“In Cardiff v Wolves recently, Cardiff were awarded and missed two penalties in second-half injury time. Surely this madness has never happened before,” wonders Ben Jones.

Tim Hanson has news for Ben: “In April 2010, AFC Wimbledon’s 19-year-old goalkeeper Seb Brown saved penalties from Mansfield’s Jake Speight and Kyle Perry to hand the Dons a 1-0 win. Seb was a boyhood Wimbledon fan and had been brought into the team in place of regular keeper James Pullen. Brown was to repeat the two-penalty-saves feat two years later, keeping out two Luton players as Wimbledon won a Football League place via a penalty shootout.”

“This also happened in the Cambridge United v Accrington Stanley game last season,” reports Adam Clark, who notes: “Incidentally, Will Norris, the heroic Cambridge United keeper at the time, is now reserve keeper at Wolves, and was on the bench at Cardiff last Friday.”

Joe Groszewski writes in to add that: “In 2006, Blackburn missed two last-minute penalties as we fell victim to Big Sam’s Bolton. Benni McCarthy feebly hit the first straight at Jussi Jaaskelainen but someone was fouled during the follow-up. Then Jason Roberts sidefooted the second to exactly the same place.” Ross Flockhart clarified that the penalties were in the last five minutes and not actually injury-time, but reckons the referee will be familiar …

An XI from the same foreign country

“In AEK Larnaca’s 3-2 to defeat to AEL Limassol in the Cypriot league last week they started with nine Spaniards. Is this a record for a team fielding foreign players one from country?” asks Will Unwin.

Stephan Wijnen has the answer (as do Flor van der Eycken , Dirk Mass and Tys Hallema, who also emailed in) and it is: “No. In May 2004, Beveren fielded 10 players from Ivory Coast during the Belgian cup final against Club Brugge (Igor Stepanovs from Latvia, on loan from Arsenal, was the exception). This was the starting line-up: Copa, Eboué, Stepanovs, Kanté, Boka, Djire, Lolo, Mandaka, Né, Romaric, Sanogo. Moreover, two of the three substitutions that Beveren brought on were also from Ivory Coast.”

Boris Cule adds: “Beveren finally went one better on the opening day of the next season, when their entire starting lineup came from Ivory Coast.”



Lewis Fairfax has another: “Calcio San Marino (the only team in the principality) regularly field lineups composed solely of players eligible to play for Italy rather than San Marino. They play in the Girone (Group) F of the Italian Serie D, and an example was their match against Sammaurese Calcio on 4 December 2016: Dini (born in Cattolica, Italy), Fagioli (Cesena, Italy), Bova (Caserta, Italy), Fantini (Cesena, Italy), Zamagni (Cesena, Italy), Mazzotti (Cesena, Italy), Cenci (Rimini, Italy), Baldazzi (Castel San Pietro, Italy), Buonocunto (Naples, Italy), Guidi (undisclosed, Italy), Braccini (San Piero in Bagno, Italy).”

End times

“Has there ever been a professional match where the teams did not change ends at half-time?” wonders Lewis Jones. “If so, what was the reason?”



Ian Williams writes: “Yes and no. Shortly after the start of the second half of the Italian Serie B match between Foggia and Bari in 1999, rival fans started to throw missiles at the opposing goalkeepers. In order to complete the match, referee Pierluigi Collina asked both teams if they would be happy to continue the match at the end from which they had played in the first half. With the goalkeepers distanced from opposition fans, the match was completed without incident. The second half was not restarted just ends were changed.”

Pierluigi Collina: never afraid to make a maverick call. Photograph: Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images

Knowledge archive

“Has a goalkeeper ever been sent off during a penalty shootout?” wondered Olumide Hassan in 2005.

Hats off to Tommy Tucker for discovering that Botswana goalkeeper and captain Modiri Marumo was sent off during a Castle Cup shootout against Malawi in May 2003. Having been booked for time-wasting before Malawi scored their third spot-kick, Marumo “reacted to a pat on the shoulder from opposite number Philip Nyasulu by punching him in the face and got a red card”. Malawi went on to win 4-1 and reach the semi-finals. “I over-reacted,” admitted Marumo. “This unbecoming behaviour has not only embarrassed me, but also the organisation that I work for.”

Can you help?

“On 21 April, it’s possible that, at the Sunderland v Burton Albion match, both sides could kick off with a mathematical chance of survival but, by full-time, could each be relegated. Have there ever been any examples of two un-relegated teams playing each other and both going down at full-time?” poses Mark Stephenson.

“During Milan v Napoli last weekend, I noticed Gigi Donnarumma and Arkadiusz Milik both wear No 99. Is this the first time this has happened?” asks Kevin Davey.



“Chester have appointed 24-year-old Calum McIntyre as manager. Has any national level club in England ever appointed such a young manager? What about elsewhere?” queries Benjamin Young.

Faiq Bolkiah of Leicester Reserves is he son of the Prince of Brunei and the nephew of the Sultan and Brunei National team captain.

Are there many other examples of royalty or particularly power figures/ their progeny playing for professional clubs? — Kenn Drumm (@14Autumns) April 17, 2018

“Chelmsford City striker Scott Fenwick recently scored two consecutive hat-tricks of penalties in the Vanarama Conference South (v Whitehawk and East Thurrock). Has this feat been matched or bettered?” enquires Ross Rogers.

“Players owning pubs after retiring used to be a big thing in days gone by but who was the last high-profile player to follow this course on retiring?” muses Alistair Moffat.

Who were the last team to travel to a World Cup by boat ? — Jim Hilton (@HiltonJim) April 17, 2018