“What is the hottest English league or cup game on record?” asks Mike Dunn.

“In our era of climate change, the answer is probably last week, but I think I know the game that was most affected,” perspires Andy Wright, before letting us in on a remarkable saga of woe. “Bizarrely, it took place in Manchester.

“On 1 September 1906, in City’s first game of the season (home to Woolwich Arsenal), the temperature was reported as being ‘over 90F in the shade and too hot for sunbathing’. How much above 90F is anyone’s guess, but even that is 32.2C in today’s money.

“On 35 mins, City’s Irvine Thornley left the pitch due to sunstroke. Before half-time, he was joined by teammate Jimmy Conlin, who had started the game with a handkerchief tied on his head. City began the second half 0-2 down and with nine men, but in the 50th minute Conlin, plus handkerchief, returned to set up George Dorsett to make it 1-2. That was as good as it got for City, and before long they were reduced to eight men, losing their scorer and Bob Grieve to heat exhaustion.

“The ref consulted his linesmen, but they agreed there was no just cause for abandoning the game. Woolwich scored two more to win 1-4, by which time City’s Tommy Kelso and James Buchan had also retired, so they finished the game with five fit men and the plucky Conlin. The Daily Mail reported that Arsenal were clearly the fitter and better-prepared team, and chose not to take advantage of their opponents’ misfortune.”

Colourful characters

“Was discussing Yerry Mina with a friend and ended up talking about players who were named after cartoon or comic characters. The only others we could come up with were Hulk and Kun (Agüero). There surely must be more,” writes Kesavan Mukunthan.

Funnily enough a previous Knowledge “Can you help?” section, from August 2011, provides part of an answer here. At the time a certain Milos pointed out that Dragan “Piksi” Stojkovic, the Yugoslavia legend, received his nickname from a cartoon mouse in Pixie and Dixie. But Milos was looking for further examples – and no one else appears to have stepped up to the plate.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dragan Stojkovic celebrates after scoring at the 1998 World Cup. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Allsport

Unbroken titles

Kieho Várzea Ma'a (@topes_lose) This season, Tranmere Rovers return to contest League Two alongside eight teams with the suffix Town, including six successive fixtures against these clubs over the New Year. What is the record for successive fixtures versus clubs with the same (or no) prefix or suffix?

The winner here appears to Leicester, who seven years before their title win pulled off another minor miracle by playing seven different Uniteds in a row – Colchester, Peterborough, Carlisle, Hereford, Leeds, Southend and Scunthorpe – at the back end of the 2008-09 League One title-winning season.

Robert Hickman has another worthy entry. “In 1920-21, Notts County, Leyton Orient and Fulham played seven teams with the suffix City in a row,” he tells us. The Leyton Orient and Fulham chains stretch over the end of one season and into the next, so only Notts County really satisfies the question. However, the scheduling in these years involved a lot of back-to-back matches and so is cheating a bit.

“More recently Chesterfield played six different teams with the suffix City in a row in 1950-51, and, even more bizarrely, Carlisle United played five other different Uniteds at the start of the 1988-89 Fourth Division season.”

Unworthy winners

“The Washington Valor arena football team just won their league’s championship, having finished bottom of the table with a record of won two, lost 10 – but still qualifying for the end-of-season play-offs in which they triumphed,” reports Kyle Hill. “Their final record was four won, 11 lost. In that spirit, what’s the worst football club to ever end up as champions (or just promoted)?”

Michael Peters has a worthy proposal. “I’d humbly like to submit POSCO Atoms, South Korean champions of 1986,” he writes. “The six-team league was played in two round robin stages, with the winners of each stage meeting in a two-leg play-off to decide the overall champions. POSCO won the first stage (P10 W3 D6 L1 F9 A5) and came fifth in the second stage (P10 W2 D2 L6 F9 A18). They then beat Lucky-Goldstar Hwangso 2-1 over two legs to win the league on a record of P22 W6 D9 L7 F20 A24.”

We can’t find anything comparably awful although, for a cracking read on a similar topic, we recommend this Rob Smyth Joy of Six from 2009 on the worst champions.

Knowledge archive

“Plenty of teams have a City or Town suffix, but is a there a Village?” asked Philip Genochio on 17 March 2010. “And if so, what’s the highest level they’ve played at?”

There are plenty of Villages, though there’s a good reason why Philip hadn’t heard of any: they’re all tremendously obscure, or tremendously foreign. There’s Park Street Village, who used to play in the Herts Senior County League. The Mid Sussex League features three Villages: Maresfield, Franklands and Handcross. In the same county, Pease Pottage Village play in the Sussex County League Division Three.

The best Village team in Wales, so far as we can tell, is Llansantffraid Village of the Mid Wales League. Trefnant Village played in the Clwyd League until a couple of years ago, when they stopped. A team called Garden Village in Swansea don’t count, because “that’s not suffixed, it’s the actual name of the place”, according to Lee Davies. The same ruling would exclude North Village Rams of the Bermudian Premier Division. Other Caribbean Villages include Village Superstars of the St Kitts-Nevis Premier Division, and Village United of the Jamaican National Premier League.

As for the foreign villages, linguists will know that dorf means village in German, making Fortuna Düsseldorf, currently in the Bundesliga 2 but champions in 1933, comfortably our finest village outfit. “Although,” as Alex Cunningham writes, “585,000 inhabitants does make it a largish village.” Düsseldorf probably falls foul of the Garden Village ruling, as does the Israeli side Hapoel Kfar Saba (Kfar Saba meaning “grandfather’s village”).

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kevin Keegan (right) plays at Fortuna Düsseldorf in 1978. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/Shutterstock

Can you help?

“In the Paraguayan league, David Mendieta of Independiente scored a goal against Sol de América assisted by David Mendieta,” says Juan Pablo Zaracho. “Are there any other players who have scored after receiving an assist by a teammate with the same first and last name?”

“I noticed that Vincent, Sébastien and Oliver Thill have all scored a goal for Luxembourg and was wondering what the record is for the amount of siblings who have scored for their country?” ponders Simon Hurst. “Their father, Serge Thill, also played for the national team but was unable to register a goal.”

“Of the 22 players starting the Newcastle v Tottenham game, every one was with their club last season,” notes Phil Boyle. “How long is it since that has happened in a first game of the season, and has it ever happened in the Premier League era? The only signing starting was Martin Dubravka, who converted his loan to a permanent deal.”



“With only nine of the 20 teams in Premier League this season coming from north of Watford Gap, is this the most southern-dominated top flight ever?” asks Ian Brailsford.