"I recently discovered that the Czech Republic team Bohemians 1905 have a kangaroo in their logo," notes Tim Paine. "Any ideas why?"

It seems that back in the 1920s the Australian Football Association was keen for a great European side to tour the country in order to inspire the populace. The problem, though, was persuading someone to take the lengthy sea journey down under – various reports suggest the idea being turned down by half of Europe's clubs, including those from England. Eventually the invite appears to have extended to Czechoslovakia, and after being turned down by the national side and Sparta Prague, Australia was in 1927 delighted to welcome Prague's AFK Vrsovice, who were renamed Bohemians (Bohemia being part of western Czechoslovakia) for the tour.

The tour seems to have been hugely successful, with the Czech visitors winning 15, drawing two and losing three matches over four months. On their departure they were presented with two live kangaroos, which must have made the journey home interesting. A squad member named Havlín, though, is believed to have taken responsibility for the marsupial duo, and they were safely delivered to Prague Zoo.

Such was the success of the entire episode, Vrsovice were permitted to keep the name Bohemians and the side became known as the Klokani, Czech for Kangaroos. The nickname stuck and the animals soon hopped onto the club crest.

For more on Bohemians' kangaroos you can read two slightly conflicting accounts: one from the Czech perspective and one from an Australian.

ONCE THEY GET THEIR CLAUSE IN …

"After Stefan Schwarz's space ban, which other contracts have had bizarre clauses inserted in them?" wondered someone whose name has been lost in the mists of time.

Let's hand this one over to Berlin-based football journalist and Knowledge reader, Eberhard Spohd:

German keeper Georg Koch went to PSV Eindhoven in 1997, but he left very soon for Arminia Bielefeld. He could do this, because he had the clause in his contract, that he could leave any time he suffered from racist hostility. You know, a German in Holland ...

Manager Frank Pageldorf also had a chance to immediately leave Hamburg if Uwe Seeler was no longer president of the club. Seeler departed soon after Pagelsdorf started as coach but the manager decided to stay and had some very good years with the club. Let's see, what else do we have: Rolf-Christel Guie-Mien negotiated that his wife should get a cooking course when he played for Eintracht Frankfurt. Arminia Bielefeld guaranteed to build forward Giuseppe Reina one house for every year of his contract but didn't negotiate the size of it. That led to problems when it came to the golden handshake, believe me. In 1992 Udo Lattek was offered a 500,000 mark bonus if his team Schalke 04 finished higher than their rivals from Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season (but he was sacked before the end of the campaign). And there is our dear manager Eugen Hach who was fired at Alemannia Aachen because of this strange clause. The club was allowed to sack him, if his team was less than three points clear of the relegation zone (but only after the eighth matchday of the season). And the inevitable happened. Hach explained why he accepted this clause: "I had a strong belief in this team."

And Germany isn't the only place for odd contracts. "Stig Inge Bjørnebye, of Liverpool fame, was a keen ski jumper in his younger days (his father was a former Olympic ski jumper)," writes Stig Marstein, "and in Stig's Liverpool contract it was stated that he was not allowed to ski jump or any other form of skiing, obviously to avoid ski related injuries."

GROUNDS CLOSE TO WATER, ROADS AND PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING ELSE YOU CARE TO MENTION

Last week we looked at some of the stadiums closest to water, from Zenit St Petersburg's surrounded stadium to the old AFC Portchester that backed on to a moat. As ever, the Knowledge inbox has been full of those we missed:

Of course, there's the old Gay Meadow, the former home of Shrewsbury Town, where Fred Davies and his coracle used to chase balls in the Severn and the aptly-named Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough. In mainland Europe there's Werder Bremen's Weserstadion on the banks of the Weser (which might also be the ground closest to a swimming pool), Slovan Liberec's Stadion U Nisy which almost overhangs the river Nesa from which it takes its name and Kalmar's soon-to-be-defunct Fredrikskans ground. "The views from the stands over the pitch and the water behind must be unique in top flight football," writes David Tornquist. "Less pleasant are the views of the spectators standing on the banks and relieving themselves into the water at half-time." Even further afield there's the WIN Stadium in Wollongong, the Nelson Mandela Stadium in Port Elizabeth.

In non-league football there's St George's Lane, home of Worcester City, where the Canal End isn't just a nice name, and this offering from Bob Figg: "At a very amateur level Godmanchester Rovers FC in Cambridgeshire are (or at least were) located on an island. My dear departed dad used to regale me with tales of the 30s and 40s when the idea was to get a goal up and then boot the old-style football into the river. Once it was retrieved it was waterlogged and apparently like kicking a cannon ball." We reckon a likely sight was here, though it seems the club have now moved away to a site across town.

At least two grounds have been built on top of (former) bodies of water – Southampton's old Dell, and Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, which according to Ben Prow and this map, was built over Counter's Creek.

And to go back a fortnight to our piece on grounds near major roads (more interesting that it sounds, believe us), we were remiss not to include Ajax's Amsterdam Arena, which, while not built near a major road, is actually on top of a small one.

• Thanks to Paul Sylvester for this link to the rather wonderful European Fields photographic website, which not only features grounds near roads and rivers, but some near vineyards, petrochemical sites and reindeer.

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"A couple of years ago I stumbled across what looked like Garth Crooks presenting Newsnight. I'm still, to this day, unsure of whether it was a bad dream or it actually happened. What's the deal?" asked Andy Blackshire back in 2005.

Close, but no cigar, Andy; what you were watching was indeed on BBC2, but it was everyone's (OK, the odd person's) favourite questioner hosting Despatch Box, a late-night politics show. It transpires that Garth used his spare time as a player at Tottenham to study politics at college. Along with this and his BBC Sport work, another string to his broadcasting bow has been the "discussion-cum-record" radio show he hosted on Greater London Radio, Garth Crooks in Conversation, which even won him a Sony Award in 1999-2000.

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

Can you help?

"On a recent tour of Rotterdam Docks I noticed a container ship called Borussia Dortmund painted of course in garish yellow and black," writes Paul Corrigan. "Do any other clubs have ships named after them?"

"In South America goal posts used to have a painted black band at the bottom," writes Ian Donnelly. "What was all that about? I have always wondered, but not found anyone who could tell me."

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