"With all the fuss about the half-eaten hamburger recently thrown at Gary Neville against Liverpool, it reminded me of the pig's head once aimed at Luis Figo in the Nou Camp and the burning scooter lobbed towards the field in the San Siro," recalls Brian Cowell. "But what is the strangest item to be lobbed from terrace to pitch?"

Whenever talk turns to things strange, you can be sure Paul Gascoigne's going to get a mention. So let's allow Neil Jackson to get the formalities out of the way: "On his return to St James's Park after being sold to Spurs, Gazza was pelted with Mars bars by the Gallowgate end," recalls Neil. "I think he'd professed a liking for them in an interview. During the game, in full 'daft as a brush' mode, he picked one up, opened it and took an enormous bite."

Then there was the time in 2000 when Hull City fans decided to protest against David Lloyd, former tennis player, then GB Davis Cup chief and owner of Boothferry Park. "He had threatened to close the club down and called the people of the city 'crap'," explains Richard Gardham, "all because he hadn't realised the ground he'd bought had a supermarket built onto it with a 99-year lease that scuppered his development plans. To protest, loads of Hull fans interrupted a match by pelting the pitch with tennis balls. Apparently, Mr Lloyd didn't see the funny side."

But really, when it comes to the strangest object ever thrown from the terraces, there is, as dozens of you have pointed out, only one winner: the scooter that Internazionale supporters stole from an Atalanta fan outside the San Siro in May 2001, then smuggled into the stadium (past rigorous security checks, clearly), set on fire and tossed from the second tier onto a thankfully empty section of the lower stand. OK, so the scooter didn't actually make it on to the pitch, but that was the intention.

OUTNUMBERED BUT UNBOWED

"With Chelsea's 3-1 defeat by Monaco in the 2004 Champions League semi-final in mind, what is the worst ever result achieved by a team with a numerical advantage?" enquires Muir MacKean.

Firstly, let's get one thing straight: all you Motherwell fans who wrote in to proudly claim that your 8-0 away win over Celtic in April 1937 was achieved despite you having two men sent off are wrong. The fact is it was the home side who were reduced to nine men after two of their players had to leave the field injured - and no substitutes were allowed.

Manchester City, however, don't believe in myths. At least not when it comes to their astonishing comeback in their fourth round FA Cup replay against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane in 2004, which really did unfold as follows: "At 3-0 down at the end of first half, Joey Barton got sent directly to the showers for being the impetuous oik he is," recalls Tom Storr, "but City went on to win 4-3, Jon Macken simultaneously scoring the winner and doing the best thing he's ever done."

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

"Is Juventus's attendance of 237 against Sampdoria in the Coppa Italia this season a record low for any top-flight team in the big European leagues (barring games played behind closed doors, of course)?" asks Peregrine Roscorla.

We haven't been able to find anything more miserable than that, Peregrine, but were amused to find that Europe's least appealing club competition may well be the InterToto Cup. The 2003 first-round clash between Olympiakos Nicosia and ZTS Dubnica (Slovakia) attracted an impressive 71 punters, while a far more respectable 80 turned up two years later as Olympiakos Nicosia hosted Gloria Bistrita (Romania), again in the first round.

On the international front, the record low for Uefa competitions remains the Euro 96 qualifier between Azerbaijan and Poland in Trabzon (Turkey), when precisely 200 hardy souls went out of their way to watch a 0-0 draw.

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"Recently I went to see a Danish First Division game between Brønshøj and Vejle (who gave us both Allan Simonsen and Thomas Gravesen)," says Thomas Robson. "In the first half, Vejle managed to score three goals in just three minutes (in the 31st, 32nd and 33rd). Is this a record for the most goals scored in the shortest amount of time?"

We had some real crackers in response to Thomas Robson's challenge, so let's begin with an offering from TheRadfordClan. "In 1992 [February 7, to be precise], Spurs played Southampton and scored four times in five minutes to come from behind. Nice." After Iain Dowie had put Southampton ahead in the 21st minute, Spurs hit back through Teddy Sheringham (54), Nick Barmby (56), Darren Anderton (57) and Sheringham again (59).

Another candidate involving Southampton arrived from Paul Manzotti. "Saints 1-0 down to Newcastle in March 1995," he writes. "One minute left, plus stoppage time. We win 3-1 with three goals in two minutes from Neil Heaney, Neil Shipperley and Gordon Watson. We hadn't even sat down celebrating the second when we scored the third straight from the restart."

Even more diligently, some of you came up with instances of lightning-quick hat-tricks. Here's Fergal O'Shea. "There is an Irish player, James O'Connor," he says, "who is in the Guinness Book of Records for a hat-trick scored for Shelbourne FC, against Bohemians FC, in under two-and-a-half minutes, in the 1960s (2 mins 14 secs to be precise.)"

Thomas Gilry, though, thought he could do better than that. "Jimmy Scarth of Gillingham scored three goals in two minutes against Leyton Orient in 1952," he reported. The date was November 1, and Gillingham won 3-2.

But the winner, surely, had to come from Stefan Lindqvist, a sportswriter for the Helsingborgs Dagblad in Sweden. "Back in 1995 during a Swedish First Division game between Landskrona BoIS and IFK Hässleholm, Magnus Arvidsson - top scorer for Hässleholm and nowadays playing for Hansa Rostock in the German Bundesliga - managed to score three goals in 92 seconds. The match ended in victory for Hässleholm, 5-3." And that, it would seem, is that.

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