“Wayne Rooney equalled Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 249 goals for Manchester United at the weekend,” notes Claire Anderson. “Who has scored the most goals for a single English club, and the most goals for any club in the world?”

This is difficult to answer categorically, as even something as fundamental as goalscoring has not always been accurately recorded. It’s not helped by a number of players – morning Pelé, hello Lionel – including goals scored in friendlies.

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We can at least say without fear of contradiction that Rooney’s total is not a record for an English club. The legendary Dixie Dean scored 383 goals for Everton between 1925 and 1937. Not far behind is that eternal sniffer Ian Rush, who scored 346 times – most of them against Everton – in two spells at Liverpool.

The totals are even higher overseas. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are still in the process of extending Real Madrid’s and Barcelona’s goalscoring records, while Gerd Müller scored 566 times for Bayern Munich. At least we think it was 566. Some places say 525, though that excludes goals scored in the second tier of German football. The highest of all – or at least the highest we could find – is, inevitably, Pelé at Santos. The exact total varies depending on the source, and Pelé’s career total of 1,281 famously involves goals scored while he was daydreaming in the bath. But these are the top 10 one-club goalscorers we could find:

643 (or 646) Pelé (Santos)

566 Gerd Müller (Bayern Munich)

544 Fernando Peyroteo (Sporting Lisbon)

534 Josef Bican (Slavia Praha)

522 Jimmy McGrory (Celtic)

517 Jimmy Jones (Glenavon)

507 Uwe Seeler (Hamburg)

476 Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

473 Eusebio (Benfica)

383 Dixie Dean (Everton)

Stone bottom, again

“If York stay 24th in the National League, would they be the first pro club to finish bottom of the table and be relegated for two consecutive seasons?” wonders Jim Waterson. “Obviously loads of clubs have been relegated in consecutive seasons but absolute last place twice is impressive.”

Quite a few people suggested one particular collection of no-hopers, and here’s Eanna MacCraith to explain. “Well, in 1981-82 Wolves finished last in the old Division One. Promotion followed as Wolves finished second in Division Two the following season, but Wolves finished 22 of 22 teams again in Division One in 1983-84. This was followed by finishing 22nd of 22 in Division Two in 1984-85 and they would have made it a hat-trick of last places in 1985-86 if they hadn’t won on the last day of the season to condemn Swansea to finishing in last place. They’ve played four seasons in the Premier League and finished last in two of them, 2003-04 and 2011-12, so four of their last six seasons in the top flight have resulted in a last-place finish. Impressive, yes?”

In a way, yes. Simon Cook has another nomination. “Luton Town were relegated in 24th while playing in League One and Two during the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons,” he writes. “This was aided by points deductions, although the season before they finished 23rd in the Championship. Yeovil achieved 24th place twice without points deduction in the Championship (2013-14) and League One (2014-15).”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Yeovil manager Paul Sturrock takes training in April 2015, with the Glovers en route to a second straight last-place finish. Photograph: Adam GraySWNS.com

Norman Biggar also draws our attention to the plight of Clyde FC in Scotland. “In 2008-09, they finished 10th out of 10 teams in the SFL First Division (second tier) and were relegated to the SFL Second Division. The following season 2009-10, resulted in them finishing 10th out 10 in the Second Division and they were relegated to the SFL Third Division. To cap off an amazing run of form, season 2010-11 saw them finish 10th out of 10 teams in the Third Division, though they were spared their third consecutive last-place relegation by the lack of a pyramid system in Scotland at that time. Although they have since made the promotion play-offs on two occasions, Clyde have as yet failed to start their rise back up the league.”

Still, they’ll all have to go some to beat SV Lohhof, a German lower-league team who dropped like a stone around the turn of the century, suffering four successive relegations between 1999-2003, dropping from the Regionalliga Süd (the fourth tier) and finishing bottom of the table in three consecutive seasons. What’s the opposite of wünderbar?

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Commentators getting the hook

“Has there ever been a substitution in a live commentary before?” asks Ben Manchester. “Not just a pundit being changed because he has to be somewhere else, but a commentator losing his voice after a particularly vocal goal shout? Or a bout of hiccups?”

It’s happened a few times, Ben, one of which Branislav Mihić tells us about: “During last year’s Premier League fixtures on 2 January, Danish commentator Peter Piil collapsed during the first half of West Ham v Liverpool at Upton Park. 6’eren, the TV channel, had to take over from their studio in Denmark for the rest of the game.” And James Straughan writes: “I’m not sure if this counts, but until a few years ago BBC Radio used rolling subs in their live commentaries.”

Chilly football

“The MLS Cup final on 10 December was played in -4 degree weather. Was this the coldest cup final ever played?” ponders Chris Corrigan.

It turns out that, according to Thomas McGovern, this wasn’t even the coldest MLS Cup final in the last four years. “One only has to go back to the 2013 MLS Cup final in Kansas City for a colder match,” he writes. “The temperature at kick-off was 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which translates to -7 Celsius. And unlike this past season’s final in Toronto, the match was played during the day with a 3pm local kick-off time.”

For further reading on cold football games, have a read of this Knowledge from 2010.

Knowledge archive

“With the announcement that Coventry City are planning to build a new stadium, has there ever been a shorter amount of time between a club putting up a new ground, moving in and then playing there, and then planning to build/building another?” wondered Sam Hind, this week three years ago. “In Coventry’s case it is only eight years since they first played at the Ricoh Arena; surely that’s some kind of record?”

If you look back to the Football League’s formative years it is probable that plenty of clubs can eclipse Coventry in the groundhopping stakes – Walsall, for example. The club moved to a purpose-built ground in West Bromwich Road in 1893, but three years later they were off to another newly-opened venue – their Hillary Street ground, aka Fellows Park, the ramshackle majesty of which is captured in rather lovely fashion in this blog.

But in those days, of course, clubs would move grounds almost as often as today’s teams change their kits. More recently Juventus could tolerate the Stadio Delle Alpi, built for the 1990 World Cup, for only 16 years before it was demolished to make way for their new stadium.

Can you help?

“After seeing midfield maestro Jamie O’Hara show his silky skills on Celebrity Big Brother, it draws my memory back to our home game v Ipswich Town last season,” begins Will O’Leary. “Has there been any game where a quicker goal has been conceded with the opposing team kicking off (16 seconds)?”



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“In my far-distant youth, there was an adage that the team who beat Aston Villa would win the FA Cup,” writes John Wiseman. “I wondered if this was anything like true, and checked it out. I found that, since the 1879-80 season, Aston Villa won the FA Cup seven times, were beaten by the eventual winners 28 times, and by the eventual runners-up 13 times. Is there any other club whose FA Cup record comes close to this?”

“We think of the goalkeeper on the bench as the lone substitute dependent on his colleague being injured in order for him to play,” muses Peter Clarke. “But apart from friendly games, has a professional keeper been substituted for other reasons such as abysmal performance, plane to catch, etc?” Maverick striker switches?

“Charlton have just signed Jake Forster-Caskey from Brighton,” says Chris Lutton. “His stepfather, Nicky Forster, played 10 games for Charlton on loan in 2010. Would this be the shortest time between father and son playing for the same team (even allowing for the fact that Forster is his stepfather and not his actual father)?”

“The opening of the January transfer window this week got me thinking,” thinks Tom Hart, “has a player ever managed to play more than a full set of fixtures because of scheduling/postponed games etc, by switching teams mid-season? What about any other leagues? I imagine there are a few cases of this further down the pyramids.”