“Harry Kane has just scored 13 goals in September. That’s a lot. What’s the record for the most goals scored in a calendar month by a professional footballer?” asks Gregg Bakowski.



Evan Rye points out that Robert Lewandowski managed 14 in September 2015. “He started off with a goal and a double in Euro 2016 qualification matches against Germany and Gibraltar respectively, before scoring one against Augsburg in the Bundesliga. He failed to score against Olympiakos in the Champions League but bounced back with his famous five goals within nine minutes against Wolfsburg , another double against Mainz and a hat-trick in the Champions League against Dinamo Zagreb.”

Rodion Camataru, one of the great Romanian strikers, also managed 14 in June 1987. The Dinamo Bucharest forward scored twice against Flacara Moreni, four against Sportul Studentesc Bucharest, five against Jiul Petrosani and added another three against Rapid Bucharest on 25 June – the final day of the season.

That streak comes with a caveat, however. Camataru had also managed 12 in May, giving him 44 for the season and enabling him to overhaul Rapid Vienna’s Toni Polster for the European Golden Boot that season. The suspiciously generous defending, prompted by the Ceausescu regime, that had helped him get to that tally (there was no shortage of Romanian golden boot winners in the 1970s and 80s) meant he was stripped of the award in 1990.

Has anyone managed 15? Well, yes. Step forward, um, former Burnley, Bolton and Blackburn manager Owen Coyle. The young Airdrieonians striker demonstrated his form with a couple of goals on the August opening day of the 1990-91 season but in September he went supernova with a double against Meadowbank Thistle, hat-tricks against Kilmarnock, Forfar and Ayr Utd and then all four against Clyde.

But even that streak can be bettered by Masashi Nakayama. “In April 1998, Nakayama – the scorer of Japan’s first ever goal at the World Cup finals, at France 1998 – scored at least three goals in four consecutive J1 League matches played for Jubilo Iwata on the 15th, 18th, 25th and 29th day of that month,” writes Luca De Angelis. “Five goals away at Cerezo Osaka, four at home to Sanfrecce Hiroshima, four goals away at Avispa Fukuoka and three goals at home to Consadole Sapporo. He also scored a goal for Japan, in a friendly against South Korea on 1 April, taking his tally for that month to a remarkable 17.”

And while it’s perhaps not quite in the spirit of the thing: “Archie Thompson managed 16 goals in six days for the Australian national team,” writes Oliver Robinson. “He scored one against Tonga on 11 April 2001, then 13 against American Samoa on 3 April and two against Real Samoa on the 16th. He was also playing in Australia’s National Soccer League with Marconi Stallions at the time.” A bit of rooting around tells us that Thompson didn’t score for Marconi in April. In fact, he scored six for them all season – less than half his goal glut for Australia.

And no Knowledge article on this kind of topic would be complete without reference to the ludicrously prolific Albanian forward Refik Resmja, who managed 13 goals in two games for Partizan Tirana in February 1951 and followed it up with 13 in four games in March.

Mascots honoured

“During the Stuttgart v Augsburg game in the Bundesliga, the home team wore a special kit to mark their mascot’s 25th birthday – with his face on the front. Can any other fans recall a mascot being given such special treatment?” asks Steve Joseph.

Stuttgart’s Timo Baumgartl (right) leaps for a header against Augsburg, with Fritzle on his shirt. Photograph: Marijan Murat/AP

Fritzle’s birthday – Stuttgart’s alligator mascot emerged from a giant red and white egg on 22 August 1992, the egg having been first seen in Stuttgart’s 1992-93 team photo – was marked by a fairly uninspiring 0-0 draw at the Mercedes-Benz Arena and he isn’t the first mascot to have featured prominently on a club’s shirt.

“Didn’t the mighty Jags, aka Partick Thistle, have their LSD-trip-gone-wrong mascot on their shirt all of the 2015-16 season if not longer?” wonders Tim Maitland. They did indeed:

Partick Thistle’s Kris Doolan in 2015. Photograph: Mark Runnacles/Getty Images

Multiple statues



“Can any football players match or better Geoff Hurst’s two statues (one at Curzon Ashton FC and one at the old Boleyn Ground)?” wonders Scott Sumner.

The answer to this is an absolute doddle thanks to Jon Matthews, who points us in the direction of this: the Sporting Statues Project, a database of, yes, sporting statues compiled by researchers from the University of Sheffield.

“The earliest footballer statue identified, an anonymous player, can be found in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was sculpted in 1903,” says Dr Chris Stride, one of the academics behind the project. “However, almost 95% of football statues have been created since 1990, and over half in the last decade, showing it to be a largely modern phenomenon.”

Which is all very well but who has the most? In the UK, Hurst’s two can be matched by, among others, Jackie Milburn (who has one at St James’ Park, one in nearby Ashington, his home town), Sir Stanley Matthews (one at the Britannia Stadium, one in Hanley), and Bobby Moore (Wembley and Upton Park). Brian Clough can go one better with three – in Nottingham’s Market Square, at Derby County’s Pride Park and in Albert Park, Middlesbrough. When it comes to British footballers with statue collections, he’s in the top one.

The Clough family unveil the statue in Nottingham’s Market Square. Photograph: David Jones/PA

But worldwide, three statues just won’t cut it. Ferenc Puskas, for example, has four (three in Hungary, one in Melbourne, Australia where he spent three years as a manager) while Diego Maradona has five dotted around Argentina.

But the undoubted king of the football statue is, of course, Pelé, who has 11 (ELEVEN) around the world – eight in Brazil, two in India (in Bangalore where a colourful effigy stands alongside Mother Teresa and in Kolkata, where he’s resplendent in gold) and one in Ukraine, at the Pelé museum in Lugansk.

Gigs at grounds (3)

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve looked into the unlikeliest gigs played at football grounds, and the examples just keep on coming.

“How’s three for the price of one?” begins Tim Postins. “Back in 2005 Neil Diamond played Hull City, Ipswich Town and Bristol City as part of a four-date UK tour (the fourth was at Woburn Abbey, which hasn’t, to my knowledge, housed any football in its almost 900-year history, although it did play host to an episode of Treasure Hunt in 1986). I should know, I was at the Ashton Gate gig with my family.”



And in European tour news: “Dire Straits’ Love Over Gold tour in the summer of 1983 involved them undertaking an apparently random run of Italian lower division football grounds,” writes Stuart Webber. “Over a period of five nights they played at Novara (then in Serie C2), followed by Ferrara (home of Spal, then in Serie C1), Prato (Serie C1), then Cava de’ Tirreni (home of Cavese, then enjoying the most successful period in their history in Serie B). This run of obscure Italian football stadia was interrupted by a gig at Le Capannelle, a racecourse in Rome. I may blow any vestiges of credibility by admitting that I went to the gig at Prato …”

And Alun Watkins points out that Stevie Wonder played at the Vetch Field in 1984.

Knowledge archive

“Over a few beers last week a friend regaled me with a tale that included the rather random fact that John Hartson once stole a sheep but I have no means to check the veracity of the story,” wrote a bemused Phil Sedgewood in 2007. “Say it ain’t so.”

Sadly, Phil, it isn’t just defenders, scales and Eyal Berkovic who have been given a fright during the Welshman’s career but also our woolly four-legged friends. “I was at Luton and two of my Swansea mates, Jason Wright and Kevin Davis, came up for some fun,” Hartson told the Sunday People in an interview. “We got absolutely lashed and, at about three in the morning, we found the minibus that was to take us back to my place. On the way we stopped beside a field and stole a sheep that was minding her own business, threw her in the back of the van and then drove on home for a sleep.

“There was understandable pandemonium in the morning. I had a hangover and I’d completely forgotten about the sheep, which was roaming around the back garden in a state of some distress. We bundled her back in the van and dropped her off in the first field we found with sheep in it. Somehow we got away with it.”

Can you help?

“Sitting down to watch Lithuania v England (with little else to do) I noticed that Gareth Southgate has handed starts to three Harrys – Winks, Maguire and Kane,” writes Alex Chance. “When was the last time three players with the same forename lined up for England?”

“This article about a non-league team in Bradford losing five players before kick-off as they set the satnav incorrectly got me wondering,” writes James Mackenzie. “I remember Manchester United under Louis van Gaal having to delay kick-off due to the bus taking a detour in central London before a game with West Ham, but has a game ever been postponed due to a satnav error? Has it ever happened to a professional team?”

“Before their World Cup qualifying match, Bolivia striker Marcelo Martins took the unusual step of posing in Brazil’s team photo,” writes Chai. “Has there been any previous instance when an opposition player has been included in a team photo for an official match?”

Bolivia’s Marcelo Martins (in green) lines up with the Brazil team. He played for the seleção at under-20 level. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

“On a particularly slow day at work today, looking back through previous World Cup qualifying campaigns, it seems that Ethiopia were part of the Uefa qualifying for the 1962 World Cup in Chile, along with Italy, Cyprus, Israel and Romania (who later withdrew),” writes Dominic Gray. “Is there any explanation for this?”

“Has a European player ever won the Copa Libertadores?” wonders Stoyan Ivanov.

“Since the advent of the League of Ireland in 1921, 10 sides bearing the city name of Cork have appeared in the League’s top two divisions,” writes Phil Farrell. “They are Cork FC (1930-38), Cork Bohemians (1932-34), Cork City I (1938-40), Cork United I (1940-48), Cork Athletic (1948-57), Cork Celtic (1952-79), Cork Hibernians (1957-77), Cork Alberts (1977-79), Cork United II (1978-82), and Cork City II (1984-present). While some of these clubs are merely rebrandings or phoenix clubs emanating from others; nonetheless these 10 different club names have featured on flags, scarves and shirt badges that have graced the league. Has any city lent its name to so many different top flight clubs?”

Hi Knowledge, Where some former players go on to manage pubs, get 'normal' jobs etc. Has any player 'disappeared' never to be seen again? — Crawford (@UrbanGriller) October 10, 2017

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