Plus: the team with most 1-0 wins, the most recently born international, and fathers and sons who have won the Premier League. Email knowledge@theguardian.com or get in touch via Twitter @TheKnowledge_GU

“Conor Washington scored for Northern Ireland in their friendly recently … and it was the first time he had ever set foot in the country,” emails Ian Bendelow. “My question is: has a player ever represented a country – and even scored – without ever going there?”

It’s a good question, Ian, though its premise isn’t quite right. Conor Washington did indeed score on his home debut for Northern Ireland. However, the QPR striker had been to Northern Ireland before. When he was a Peterborough player, the club agreed to play a friendly in Belfast. Adam Wilson takes up the story: “As part of Joe Gormley’s transfer from Cliftonville to Peterborough United, the north Belfast club hosted Posh last summer – with the visitors convincing 6-0 winners. Second half substitute Washington got his name on the scoresheet and provided an assist.”

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But just because Adam has ruined everyone’s fun, there’s no need not to give Ian’s riff a runout. As it turns out, and thanks to football’s notoriously lax rules on eligibility, there are a number of players who had not visited a country before playing for their international side – in fact far more than we can list here, so these are some highlights.

The late, great Charlton player John Hewie (who turned out in nine different positions for his club – including goalkeeper – in his 17-year career there) was born in South Africa to Scottish parents and carved out a reputation at Arcadia Shepherds before upping sticks to south-east London. At Charlton, he caught the eye of the then England coach, Walter Winterbottom, but Scotland found out where his parents were from and swiftly stuck him in a Scotland B side at Edinburgh in 1953. Hewie joked on his debut that it was the first time he had ever set foot in the country.

Alas, he didn’t score and in fact had a dog of a game, so fell quickly out of the Scotland reckoning and was no longer eligible for anyone else. But after impressing in a friendly for a South Africa side (that was really just a South Africans Who Happen To Be In London At That Moment side) against, coincidentally, Scotland in a friendly to raise funds for the British Olympic team, the Scottish selectors called him up once more and from 1956 he went on to win 19 caps.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Scotland football team set to take part in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, with John Hewie on the far left in the back row. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

Scotland have quite the reputation for calling up players who have never been to the country before, with George Boyd being one reasonably recent player to have not set foot in the country before representing them, and Matt Ritchie another: “I’ve still got relatives in Scotland but my aunties and uncles always seem to come down here to see my nan and granddad so I haven’t actually been to Scotland,” admitted the Bournemouth winger on his call-up.

“I also don’t believe Chris ‘Me Mum’ Birchall had ever been to Trinidad and/or Tobago before his first call-up while playing for Port Vale,” emails Chris Smith. “He qualified by dint of his mother being born in Port of Spain, and when asked about his right to represent Trinidad & Tobago, his answer was ‘Me Mum’, by which nickname he was thereafter known in the squad.”

“Scott Arfield of Burnley recently received his first Canada cap in a 3-0 World Cup qualifying loss to Mexico despite never spending a minute in Canada before arriving for training,” writes Robert Scobel. “He obviously didn’t get a goal, however.”

We’ll allow a quick passing reference to Danny Higginbotham, who had not been to Gibraltar for 30 years before playing for them. However, as good as all of these are – none of them quite fits the description of a player who scores for a country without ever going there, as Arfield, Birchall et al at least trained in their respective countries before their debuts. Millwall’s Marc Bircham didn’t, though. And he scored eight minutes into his first match for Canada, too.

“London-born Bircham qualified to play for Canada through a grandfather from Winnipeg,” recalls Adam Pinder. “In April 1999 he came on as a sub to make his debut against Northern Ireland in Belfast. Eight minutes later he scored the opener in an eventual 1-1 draw.” After the match, Bircham pointed out: “I’ve never been to Canada but I’ve seen where it is on the map.”

Rob McEvoy emailed in to suggest Faysal Shayesteh, the Afghanistan captain who has turned out 17 times for his country but never actually played in his country because the instability there means it has not staged an international since 2013. However, Shayesteh was born there before moving to the Netherlands, so has set foot in Afghanistan. There are, however, a number of Afghan internationals not born in the country and who have also never played an international there: Khaibar Amani (birthplace: Germany), Norlla Amiri (Sweden), Sharif Mukhammad (Russia) and Hassan Amin (Germany). The Knowledge can’t verify whether they’ve ever been to Afghanistan but it seems possible that at least one of them hasn’t been to the country they represent and if none of them have, it raises the tantalising possibility of a side in which 35% of the team have not actually been to the country whose national anthem they’ll be attempting to sing before the match.

Any more for any more? Email knowledge@theguardian.com.

Small margins

“Leicester have had a recent glut of 1-0 wins,” begins Will Watson. “Has anyone ever had more over the course of a season?”

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Leicester’s 2-0 win over Sunderland brought to an end their run of five 1-0 victories in six games. This season, they’ve won by that scoreline seven times, leading to comparisons with Sir Alex Ferguson’s 1995-96 Manchester United side, who did something similar in winning the title with a run of 1-0 wins in the second half of the season.

While it’s been a talking point, there are plenty of other sides who have won 1-0 in the top flight far more than Leicester over the course of a season. As Opta’s stats show, Liverpool did it 12 times in 1973-74 as they finished second in the league, while Everton (1911-12), Huddersfield Town (1923-24) and José Mourinho’s relentless Chelsea side of 2004-05 did it 11 times to win the title, with Chelsea also having done it 10 times the season before under the man now managing Leicester, Claudio Ranieri. Arsenal, once famous for it, celebrated their 100th 1-0 win ever when they beat Newcastle in January.

But it is to Gary Megson’s West Brom side of 2001-02 we must turn to find the top-flight or second-tier English club who have won 1-0 the most frequently. In the season in which he (briefly) took them up from the Championship, they won 1-0 on 17 different occasions (15 in the league) and sealed promotion on the back of a rock solid defence. Goals, it seems, are overrated.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gary Megson: managerial genius. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA

Ready to feel old?

“Ellie Carpenter (date of birth: 28/04/00) made her debut for the Matildas on Wednesday,” tweeted Eric Subijano last month. “Has anyone born more recently played senior international football?”

Nik Fredriksson got on the case, giving the always excellent RSSSF site a jolly good working over. “Chevy Kate Alipio of the Northern Mariana Islands was born on 18 September 2000, and played for them against Guam in July 2014, aged 13 years and 305 days old. A team-mate born on 22 May of the same year also played. However, the Northern Mariana Islands are not Fifa members. If that must be the case, then Moeroa Harmon (Cook Islands) – born 8 July, made her debut v Tonga in October 2014. So Ellie Carpenter is the fourth most recently born international footballer.”

Family affair

“If Leicester win the league, will Kasper and Peter Schmeichel be the first father and son to win Premier League titles?” asks Hannah Skolnick. “And can you think of any other goalkeeping father and son duo to win the same league as each other?”

The short answer to the first question is no. Ian Wright and Shaun Wright-Phillips both have Premier League winners’ medals, while Darren Ferguson and Sir Alex Ferguson each have them for the same season – 1992-93 – though Ferguson Sr’s medal was, obviously, as a manager. As for whether any father and son goalkeepers have won the same league as each other, well, that’s harder to answer. It appears not – certainly not any major leagues – though Pepe Reina and his dad Miguel Reina Santos do both have European Cup final medals, but neither has “winner” written on it. There’s a bit more about it here.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Peter Schmeichel and his son Kasper will become the third father and son duo to win a Premier League winner’s medal if Leicester can win the title. Photograph: Action Images

Knowledge archive

“Zambian Laughter Chilembe has played in Zimbabwe for Caps United FC, while I also know about Suprise Moriri from Mamelodi Sundowns in South Africa,” wrote Tinashe Mutsungi Shoko in 2007. “But my favourite is one called Have-A-Look Dube playing for Njube Sundowns here in Zimbabwe! Any more strange/funny/good/ridiculous football names anyone can dredge up?”



“A quick look reveals some other odd-named players plying their trade in Zimbabwean football for Caps United,” begins Mark Baker. “Givemore Manuella, Gift Makolonio and Method Mwanyazi are great names, but they pale into comparison beside Limited Chicafa and the outstandingly-named Danger Fourpence.” Staying in Africa, there’s also Stephen Sunny Sunday, who plays for Polideportivo Ejido, and South Africa’s Naughty Mokoena and Tonic Chabalala. “Surely there can’t be any stranger than Austrian side SC Schwanenstadt’s marauding midfielder Osa Guobadia?” offers Andy Ferguson, who’ll have to do better than that. “He has the name Ice Cream on the back of his shirt.” More like it.

A very popular suggestion was Brazilian forward Creedence Clearwater Couto, whose parents were – fortunately – big fans of the American songsters, while there were also calls for former England internationals Harry Daft and Segar Bastard (who, incidentally, refereed an FA Cup final, played cricket for Essex and owned a racehorse).

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However, it would be remiss of us to ignore Anthony Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway - Charlie to his friends (“I’m named after the QPR 1972-73 promotion-winning team for those of you that have been on the moon all the time I’ve been at [Brighton]”) - or three of our favourites: Australian keeper Norman Conquest, Seychelles star Johnny Moustache, and Congolese striker Bongo Christ.

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

Can you help?

“Who was the first footballer to be worth their weight in gold?” tweets tresdessert.

“Just wanted to ask,” emails Aniket Joshi, “have there been any teams relegated on the final day of a league despite never having been in the relegation zone for the rest of the season?”



“Has any player ever picked up their second yellow card for removing their shirt after scoring?” asks Colin Williams.

“By my reckoning,” reckons Jamie Watt, “the only team in the top four leagues in Scotland and England that play in a town without a railway station is Forfar Athletic. Who, ironically, play at Station Park. Can anyone confirm this claim?”



“I remember three or four years back during the Africa Cup of Nations, a match was delayed as a result of a fallen goalpost,” begins Ojay Chima. “That, combined with the referee farcically adding more time than was actually wasted, contributed to causing a very long period for stoppage time. My question is: what is the longest duration of stoppage time in an official football match. Also, has there been a more bizarre equipment malfunction during an official football match?”

Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or get in touch via Twitter @TheKnowledge_GU

