Plus: the last sub-less English top-flight game; more lack of brotherly love; and bees v football. Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet us @TheKnowledge_GU

“I’m looking for Zizous and Jürgen Kohlers – ie, players who were sent off in their final game before retirement,” tweets Nils Henrik Smith.

The Zidane story is well-trodden, while Kohler’s career came to an end in the 31st minute of the 2002 Uefa Cup final, his Borussia Dortmund colleagues eventually going down 3-2 to Feyenoord in Rotterdam.

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But ignominy visits the illustrious in all manner of guises, and not every highly decorated player who sees red in their last match does so on the world or European stage. Take Edgar Davids. As a Champions League, Uefa Cup and Eredivisie winner with Ajax and three-time champion of Serie A with Juventus, the former Holland midfielder can hardly have imagined he would bow out of the game in a fug of red mist at Salisbury City while striving to restore Barnet to the Football League in 2013. That is nonetheless precisely what happened, the player-manager finally deciding to call it quits after receiving a third red card of the season. “I think I know for definite now that the league is targeting Barnet,” said Davids. “I don’t know how many games we have played now but there is weird decision-making all the time. It is ridiculous. I don’t think I’m going to play any more.”

Meanwhile, Matt Rudd emails in with a close-but-no-cigar tale. “For two and a half years it looked like Carlton Palmer would fit this particularly dubious bill,” he begins. “As player-manager of Stockport, he went into two clumsy late challenges at Cheltenham in February 2003 and received his marching orders before half-time, though his players were amply capable of doing the job without him and won the game with two late goals. Palmer decided to stay suited up in the dugout for the remainder of the season and into the next one, prior to receiving his marching orders. His next appointment was at Mansfield Town and the likelihood of him playing as well as managing seemed very small, whereupon he decided to pick himself for the opening day of the 2005-06 season at – yes – Stockport County, leading to accusations that he had put himself in the side as a vanity exercise, and to prove a point. He subbed himself after 56 minutes, the game ended 2-2 and he never played professional football again.”

However, Stephan Wijnen set us off in the rather inevitable direction of Mark van Bommel, PSV captain in his swan-song against FC Twente on 12 May 2013, whose two second-half bookings resulted in an early career bath. “The red card I received was perhaps a reflection of the whole season,” Van Bommel told De Telegraaf after PSV finished second in the Eredivisie and lost the KNVB Cup final to AZ Alkmaar. “I particularly remember the best moments,” he said. “I had 20 minutes to reflect on this statement.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A second yellow card signals the end of Mark van Bommel’s career. Photograph: Peter Lous/AFP

Accept no substitutes

“When I were a lad, many moons ago, I remember the days of one substitute per side,” sniffs Darran Jalland. “The sub was usually only used in the event of an injury, and very occasionally as a tactical switch. With subs being so commonplace now, when was the last time an English top-flight match featured no changes at all?”

Thanks to Jonny Cooper at Opta for supplying the answer to this question. There have, to our surprise, been 48 Premier League matches with no substitutions on either side, though only three have happened since the turn of the century. The most recent was Manchester United 3-0 Fulham in 2002-03. Before that there was West Ham United 1-1 Manchester United in the same season, and Leeds United 1-2 Ipswich Town in 2000-01.

Brotherly shove (and the odd kick) II

In last week’s Knowledge, we looked at the footballer sent off for fouling his brother. But there are more …

Here’s Simon Kirwan: “I witnessed a match at St Andrews in the late 70s or early 80s when Bob Latchford, great Everton centre-forward, was sent off for a late challenge against his brother Dave, goalkeeper for Birmingham City. Bob, of course, had been signed from Birmingham in a deal that included Howard Kendall going the other way as a make-weight. Kendall’s first act on his return to Everton as player-manager was to ship Latchford out.”

And reader Mike adds: “I was at a Spurs v Wolves game in the late 60s and the two Knowles brothers, Cyril for Spurs and Peter for Wolves, came face to face just outside the Spurs penalty area, with Cyril on the ball. Peter didn’t so much as foul Cyril, he ignored the ball totally and concentrated on violently hacking Cyril’s shins with left and right foot alternately for a number of seconds. Cyril looked at him during this attack, raising his arms and shrugging his shoulders in a pleading manner while smiling in complete incomprehension. Peter was the younger of the two and maybe was trying to prove a point to his older sibling … who knows? Cyril didn’t seem to have a clue. Perhaps Peter was nursing an old grudge, which would surely have been a serious one considering the severity of the attack. As a footnote Peter went on to become a Jehovah’s Witness and Cyril sadly died in 1991 at the age of 47.”

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Knowledge archive

“Having seen Whyteleafe v Hythe Town called off due to a referee bee-sting incident, are there any other examples of games abandoned in similar fashion?” tweeted Jim Calver in 2012.

The match between Whyteleafe and Hythe Town was abandoned when the referee Ashley Slaughter suffered a severe allergic reaction to a bee sting. He drifted in and out of consciousness and his life may well have been saved by the prompt attention of a student, Gemma Clark, who is also the club physiotherapist. After Slaughter’s release from hospital, the club secretary Chris Layton, said: “Ashley called me and asked me to convey his thanks to everyone who helped him, and Gemma in particular. The afternoon was extremely traumatic and none of us want to go through that again. Heaven only knows what would have happened had Gemma not been there.”

It was not the first game to be abandoned or halted because of bees. Back in 2011, a junior match in Brazil was temporarily stopped when a swarm invaded the field. “At first, I thought it might be some kind of ploy by our opponents [to get the match suspended] since we were losing 1-0,” said the Náutico coach Sergio China, with a straight face. Another match in Brazil that year was similarly interrupted; when the game resumed, there was a brawl between the two sides and a fan was shot dead after the game.

And finally – with added video – here’s yet another game from Brazil that was bee-affected, and had the players lying down on the floor like something out of Radiohead’s Just.

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



Can you help?



“With Finn Harps having been promoted to the Premier League in Ireland, I wondered how many clubs bearing the name of a musical instrument can be found in the top flight of football leagues around the world,” muses John Hone.



“Jorge Jesus, who last year took the short trip across northern Lisbon to manage Sporting after leading Benfica to three Portuguese titles, has taken charge of the Portuguese capital’s three main clubs (Belenenses being the third) in European competitions,” notes Oliver Farry. “In Ireland I can find two coaches who have similarly led three different clubs from the same city into Europe: Dubliners Pat Fenlon (Shelbourne, Bohemians and Shamrock Rovers) and Liam Buckley (St Patrick’s Athletic, Shamrock Rovers and the now-defunct Sporting Fingal). Are there managers that have been on European duties for more than three clubs from the same city?”



“Which international football team has played in the greatest number of stadiums in their own country?” asks Martin Peters. “Could it be Spain?”