Plus: Flipping rivalries; the manager who resigned at half-time; and football’s strangest lawsuits. Send your questions and answers to: knowledge@theguardian.com and follow us on Twitter @TheKnowledge_GU

“As of 1 September two teams – Blackpool in the Championship and Crewe Alexandra in League One – are yet to win a point, both having played five games,” wrote Ed Richardson last week. “What is the longest losing streak at the start of a season in the Premier League or Football League?”

It hasn’t exactly been a great start by either club but the Railwaymen and the Tangerines have got a fair way to go to reach the record, a mark that has stood the test of time. Cast your mind back, if you will, to the late summer of 1930. The effects of the Wall Street Crash were still reverberating around the globe. Sculptors were just chiselling the first heads into Mount Rushmore. Hungry consumers were being wowed by Otto Frederick Rohwedder’s new bread slicing machine and couldn’t imagine anything ever being invented that was any better. And Manchester United were having a right old time of it.

The glories of the earliest part of the century – those two league titles in four years between 1907-08 and 1910-11 – were long gone and United were a club in decline. They had dropped into the second tier in 1921-22 and though they bounced three seasons later, they had finished no higher than ninth between 1925-26 and 1929-30. There was little optimism around the club for the first season of the new decade, but they did have a young tyro named Joe Spence banging in the goals, so how bad could it be?

Pretty bad as it turned out. Just over 18,000 turned out on the opening day to see United on the receiving end of a 4-3 thriller against Villa. Then they went to Middlesbrough and lost 3-1. Then came a 6-2 shellacking at Chelsea, which was followed by a 6-0 home hammering at the hands of Huddersfield, and a 7-4 defeat when Newcastle United visited town. “At least we’re scoring goals,” manager Herbert Bamlett told himself. “Just need to tighten up at the back.”

Which they did, conceding only three at Huddersfield, three at Sheffield Wednesday and two against Grimsby. But the goals had dried up: played eight, lost eight, scored eight, conceded 34. They found the net in the Manchester derby against City next up, but conceded four. And it was a similar story in the 5-1 defeat at West Ham. They got as close to a point as they’d managed all autumn against Arsenal but lost 2-1, and then went to Portsmouth and were beaten 4-1.

Finally, on 1 November 1930, United scraped a win, beating a hapless Birmingham 2-0 at home. But that run of 12 successive defeats at the start of a season remains an English record (and United went on to be relegated). Pessimistic Blackpool and Crewe fans might want to pencil their away trip to Huddersfield and Walsall respectively on 18 October as a potentially record-breaking day.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. “A similar thing happened with my team, Kidderminster Harriers, who although a non-league side, went on a run of five consecutive defeats at the beginning of the 2012-13 season,” begins James Phillips. “This was then followed by a run of five draws. Yet come April 2013 we sat in second place in the Blue Square Premier, eventually losing out to the top spot to Mansfield by just two points.”

FLIPPING RIVALRIES

“What with Portsmouth only narrowly avoiding dropping into the Conference and Southampton enjoying a great season in the Premier League, I was wondering if there are any other examples of rival clubs enjoying such extreme changes of fortune in such a short period of time,” began Andrew Chambers last week. “In 2007-08 Portsmouth were eighth in the Premier League (and won the FA Cup) and Southampton 20th in the second tier – a difference of 32 places in Portsmouth’s favour. Six years later, in 2013-14, Southampton were eighth in the Premier League and Portsmouth 13th in the fourth tier – a difference of 72 places in Southampton’s favour. There are other footballing rivalries I can think of where one club declines, but none where there has been such dramatic swings of fortune within just a few years. Can anyone beat this?”

So, let’s get our parameters sorted. From 2008 to 2014 Portsmouth and Southampton had a swing in league position of 104 places – an average of 17.333 (recurring) positions per season. Can anyone compare? Let’s find out.

“In the 2001-2002 season, Leeds came fifth in the Premier League and Hull finished 13th in what is now League Two, 76 places behind Leeds,” begins Dan McAlpin. “Fast-forward seven years to the 2008-2009 season and Hull came 17th in the Premier League and Leeds were 5th in League One, 32 places ahead of Leeds, completing a 108 place swing in seven years.” Putting aside the fact that that rivalry is not exactly top of either club’s list, it’s only an average season swing of 15.42.

Ian Brailsford suggests the swing between Stockport County and Manchester City, who again despite not being what you might term “main” rivals are at least geographically local enough to be antagonistic. In 1998-99, County finished 16th in the second tier with City third in the third tier, 11 places further down the ladder. Last season City won the Premier League while Stockport finished 14th in the Conference North – a gap of 130 places. But still an average season swing of only 9.4.

So to Spain. “In June 1991 CD Castellón got relegated from La Liga after finishing 19th,” begins Jorge Penalver. “Meanwhile Villarreal got a chance of promotion after being second in their group of the Tercera, Spain’s fourth tier which is split into 17 groups. With the division above – Segunda División B – being formed of four groups of 20 that means that Castellón were still a cool 118 places on top.

“A mere four years later, in 1994-95 they both played in the Segunda División, with Villarreal finishing 16th while CD Castellón got relegated after finishing just below on 17th. That is a 119 swing in just four years.” That’s a whopping average season swing of 29.75.

And there’s more: “The bad news for Portsmouth is that it can get much worse: last season Villarreal were sixth in the Primera while CD Castellón were 15th in their Tercera group, a cool 252 places difference. Or a 370-place swing in 23 years.”

Dennis Lindroos, however, points us towards one for the future – Blackpool and Fleetwood Town. In 2004-05 Fleetwood finished top of the North West Counties League; Blackpool were 16th in the second tier. The North West Counties was the fifth tier of non-league football in England, and similar to the Castellón/Villarreal situation we have pyramids in play. By our reckoning there were 276 teams between the teams 10 years ago. Fleetwood are flying high in League One. Blackpool really need to end that losing streak.

NOW GET OUT THERE AND … HANG ON, I’M OFF

“Having been taken off on a tangent by Wikipedia, not for the first time, I arrived at the page of Guy Roux,” wrote Eamonn Kelly last week. “Reading on I saw that Roux had resigned from RC Lens during a 2-1 loss to Strasbourg. Upon further investigation I discovered that he actually resigned after the game but my interest in the subject was piqued and hence my question: have any managers resigned from their posts during a game? (Rather than been fired, which we’ve covered before – Knowledge Ed)”

Here’s Michael Gahler with a tale from Switzerland: “Back in 2006 Nestor Clausen, coach of then Swiss league leaders FC Sion and former World Cup Winner in 1986 with Argentina, resigned at half-time during a cup tie with the team 1-0 down,” he writes. “Funnily enough Sion still managed to win that game 3-1 thanks to a second-half hat-trick from Sanel Kuljic.”

For more on Christian Constantin’s colourful spell in charge of Sion, there’s a fine piece to be found in When Saturday Comes.

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

“After reading about the amusing tale of Mario Zagallo and Zico taking Romario to court for painting their faces on his bar’s toilet doors, I got to wondering if there have ever been any stranger lawsuits in football,” wrote David Jones back in 2007.

Before we press on, David, it would be remiss of us not to revisit the Romario story. Back in 1998, after Romario was axed from Zagallo’s World Cup squad, he decided to have the toilet doors at his Cafe do Gol sports bar painted with a cartoon depiction of the national manager sitting on a toilet. Zagallo’s, er, No2 Zico didn’t escape punishment either: he was depicted on another door with a loo roll in his hand. Zagallo launched a lawsuit, stating that “the cartoons are personal revenge for him being dropped from the national team”. Justice officials subsequently ordered the removal of the images and the entire doors of Romario’s bar were taken away. Zagallo also received damages.

Equally lacking in humour were Michael Ballack and Oliver Kahn after German erotic retailer Beate Uhse attempted to cash in on World Cup fever last year by launching a special line of 17cm vibrators. Three went by the names of “Michael B”, “Ollie K” and “David B”. “This is a clear violation of image rights,” raged Kahn’s lawyer. “We will take action.” Despite the company’s protestation that “we never had any intention to make a connection between the vibrators on sale in our shops with [the players],” a judge forced them to pay Kahn and Ballack €50,000 and remove the items from sale. David Bentley never pursued the case.

Wily Ukraine national coach Oleg Blokhin also tasted victory in court after he was forced to resign from the position because of his other job, as a Ukrainian MP. However, in March 2005, Blokhin took his case to Kiev’s court of appeal, where he proved he was moonlighting as “a teacher” and that he received no payment for doing so. So the judge reinstated him.

Finally, a rather unusual case could soon be heading for the courts after Atalanta striker Christian Vieri filed a lawsuit against his former club Internazionale and Telecom Italia for allegedly spying on him between 1999 and 2005. As our own James Richardson has previously reported, “just last autumn Inter’s president Massimo Moratti admitted that the club had regularly spied on Christian during his time there and even tapped his phone. Vieri, ever one to see the lighter side, responded with a £14m lawsuit, citing “moral and existential damage’ to his public image”.

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

Can you help?

“According to my calculations, Glenn Hoddle sang (or at least joined the chorus) on no fewer than five UK top 20 hit singles between 1981 and 1987, two of which managed to reach the top five,” pop-picks Darren Beach. “Has there ever been a footballer with more chart success?”

“The other week at Villa Park Steve Bruce’s Hull City players took an instant dislike to Jack Grealish who came on as a sub for Aston Villa at the end of the game,” writes Martin Hajek. “Three players got booked in the space of five minutes for a foul on the young winger who likes to wear kid’s shinpads. Is that some kind of a record?”

“In England we frequently refer to the ball as “it” – lump it forwards, takes it on his right, head it etc etc. Is that the same everywhere? Do the french call the football “il” and the Spanish “que”? I’ve heard some countries call the ball “her”.

“Apropos of nothing, could you tell me the last time a big match was decided by a coin toss (or similar)?” writes Richard Jones. “I have a vague memory of this happening in the FA Cup as recently as the early 90s, and West Ham may have been the losers. I’d also be curious about the biggest match to be decided in this way. Can you shed any light on this?”

“It is very important that you help me find a James Bond/football pun,” writes Kay Arr. “A friend says there isn’t one and the best I can come up with is 00Kevin Nolan. There is a pint – a whole pint – riding on this.”

“In New Zealand this week, centre-forward Jeremy Brockie finally scored his first international goal, in his 45th game,” writes Tony Levaggi. “And just to be clear, he is not the sort of striker who frequently gets played out wide, or drops back into midfield. Is this the longest any attacking player (let alone centre-forward) has had to (or been allowed to) wait before scoring?”

“Dundalk scored after 12 seconds in the League of Ireland on Monday night … after their opponents Derry had taken the kick-off,” writes Sam Alanson. “Is this the quickest goal ever scored by a team who didn’t kick off?”

Send your questions and answers to the lovely people at knowledge@theguardian.com