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Did Denis Law score seven goals and still end up on the losing side?
Plus: the tragic case of Serhiy Scherbakov; jaunty shirt advertising; and were Arsenal ever on Jim'll Fix It? Email your questions and answers to knowledge@guardian.co.uk
Law 7 - 5 Luton. And he still got knocked out. Photograph: Getty Images
Wednesday 4 July 2007 04.18 EDT
First published on Wednesday 4 July 2007 04.18 EDT
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"My late Dad used to tell a tale of a footballer he met on the train once, possibly the 1950s, who played possibly for Chelsea, or against them (I know, I'm sorry), but in a match he scored nine times for his side and still lost 10-9! Is this true?" asks Joe Castle. "Are there any other examples of individual glory thwarted by the deficiencies of team-mates in such a dramatic way?"
Well, Joe, we couldn't find any evidence of the aforementioned match, nor any performance to match the suggested nine-goal haul. However, there are still plenty of examples of players' heroic efforts going unrewarded thanks to their shambling accomplices.
Take Atlético Madrid, for example. In 1997 Milinko Pantic scored four times in a Spanish Cup match with Barcelona, three of them before half-time, only for Barça to come back and win 5-4. "I saw a post-match interview with the poor fella and he couldn't believe it," recalls Neil McMahon. "He'd never scored more than three goals in a game before." However, one year later the same fate befell Christian Vieri, who snagged four of his own in the 5-4 La Liga loss to Salamanca. "I read that afterwards Vieri refused to get changed with his team-mates, got changed in the corridor and went straight home," notes James Syme. Unsurprisingly, Vieri left for Italy at the end of the season.
Equally denied by his colleagues' ineptitude was Dariusz Dziekanowski, who scored four times in a Uefa Cup clash with Partizan Belgrade, only for the Celtic backline to concede four at the other end. Leading 5-3 in the last minute, Partizan launched one final attack , making the score 5-4 and claiming the tie on away goals. Goal machine Kerry Dixon also scored four for Reading in a 1982-83 Third Division game at Doncaster, not that it counted for much: the Royals went down 7-5.
But surely the hardest-done-by player must be poor old Denis Law. Playing for Manchester City in an FA Cup fourth-round tie at Luton in 1961, Law scored six times as City raced into a 6-2 lead, only for the match to be abandoned. The Kenilworth Road pitch "first resembled a beach with the tide just out, then [there was] deep mud, then a shallow lake," according to one report of the game. "It's not every day that you score six goals," recalled Law earlier this year. "I never did it again - the most I managed in a game that counted was four, which I got a couple of times. But then the heavens opened. Obviously it wasn't meant to be. The funny thing was when we went for the replay on the Wednesday the pitch was in a worse state than it ever was on Saturday." As the law of Sod dictates, Law still scored in the second match, only for City to slump to a 3-1 defeat.
Can you top that? Then let us know at the usual address .
THE TRAGIC CASE OF SERHIY SCHERBAKOV
"Trawling the U-21 World Championships archives, I saw that in 1991 Serhiy Scherbakov won the Golden Shoe," writes Andrew Gordon. "I searched for him on Wikipedia and it seems he moved to Sporting Lisbon from Shakhtar Donetsk in 1993 but then suddenly retired in 1995. Since as far as I can tell he is still alive, what happened?"
Unfortunately, Andrew, it's a sad story. Scherbakov had been brought to Sporting by Bobby Robson in 1993, but the manager was sent packing by the club following their Uefa Cup exit against Casino Salzburg, despite leading the league at the time. Pedro Estêvão takes up the tale: "The manager was highly regarded by the players and the fans, so the players decided to stage a dinner in honour of the departing manager. On his way home, however, Serhiy suffered a horrible car crash that left him paralysed from the waist down. I still get a lump in the throat when I remember the television footage of him frantically pursuing his rehabilitation and vowing that he would don the Sporting jersey on the pitch once again someday."
The accident fractured Scherbakov's skull and his spinal column in three places, although The Resident newspaper reported that he had been "over the legal alcohol limit" at the time. Scherbakov, according to Alexei Berezovoi, "has undergone a series of operations and is still working on his health. He is working with several football-related charities, such as the Federation of Football that unites football lovers that have cerebral paralysis. He lives in Moscow."
SHIRT SHRIFT
"I was at the Amsterdam ArenA to see Ajax batter Sparta Rotterdam 5-2," says Federico Tessadori. "It occured to me then that Ajax are is the only team I know with their sponsor (ABN Amro) written vertically on their shirt, and not even in the middle! Do any other teams have such extravagant sponsor placing?"
"Ireland's newest senior club, Wexford Youths (the name is a nod to Juventus) have a similarly jauntily positioned sponsorship," explains Sean DeLoughry. "The club is owned, sponsored and indeed managed by building magnate and football enthusiast Mick Wallace. Their jersey is emblazoned with their owner/sponsor/manager's name WALLACE, vertically down the jersey."
Any more for any more? Then let us know at knowledge@theguardian.com .
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
"I recall one episode of Jim'll Fix It, where a young lad asked Jim to fix it for him to become a football referee," wrote David Voss back in 2004. "I can't remember the sides involved, I suspect they were two Sunday league sides. The plucky young fellow had some link with one of the sides, which showed in his refereeing as he sent all of the other side off."
We weren't sure that Oxford United and Arsenal would thank David for referring to them as Sunday league sides, but the game in question took place some time during the 1984-85 season. If memory serves correctly, the young lad was an Arsenal fan, who had been enraged by his side's 3-2 defeat at the old Manor Ground in the Milk Cup when Oxford were still a Second Division side.
Oxford were on a bit of a high at the time and their side in those days contained the likes of John Aldridge and the Northern Ireland striker Billy Hamilton. Both were on the scoresheet in that win over Arsenal, who included eight then-current or future internationals. But the young lad retaliated by sending off virtually the entire Oxford team for a series of petty infringements. "I remember four players forming a wall being sent off for not being 10 yards away from the free-kick," he recalled, "which, naturally, had been awarded for a red-card offence."
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"In light of Real Madrid's sacking of Fabio Capello, are there any other managers who have been sacked after winning the league title twice by the same club?" enquires Gordon Tait.
"Last week, Norwegian player Agim Shabani managed to earn three red cards in three successive games, incredibly over a four-day period," writes Morten Kaland. "Is this some kind of record?"
"It seems to me that Arsenal always play better in yellow and England always play better in red, so who has won the most Cup competitions playing in their away kit?" wonders Gavin Johnson.
Email your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com