Which forgetful footballers have failed to turn up for a match? | Football

“In light of Jack Grealish’s recent celebrations possibly putting his England call-up to the back of his mind, has any player failed to show up for a match because he simply forgot it was happening?” tweets Andy Brook.

Footballers have been going awol since Moses wore short pants – here are some examples – but it’s rare for somebody to actually forget they were supposed to be playing in a game. We’d imagine at least one of these stories is apocryphal but, well, who cares.

First up: Robin Friday, star of a popular 1996 Super Furry Animals song. “On one occasion in 1972, Hayes started a match a player short because Friday had not turned up,” writes Paul Haynes, quoting Wikipedia. “When he finally arrived, 80 minutes after kick-off, his intoxication was obvious, but he was sent on to the pitch with the match still goalless. The opposition paid him little attention and Friday scored a late winning goal.”

Rob Davies suggests Ishmel Demontagnac, who “stayed in bed for Walsall’s trip to Bristol City on 2 January 2006, instead of getting the team bus. Apparently he thought there was no game that day and it was his day off. Walsall lost 3-0.”

Nobody would have described the mighty Kevin Beattie as a maverick, but he almost had a costly brain-fade at the end of his career. “The late Ipswich Town legend had a brief spell with Barnet after his pro career ended,” tweets John Chubb. “He said in his autobiography that he forgot to turn up for one game and claimed he later found out the club owner, Stan Flashman, threatened to have his legs blown off with a shotgun.”

Finally, a couple of tangential answers: Rio Ferdinand infamously forgot to take a drug test in 2003, which led to him missing eight months of football the following year. And Sheffield Wednesday forgot to enter the FA Cup in 1886. Here’s the story, taken from our Foul play: seven deadly sins of football series.

Sheffield Wednesday were one of the strongest clubs in the country in the 1880s, but their progress was interrupted by the threat of a split in 1886, when half the side threatened to join another local team. Their main grievance was that Wednesday were not playing in that year’s FA Cup, then the only national competition. The reason they were not in the draw was simple: the club secretary plain forgot.

One to chew on

“It amazes me that elite footballers are still regularly seen chewing gum during matches,” writes Gregg Bakowski. “Isn’t it a choking hazard? Or is there a psychological or physiological benefit to it that I’ve missed?”

“Chewing gum during sport has a clear benefit,” writes Nick Savage. “A 2015 study showed it can enhance attention as well as promoting well-being and work performance. I noticed plenty of cricketers chewing gum during the first Ashes Test, where batting or fielding for six hours a day presumably means attention and concentration is an even bigger factor than in football. It would be interesting to find out if the prevalence of gum-chewing is proportional to the duration of that sport.”

Gaps between home games at a ground (2)

In last week’s Knowledge we looked at the longest gap between two home games at the same stadium. QPR led the way with a 29-year hiatus, but that has been obliterated …

“The Baltic states’ national teams’ home stadia went unused from 1940-92,” tweeted Joe Stynes, before he and Duncan Richer demonstrated their hardcore knowledge of such matters.

Diverse trophy hauls (2)

In last week’s Knowledge we also looked at players – specifically Júlian Álvarez and Dida – with diverse trophy hauls. Unsurprisingly, given the direction of modern football, the latest contenders are also South American …

“Cafu may just beat the current record,” reckons Iain Pearson, before listing the 16 different trophies that were won by the great man:

• Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A: 1991

• Campeonato Paulista: 1991, 1992, 1996

• Copa Libertadores: 1992, 1993

• Supercopa Libertadores: 1993

• Copa Conmebol: 1994

• Recopa Sudamericana: 1993, 1994

• Intercontinental Cup: 1992, 1993

• Uefa Cup-Winners Cup: 1995

• Serie A (Italy): 2001, 2004

• Supercoppa Italiana: 2004

• Uefa Champions League: 2007

• Uefa Super Cup: 2003, 2007

• Fifa Club World Cup: 2007

• Fifa World Cup: 1994, 2002

• Copa Americana: 1997, 1999

• Fifa Confederations Cup: 1997

“I would like to push Carlos Tevez out there as having snuck a few more different trophies than Álvarez and even Dida, albeit at an older age,” offers Michael Hunt. “By my count he racked up between 16 and 21 different titles over his career, depending on how you feel about two-team ‘tournaments’ like the Community Shield, plus the ‘Conmebol Pre-Olympics Tournament’ which I had not come across before. It looks legit, but also feels a little like England claiming Le Tournoi medals as credible international silverware.” Here’s Tevez’s haul:

• Argentinian Premier Division (2015, 2017, 2018, 2020)

• Copa Argentina (2015)

• Copa La Liga (2020)

• Supercopa Argentina (2018)

• Copa Libertadores (2003)

• Copa Sudamericana (2004)

• Intercontinental Cup (2003)

• Brazilian Premier Division (2005)

• Premier League (2008, 2009, 2012)

• League Cup (2009)

• Community Shield (2008, 2012)

• Champions League (2008)

• Club World Cup (2008)

• FA Cup (2011)

• Serie A (2014, 2015)

• Coppa Italia (2015)

• Supercoppa (2013)

• Chinese FA Cup (2017)

• South American U20 Championship (2003)

• Olympics (2004)

• Conmebol Pre-Olympics Tournament (2004)

Knowledge archive

“Has a league’s lowest-scoring team ever won the title?” wondered Sophie Midwood in 2013.

As far as we could ascertain, it has happened not once, but twice. The first occasion came in 1998 when AIK won the Swedish title, despite scoring only 25 goals in 26 games.

And more recently Aduana Stars romped to the Ghanaian championship in 2009-10, despite scoring a faintly ludicrous 19 goals in their 30 games – winning the title thanks to their head-to-head record against Ashanti Gold (rather predictably the Stars won one of their meetings 1-0, while the other was a 0-0 draw).

Can you help?

“Which musical artist or band has played the most different football grounds?” wonders Sarah Burntin.

“Iryan Fandi, 16, made his debut for Hougang in the Singapore Premier League this season. He has three older brothers – Irfan, Ikhsan and Ilhan – who have played together at international level with Singapore, so in the future we could see four brothers. Has this happened before?” asks Scott Somerville.

“Is the time between Scotland’s two goals against Georgia – around two hours, six minutes – the longest gap between two goals in a completed 90-minute match?” wonders Iain McDonald.

“Moldova (ranked 171 in the world) beat Poland (ranked 23) last week. Based on Fifa rankings, what is the biggest giant-killing in international football? It would be good to get two different answers for friendlies and competitive games.”