“While procrastinating this morning, I came across Ivorian striker Serge Djiehoua,” writes Christopher Harding. “This itinerant big man up front appears to be among the frontrunners for fastest ever sending off, after just seven seconds on the pitch. Not only that, but those seven seconds seem to be the only seconds he ever played for his club at the time, Glyfada. Has there ever been a shorter on-field career with any given club? Obviously only counting players who have in fact made an appearance.”

We’ve tackled the fastest red cards in football, plus the fastest debut sendings off, so it’s well worth us getting on to this. “I’d be surprised if anybody can beat Serge Djiehoua,” admits Stephen Yoxall, “but an honourable mention must go to Pat McGibbon, famously sent off after 50 minutes of his Manchester United debut as York City won 3-0 at Old Trafford. Poor Pat never played for the club again.”

However, Tom Solan might have the winner. “In the Arsenal v Manchester United game from 22 August 1999,” he writes of one of the first matches the Guardian ever did with minute-by-minute commentary: “Raimond van der Gouw got injured right at the end of injury time when he was kicked in the face by an Arsenal player. After a long delay while he was treated by the physios (where the Sky Sports clock reached more than 100 minutes, an unbelievably exciting moment in my house) the Dutchman was replaced by Nick Culkin for his United debut. As soon as Culkin took the resulting free-kick, the referee blew the full-time whistle, meaning the young goalkeeper’s debut was over after little more than a second. He never played for United again.” You can catch the cameo at the end of this clip. Culkin went on to play for QPR, Radcliffe Borough, Prescot Cables and FC United of Manchester as well as working in garden maintenance.

Can anyone beat one second as a short on-field career? Answers to the usual knowledge@theguardian.com address.



Train journeys through founder league members

“While travelling to watch my team FC Halifax Town at AFC Fylde, my train called successively at Burnley, Accrington, Blackburn and Preston, one third of the original members of the Football League,” writes Steve Mawby. “Can any other train journey call in sequence at more founding members of a league?”

Rob Lawshaw licks his pencil and and begins: “I present to you the 1920-21 Division Three and Welsh-bound express trains from Paddington, which skip Didcot (sorry Didcot Town fans) such as the 6.45am, 7.45am, 8.45am etc. The trains leave from London and call first at Reading, Swindon, Bristol and Newport. Founder clubs of Division Three include QPR, Reading, Swindon Town, Bristol Rovers and Newport County. Next stop on the line is Cardiff, who were in the second division at the time, breaking the run of clubs/stations, but the service terminates at Swansea, where Swansea Town were also a founder member of the league.”

But let us all cede the floor and bow down to Mike Meehall Wood, and this slice of magnificence. Take it away, Mike: “Seeing as the Bundesliga only started in 1963, let me contribute that season. A train from Cologne to Hamburg would take in FC Koln, Borussia Dortmund, Preussen Munster, SV Miederich (Duisburg) Werder Bremen and HSV, or six clubs – more than Mr Mawby’s journey, without so much as getting off the train.

“The best shout percentage-wise, if you’ll allow it, is the first year of the DDR Oberliga in 1948. Using a handy map I found from the period, it should have been possible to travel from Zwickau (Horch Zwickau and Meerane) to Potsdam (SV Babelsberg), taking in Altenburg, Leipzig, Dessau and Halle en route, that being seven teams and 50% of the whole league, not to mention a checkpoint or two, given that this is post-war East Germany we’re talking about.

“If you’ll allow an interesting, if off-topic addition, may I also bid that of the 22 founding clubs of rugby league, nine – Rochdale, Halifax, Brighouse, Huddersfield, Liversedge, Bradford, Manningham, Batley and Leeds – were all on the same train line with which I used to commute to work from Rochdale to Leeds, incidentally, while working at the headquarters of Super League. Nice little package, if you will. Back in 1895, when the northern clubs broke away, to take the train from Hull (the most easterly) to Widnes (the most westerly) would have taken in 21 of 22, with only (I think) Stockport having presented any major deviation. In fact, the clubs were initially meeting at a pub called The Spread Eagle in Manchester, deemed the central point for all 22 members, However, on the date of the meeting at which the Northern clubs broke from the Southern Union, The Spread Eagle was double-booked, presumably for some sort of Victorian-era darts match or shove ha’penny championship, so the honour of the foundation point went to The George Hotel in Huddersfield. Its location? Directly outside the train station, of course.”

Mike, we’re slightly worried about you but well done. By gosh, well done.

I just can’t quit you …

Last week, we (briefly) looked at managers who have had the most spells with one club and set an opening bar of four with Martin Allen. As so often is the case, there’s more …

“I can’t beat Martin Allen’s four spells at Barnet but Steve Coppell also spent four spells as manager of Crystal Palace,” suggests Martin Burke. “From July 1984 to April 2001, Palace’s managers [non-caretaker] were: Coppell, Alan Smith, Coppell (second stint), Dave Bassett, Coppell (third), Terry Venables (second), Coppell (fourth), Smith (second). I guess they did like the devil they knew.

Paolo Cabrell has another four-timer: “This immediately made me think of four-timer Francesco Guidolin at Palermo. And then of course the fact that the owner, Maurizio Zamparini, has hired, fired/parted company with and rehired the following: Stefano Colantuono (two stints), Davide Ballardini (three), Delio Rossi (two), Gian Piero Gasperini (two), Giuseppe Sannino (two) and Giuseppe Iachini (two) – all since 2004.

Pablo Miguez goes one further: “I give you the Uruguayan Gregorio Pérez; he has managed Peñarol five different times.” Pérez said upon his fifth unveiling, in September 2011: “It is a pleasure to be reacquainted in this house that I love so much. Whatever happened in the past, the most important thing is the club and its people. The tensions were smoothed over between men. I am very happy and also extremely proud because returning for a fifth time is not a coincidence. Peñarol has given me so much to help me grow.” He was sacked six months later.

Luis Aragonés had four spells as manager of Atlético Madrid. Raddy Antić comes close to Martin Allen’s four with three stints at the helm for Atlético over the years and Antonio Briones remarkably had four goes between 1988 and 1990.”

Any advance on these?

Luis Aragonés, in one of his few spells as not the Atlético Madrid manager. Photograph: Eloy Alonso/Reuters

Whole world in a team (3)

Let’s have one more swing at teams who have players from all corners of the globe. Here’s Dan Ryazansky with his nomination:

“New York Red Bulls once again, this time in the 2011 season opener. Lineup: Greg Sutton (Canada), Roy Miller (Costa Rica), Tim Ream (USA), Rafael Márquez (Mexico), Jan Gunnar Solli (Norway), Teemu Tainio (Finland), Mehdi Ballouchy (Morocco), Joel Lindpere (Estonia), Dane Richards (Jamaica), Juan Agudelo (Colombia), Thierry Henry (France). Subs: Tony Tchani (Cameroon), Danleigh Borman (South Africa). Manager: Hans Backe (Sweden).

“Subs not used included Bouna Coundoul (Senegal), Carl Robinson (Wales) and Luke Rodgers (England). Note: Agudelo has been capped for USA but he is Colombian-born.”

Thierry Henry of New York Red Bulls looks on prior to the game against DC United in March 2013. Photograph: Mike Stobe/Getty Images

And here’s Chris Wickens: “The Fulham team that played Bury on 6 November 2002 in the League Cup was as follows: Maik Taylor (Northern Ireland), Steve Finnan (Republic of Ireland), Pierre Womé (Cameroon), Andy Melville (Wales), Abdeslam Ouaddou (Morocco), Bjarne Goldbaek (Denmark), John Collins (Scotland), Junichi Inamoto (Japan), Lee Clark (England), Barry Hayles (Jamaica) and Andrejs Stolcers (Latvia). The first substitution saw Facundo Sava (Argentina) replace Inamoto and then the second saw Martin Djetou (France) replace Finnan.”

Knowledge archive

“With Ron Vlaar missing a penalty for Holland against Argentina in the World Cup semi-final, and me being an Aston Villa supporter, I started wondering which English league club players are the worst when it comes to shootouts at international level (for any nation)?” asked Paul Tidey in the summer of 2014. “I think every Villa player who has taken a penalty in an international shootout since Gareth Southgate in 1996 has missed!”

So let’s get this straight, Paul: you want us to trawl through every shootout in the history of the World Cup, European Championship, Copa América, Africa Cup of Nations, Asian Cup, Oceania Nations Cup and Confederations Cup and check which club each and every taker was playing for when they stepped up to the spot? Do you really think we have nothing better to do? Oh. Right then, back in a jiffy …

It turns out that Paul is right: no Villa player has scored in a shootout at a major international tournament since Southgate’s failure do so for England at Euro 96. Vlaar, Darius Vassell and Olof Mellberg have all tried since then and ended up wishing they hadn’t. In fact, the only Villa players ever to score for their country in a shootout are David Platt v West Germany in 1990 and Tony Cascarino, who scuffed an effort into the net for the Republic of Ireland against Romania at the 1990 World Cup only three months after becoming Villa’s record signing (incidentally, his tally of 11 goals in 46 matches for Villa means Cascarino could also be in the running as a decent answer to the next question, below). Jean II Makoun scored for Cameroon in their epic 12-11 shootout victory over Ivory Coast at the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations but that, of course, was when the midfielder was at Lille, five years before he became a Villan.

As for the English club with the most prolific scorers in international shootouts, that is Arsenal (14), with Chelsea (10) second, although Chelsea players have also been responsible for five misses, more than any other English club – but not quite as many as AC Milan, whose players have managed to miss 10 times in international tournaments (and only score nine times). The club with the most successful takers, meanwhile, is Barcelona, with 21 successful spot-kicks (and five misses).

As a quick update to this, we can confirm the record still stands. The closest we can get is Jordan Ayew’s successful kick for Ghana in the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final against Ivory Coast. Perhaps inspired by his steely nerve, Villa signed him six months later.

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

Can you help?

“What is the lowest record transfer for a club in a major top division?” asks Stuart McLagan, before adding: “Obviously, this brings in questions of what is a major league – what about any country that has had a team play in the Champions League group stage?”



“Can any football programme experts say approximately what percentage of programmes are typically sold on any matchday and how often clubs fully sell out?” muses Scott Sumner. “Also, what happens to any leftovers?”

“Spain’s Julen Lopetegui won his first competitive match in charge 8-0,” tweets Daniel Storey. “Has this ever been beaten?”

“What is the most protracted takeover of a football club?” enquires Margaret Decker. “Birmingham City appear to be nearing the end of their long wait for a change in ownership and I’m wondering if we can claim the most protracted takeover.”

“With the news that Jonny Williams has gone on loan to Ipswich Town for the fourth time in his career, we in the office were wondering if this was a record or if any other player has gone to the same club on loan more than this?” wonder Kris and, well, the office.

“Since David Luiz’s transfer on the deadline day to Chelsea, I have been wondering if there is any other player who has moved to the same club more than once on deadline day?” muses Heramb Mayadeo. “David Luiz has now done this once in a winter transfer window and once in a summer transfer window.”

“Reading have competed in FA Cups as far back as 1877-78 but have never won the title,” emails Wodger Biscuit. “Do they have the record for most losses all-time in FA Cup history?”

“Just wondering if Robbie Keane’s record of scoring at least one international goal per year for 19 consecutive years (1998-2016) is unique in international football?” wonders Ray McNamara.

Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU