“Gabriel Heinze has played alongside both Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) and Lionel Messi (Argentina). How many other players can match that claim?” wonders Masai Graham.
Joel Foreman handily “had this in a Zoom quiz recently”. The floor is yours, Joel: “This very season, Miralem Pjanic and Artur swapped Turin for Barcelona and vice versa, while Francisco Trincão has made his Portugal and Barcelona debuts this season. And Gerard Piqué, Paulo Dybala, Carlos Tevez, Gonzalo Higuaín and Ángel Di María spring to mind as high-profile mentions.
“There are also some leftfield choices: former Barça pair André Gomes and Nelson Semedo have played with Ronaldo at international level, while Argentinians Ezequiel Garay and Fernando Gago played with Ronaldo at Madrid. Deco played with both of them towards the end of his career, and Henrik Larsson swapped the Camp Nou for Old Trafford on loan (via Helsingborgs), winning the Champions League in 2006 before coming to England and winning the Premier League. Martín Caceres completes the list, winning the Champions League with Barcelona in 2009 before rejoining Juve (for the third time) in January 2019.”
Origins of the ‘perfect hat-trick’
“I’m wondering where and when did the concept of a perfect hat-trick (goals scored with the head and both feet) begin?” asks Gerard Doyle. “I know Geoff Hurst managed it in the 1966 World Cup final, so was it considered a special feat back then, or is the concept more modern?”
Top sleuthing from Simon Koppel. “I did some research in the British Newspaper Archive to try to track down the origin,” he writes. “The earliest unambiguous reference I could find was this, from 1973.”
Now, we can’t see who the player referred to is, but using the hints in the copy (the source, Peter Shilton), we’re confident it is Bob Latchford, after scoring all of Birmingham City’s goals in their 3-0 win over Leicester on 24 November 1973.
Simon also notes, before that, the phrase meant something else. “It seems to have been used for scoring three goals in the same half by any means, without anyone else scoring in-between. The earliest use I can find has a third meaning: it’s from 1913, in reference to a hat-trick scored by a player called G Perfect.”
The first mention of the perfect hat-trick in the Guardian or Observer, since you asked, was in August 1988 when John Aldridge scored all three for Liverpool in a 3-0 win at Charlton.
Scoring against nicknamesakes
“I noticed that Ilias Chair scored for QPR against the Chairboys (Wycombe) earlier this month,” begins Daniel Marcus. “I joked to myself that this would be like a lad called Tractor scoring against Ipswich or an old lady scoring against Juventus. Can anyone think of any other real-life examples of players scoring against ‘nicknamesake’ clubs?”
We covered players with the same nicknames as their clubs, but there are some offerings for this twist on it.
“One that sticks out is Mark Robins, who has scored twice against two different nicknamesake teams in the same month,” writes Gareth Roberts. “In March 2003 he netted for Bristol City (also the Robins) against Cheltenham in a 3-1 home win, then a few weeks later he popped up again for in a 1-1 draw at Swindon. Another that popped to mind was Ishmael Miller who scored for Huddersfield v Rotherham in 2015, though as far as I can tell he is the singular Miller to have done so, thus sadly there is no list (as of yet) of Millers loathed by Millers.”
The Gills have also been bitten by a namesake. “According to GillinghamFCScrapbook.co.uk: Frank Gill of Tranmere scored the only goal in a 1-0 win over Gillingham in 1970-71, and Wayne Gill netted in a 3-2 win also for Tranmere against them in 2000-01,” writes Michael Pilcher.
Mark Coward points out that Ole Gunnar Solskjær scored twice for Manchester United against Arsenal, and Tom Aldous has more tales from across the Pennines. “David White has scored for Manchester City against the Whites (Leeds),” writes Tom. “Apparently another nickname for Leeds is the Peacocks and Lee Peacock scored for Swindon against Leeds in the 2007-08 season. Last season, Newcastle’s Allan Saint-Maximin scored against Southampton..”
He’s not the only Saint to do so. “The late, great Ian St John netted against Southampton for Liverpool,” notes Jim Hearson.
There are a couple more examples. “Richard Sadlier of Millwall (which I have heard pronounced Saddler many times – probably incorrectly) scored against Walsall (nickname ‘The Saddlers’) in the area final of the 1998-99 Football League Trophy, which meant Millwall went to Wembley,” writes Robert Davies. “Mat Sadler plays for us and also scored against us for Shrewsbury.”
We’ve saved the best till last, from Alex Marklew. “Does Chris Wood scoring two for Birmingham against Nottingham Forest in 2011-12 count?”
Knowledge archive
“I was wondering if two footballers have ever met as players, managers and where one is playing and the other is managing and the other way around,” wondered Knut Strand in 2016. “So four different scenarios. This will require someone retiring, managing and then playing again, I think – or some kind of player-manager role of course.”
Chris Parsons offers up three of the four. “On the last day of the 2005-06 season, West Ham beat Tottenham 2-1 at Upton Park in the Hammers’ final outing before their upcoming FA Cup final against Liverpool,” he begins. “Starting against each other that day in midfield were international midfielders Carl Fletcher and Edgar Davids. Fletcher even managed to get on the scoresheet.
“Fast forward six years and Fletcher is now the manager of League Two Plymouth Argyle. In the September of 2012, he takes his Pilgrims to visit Barnet, who had recently appointed Davids as player-manager. Sadly, things didn’t work out so well for Fletcher in Devon, and he was sacked shortly after the Pilgrims’ New Year’s Day defeat at Bristol Rovers. Having decided to return to playing, he was signed by Davids’s Barnet for the beginning of the 2013-14 season and played four times under the Dutch player-manager, twice alongside him.”
Can you help?
“I noticed Everton’s final game is at Manchester City, who will possibly lift the league trophy that day,” mails Steve Sanders. “As an Evertonian, I can remember a few times that our final-day opponents have lifted the trophy: Arsenal twice (I think); Manchester United and Leicester (I’m reasonably sure). Has any team been the opponent more times than Everton on trophy-lifting day?”
@TheKnowledge_GU
— ᴍɪᴄᴋ ᴍᴀᴅᴀʀ (@TheScottishPele) March 22, 2021
Norwich City were officially relegated from the Premier League on 11th July 2020, and can theoretically secure promotion back on 20th April 2021, which would be 283 days between relegation and promotion. Would this be a record?
@TheKnowledge_GU Bayern beat Stuttgart 4-0 today after having a man sent off with the score at 0-0. Whats the highest score 10 men (also 9 and 8) have won a game from and whats the biggest deficit 10 men have come from behind to win?
— dan almond (@pompeyrabbi) March 20, 2021
“Burnley’s Dwight McNeil made his first-team debut 12 years after his dad, Matty, made his Football League debut,” notes Andrew Mahoney. “Granted, this was because Matty spent most of his career in non-league football so it’s a bit of a technicality, but is such a narrow inter-generational gap a record?”
(this might be a popular one) With Richie Wellens joining Kenny Jackett in the job centre queue is this the quickest two managers have been sacked after a cup final?
— Jack Tanner (@mrjacktanner) March 23, 2021
“In the late-1970s/early-80s, I used to get taken to Maine Road,” begins Brian Coyle. “One of the things I remember was that, about 10 minutes before kick-off, they used to play the theme tune to The Big Match over the PA system if City were featured that weekend. Please can anyone confirm I haven’t dreamt this up and why they did it?”
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