
Doremus Schafer wonders if anyone can surpass Leicester’s record of 29 goals in the league, which have been scored by 13 different players. No player has scored more than five goals, and eight players have only scored one goal each. Can anyone top this level of equal contribution?
Patrick Willis believes that the team closest to Leicester in the Championship standings is the one likely to have similar statistics. Ipswich, who have scored 31 goals in the league, have 12 different players who have scored and a leading scorer with six goals. However, when taking into account the League Cup, Leicester still has 13 different scorers in all competitions, while Ipswich has 15.
Chris Matterface provides a noteworthy illustration of sharing in League Two. He starts off by saying, “Instead of just looking at the data up until the end of October, let’s take a look at a full season.” According to Chris, Gillingham only managed to score 44 goals in all competitions last season, but these were divided among 19 different players (averaging to 2.3 goals per player). Surprisingly, Tom Nichols, who scored a mere six goals, was the top scorer.
Sibling referees
Nicholas Head reports that Ayamonte CF, a team in Spain’s fifth division, has had their past two matches officiated by siblings. He wonders if there have been any other occurrences of consecutive games being refereed by family members.
Boris Cule points out that West Brom experienced this situation during the last season of the Championship. On October 18th, their match against Bristol City at home was officiated by Bobby Madley. Only four days later, his brother Andy Madley refereed the Baggies’ away game against Millwall.
Boris mentions that this has occurred before. In 2012, Bobby was the referee for the Notts County vs Bury match on April 21 in League One, while Andy refereed the Bury vs Oldham match a week later. Similarly, in League Two, Bobby was the referee for the Morecambe vs Accrington match on November 6, and Andy refereed the Accrington vs Northampton match on November 10.
“On January 1, 2013, Bobby was the referee for the Championship match between Birmingham and Cardiff, while four days later, Andy took charge of the Bluebirds’ FA Cup game against Macclesfield. Interestingly, in all four instances, Bobby was followed by Andy and never the other way around. Andy, who recently turned 40 in September, is the older brother, with Bobby being 38.”
Knowledge archive
In February 2016, Phil Rebbeck asked if anyone could match the length of time between playing and managing a club like Neil Warnock, who recently became the manager of Rotherham United after 45 years since his last time playing for them.
According to Chris Wardle, Michael Gahler, and Matthias Gläfke, Otto Rehhagel has surpassed Warnock’s record of 45 years. Chris stated, “It appears that Rehhagel’s unsuccessful return to Hertha Berlin in 2012 outdoes Warnock, but only slightly.” The exact date of Rehhagel’s departure from Hertha to Kaiserslautern in 1966 is unknown, so let’s assume it was September 10, the date of his debut for Kaiserslautern. Warnock was present for the Rotherham team photo in 1970-71 and it is believed that he scored against Torquay on October 20. If both the date and scorer are correct, Rehhagel beats Warnock by a month and a half.
If being a part of a club’s youth system is considered, Harry Redknapp could potentially be a suitable candidate, according to observations made by Marcos Garcia. At the age of 11, Redknapp caught the attention of Tottenham while playing for East London Schoolboys against Wandsworth Boys. He underwent training with the team for a period of time before ultimately signing schoolboy forms with West Ham. Redknapp once remarked, “I have trained there as an 11-year-old, 12-year-old, so I am familiar with the club’s history.”
It is unclear exactly when Redknapp last participated in a Tottenham youth team, but if it was at the age of 12, it would have been prior to March 1959. He eventually came back to Tottenham as the manager in October 2008, almost 50 years later.
Can you help?
I recently had a conversation with a friend from Germany about Harry Kane’s goal-scoring record in the Bundesliga. My friend pointed out that the reports claiming he has scored three hat-tricks may not be entirely accurate. While he did score three goals in three separate league games, only one of those instances officially qualifies as a Bundesliga hat-trick. In Germany, the criteria for a hat-trick is scoring three goals consecutively without anyone else scoring in-between. This is different from the traditional perfect hat-trick, which involves scoring with the left foot, right foot, and head. This made me wonder if there are any examples of a player achieving a “perfect perfect” hat-trick – three uninterrupted goals in the same half, scored with the left foot, right foot, and head. Is this type of hat-trick considered better in Germany?
“According to Steve Fate, West Ham will be hosting Evangelos Marinakis’ team Olympiakos in the Europa League on Thursday, followed by hosting Marinakis’ team Nottingham Forest in the Premier League on Sunday. Is there any other instance where an owner will be enjoying prawn sandwiches at such close intervals?”
“During Chelsea’s 4-1 victory over a nine-man Tottenham team, I observed that Sky’s xG counter showed a score of Tottenham 0.94-4.04 Chelsea. Are there any other instances where the xG totals are remarkably similar to the final result?” inquires Niall McVeigh.
“What is the lowest possible score in football that has never been achieved?” wonders Shane McVeigh. “To avoid dampening someone’s spirits, let’s focus on major professional football leagues.”
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Source: theguardian.com
