“Has any player ever picked up their second yellow card for removing their shirt after scoring?” asks Colin Williams.

Not only has it happened on numerous occasions, it also turns out that there are a variety of ways to go about it. First, and on balance probably preferable, is the Full On Lose Yourself In The Moment. “In the 2012-13 Bundesliga season, Hannover 96’s Szabolcs Huszti wasn’t even booked until injury time, when he scored the winner in a 3-2 victory against Werder Bremen,” writes JH Bach. “In celebration, he ran towards the fans, pulling off his shirt, and climbed on the fence to party with the fans. The referee decided these were two independent bookable offences and sent him off. So, technically, the yellow card for removing his shirt was his first one.”

Szabolcs Huszti.

Even more recently, Thomas Wetherill points out that Huddersfield’s James Vaughan bagged what appeared to be a 95th-minute winner against Norwich in March 2015. Off came the shirt, out came the yellow card, and off went Vaughan. Insult was added to injury when Norwich scrambled home an even later equaliser.

An honourable mention here should also go to Ross Wallace, point out Conor Galaska and Matt Rudd. The midfielder managed to get himself sent off for shirt-removal-based second booking not once, but twice. In October 2006 he curled in an injury-time free-kick to give Sunderland a 1-0 win at Hull and was promptly sent off for his celebratory semi-strip; less than three years later he repeated the trick after, yes, curling home an 89th-minute free-kick to give Preston North End a 2-1 win over Birmingham in April 2009.



While it’s possible to have some sympathy with the Full On Lose Yourself In The Moment, there is little excuse for other techniques. For example, let’s take a look at the Roar! Look At My Abs, as modelled by former Manchester City and Celtic frontman John Guidetti. The then Feyenoord striker – usually so calm and understated – gave it the full flex and rather displeased his Feyenoord manager Ronald Koeman in the process.

John Guidetti.

There’s the slightly obscure Praise The Shirt. “It was a game that I was in the stands for and it was a tense Turkish Cup semi-final game between Fenerbahce and Denizlispor,” writes Önder Susam. “Playing with 10 men after having an early sending-off, Fenerbahce fought back to take the game to extra time. Omer Riza, formerly of Arsenal and West Ham United, was having a great game for Denizlispor and they took the lead. However, the Brazilian defender Fabio Luciano scored the equaliser for Fenerbahçe in the 111th minute and, in the heat of the moment, took off his shirt and made a worshipping gesture to it. Knowing that he’d been booked earlier, his team-mates rushed to stop him from getting sent off but to no avail. The remaining nine men made their way to the finals after an intense penalty shootout during which Nicolas Anelka hit the crossbar.”

Fabio Luciano.

The forward-thinking can always try the Ha! I’ve Got A Shirt On Underneath So I’m Sure It’ll Be Fine. “It happened in 2011 during the Vancouver Whitecaps’ miserable first season in MLS,” begins Stefan Martens. “The team’s first designated player, France’s Eric Hassli, thought he was being clever by wearing two shirts on the day of the match. He scored early in the second half from a penalty to put Vancouver 1-0 up against New England, then promptly ripped off his shirt and threw it to the crowd. The referee took no pity on him even though he had a normal playing jersey on underneath, issuing him his second yellow. Vancouver almost hung on for the victory, but conceded at the death. They wouldn’t win again for two whole months, and finished bottom of the league. But this is North America – so thankfully there was no relegation.”

Eric Hassli.

Connected to that is the I’ve Got a Preplanned Celebration That I’m Going To Do Anyway Regardless Of Whether I’ve Been Booked Or Not. In early 2008 Fiorentina’s Dani Osvaldo, never exactly the shy and retiring type, picked up his second booking after removing his shirt and re-enacting Gabriel Batistuta’s machine-gun-celebration after scoring a late winner against Juventus.

And lastly you have the Oh No I’ve Just Remembered I’ve Already Been Booked And I Can’t Get My Shirt Back On Because My Ruddy Team-mates Won’t Let Me, majestically displayed here by Aberdeen’s Barry Nicholson following his 89th-minute equaliser against Hearts at Tynecastle in 2007.

Barry Nicholson.

Thanks to Adam Harcus for that one. There’s another example of the ONIJRIABBAICGMSBOBMRTWLM here from Mattia Destro, who popped in Roma’s fourth against Palermo in 2012.

Mattia Destro.

Wycombe Wanderers midfielder Steve Brown, writes Rev Rob Glenny, managed to pick up a second yellow while celebrating a goal someone else had scored. “It was March 2001 when Brown, overjoyed at seeing Roy Essandoh score a 90th-minute winner against Leicester in the FA Cup quarter-finals, tore off his Wycombe shirt to unveil the name of his ill son, Maxwell,” wrote Stuart James in these pages in 2007. Having already been booked, Brown received another yellow card from Steve Bennett.”

Perhaps most impressive of all, however, is getting a second yellow for shirt removal when not celebrating a goal. Kees Haasnoot points us in the direction of Dnipro’s Samuel Inkoom. With his side 1-0 up in the 61st minute against Karpaty in 2011, the Ghanaian’s number went up on the fourth official’s board. He jogged towards the touchline for his substitution, taking his shirt off as he went. The referee was a stickler.

Samuel Inkoom.

Teams/towns without train stations

“By my reckoning,” reckons Jamie Watt, “the only team in the top four leagues in Scotland and England that play in a town without a railway station is Forfar Athletic. Who, ironically, play at Station Park. Can anyone confirm this claim?”



Forfar, which lost its train station in 1967, is far from alone, Jamie. “In the same division as Forfar Athletic (League One) Brechin City and Peterhead are also station-less,” writes Joel Sked. “Peterhead’s Balmoor ground is the furthest from a train station in the top four divisions of Scottish football.”

There’s also Forfar’s tongue-twisting partners in crime, East Fife. “East Fife play in Methil, where there is no train station,” writes John McBurnie. “Stenhousemuir and East Stirlingshire share Ochilview in the town of Stenhousemuir. There is no train station in Stenhousemuir itself, but there are a few close by in Larbert and Falkirk (that said, some may argue that Stenhousemuir is part of Falkirk and East Stirlingshire are a Falkirk team).”

And England has it’s station-less teams too. Over the years Oldham has had six train stations – Oldham Central (closed 1966), Oldham Mumps (closed 2009), Oldham Wenther (closed 2009), Oldham Glodwick Road (closed 1955), Derker (closed 2009) and Oldham Clegg Street (closed 1959) – and now it has none. Mumps, Wenther and Derker were converted to Metrolink tramstops at the start of the decade. The club’s closest station now is Mills Hill, just over two miles away.

As John Pearson points out, the last trains to arrive at Fleetwood pulled in on 30 May 1970. Under “Rail” in the directions section of the Fleetwood Town website you find: “The most convenient mainline station is Blackpool North. The station is 7½ miles from the football ground …”

“Poor old Port Vale don’t have a station in Burslem, their home town within ‘polycentric’ Stoke-on-Trent,” notes James Blanchard, while Gary Fairclough opens a can of worms in West Bromwich: “Surprisingly the town has no station, another line converted to a tramway. It could be argued that The Hawthorns station is in West Bromwich but according to the Royal Mail the station is in Smethwick.”

James also comes up with a spin-off question: “Burnley are served by three stations: Burnley Barracks, Burnley Central and Burnley Manchester Road. The Rose Grove station is also just within the town limits. Is this ratio of population/supporters against rail stations a record for a football club?”

The main stand at Forfar’s Station Park. Photograph: Kirk O'Rourke/Rangers FC

Any thoughts? Send them to the usual address: knowledge@theguardian.com

All-non-top-flight cup finals



“With Rangers facing Hibs in the Scottish Cup final, it got me thinking: has there ever been an example of two non-top flight teams contesting a national cup final before (maybe leaving out the likes of the League Cup)?” ponders Eoin Byrne. “I can’t see anything from a quick scan of Scottish Cup and FA Cup finals.”

“Your correspondent should probably be aware of the 1990 FAI Cup final, featuring League of Ireland First Division side Bray Wanderers and non-league St Francis,” begins Sean DeLoughry. Do go on, Sean. “A crowd of 27,000 watched John Ryan score a hat-trick at Lansdowne Road to fire Bray to a 3-0 win and into the Cup Winners’ Cup. A couple of other teams to qualify for Europe recently from all lowe- level division finals include Molde (3-2 winners over Lyn Oslo in the all-second-level 1994 Norwegian Cup final) and Kalmar (2-0 winners over GAIS in the all-second-tier 1987 Swedish Cup final). We can do better, though …

“Third-level Lechia Gdansk beat second-level Piast Gliwice 2-1 in the 1982-83 Polish Cup final to earn the honour of a 10-2 aggregate shoeing from Juventus in the 1983-84 Cup Winners’ Cup. We can do better, though …

In 1948 Råå IF hammered BK Kenty 6-0 in the Swedish Cup final, in an all-third-division final. In 2010 fourth division Navy SC beat third division Nandamithra 2-1 in the Sri Lankan cup final, and just last year, fourth-level Olympic Miréréni beat third-level FC Labattoir 5-4 on penalties after a scoreless draw in a never-to-be-forgotten Mayotte Cup final.”

Knowledge archive

“Are there any such instances out of relegation/promotion season when, mid-season, fans have turned up to support their rivals, and if so, what were the circumstances?” asked Howard in 2015.

Yes (apologies for the re-posted question last week). Part one to the answer and part two.

For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive.

Can you help?

“Formartine United just finished second in the Highland League behind Cove Rangers but managed to score 137 goals, with a goal difference of +102, yet still ended up four points off the leaders,” writes Mick McMenemie. “That works out as just over four goals scored per game and +3 goals per game exactly. Would these be records for a club that’s failed to win the league?”

“In timely celebration of Leicester’s finest outputs, has any professional footballer been the face of a product longer than Gary Lineker’s 21 years advertising Walker’s?” ponders Rich Booth.

“Leicester’s loveable Filbert Fox has signed a boot deal with Puma,” tweets Isaac Ashe. “Is this a first for a mascot?”

“What is longest run of consecutive wins (no draws or defeats) a team has ever had in order to avoid relegation?” asks Ivor Leonard.

“Aston Villa will play Nottingham Forest in the Championship next season,” writes Alan Sheridan. “Will it be the first time that two former European Cup-winning clubs have met in the second tier, in any European League, not just England?”

“When was the last time (if this has ever happened!) in a top-flight league, English or otherwise, that a goalkeeper was penalised for handling the ball outside of the penalty area while kicking the ball back into play?” wonders Robert W Zoellner.

“With Bayern set to win the Bundesliga, Kingsley Coman will receive a his championship medal as a loan player, before likely staying on at the club,” begins KJ Fitzpatrick. “I know that some players have won medals for the club they have been loaned from, such as Richie De Laet may do if Leicester win the league. However, my question is: has any player won more than one championship title as a loan player? I am guessing there are some in the lower league (players that have been loaned from top-flight clubs for numerous seasons), but I can’t think of any myself.”

“My club, Walton and Hersham of the Ryman League Division One South, has completed a distinguished season in one respect only: 53 matches in all competitions and not a single clean sheet,” emails Andrew Wilson. “How often has this happened at Step 4 of the pyramid or above?”



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