Weird Facts About Football

Wednesday, Aug 19, 2020, 10:02 am

By:Tony Williams

1.Is it on yet?

Scotland can have some bad weather in the winter, but in 1979 a cup tie between Inverness Thistle and Falkirk was postponed a staggering 29 times before it was eventually played. There were several times when Falkirk were almost there, and a couple of times when they were there, before it was called off causing chaos for the rest of the season.

2.Send the ref off!!

The referee is supposed to be the one that keeps control of the game, but in an amateur game in England this did not work as planned. Instead, Martin Sylvester sent himself off after he admitted turning around and punching a player.

3.Concussion by a pie

Every now and then there are a few things thrown onto the field from the stands, but Bolton Wanderers player Wilberforce Montgomery was actually left with concussion after one particular attack. The weapon of choice? A meat pie, so either it was thrown with some force or the pie was horrible and like a brick.

4.The Beatles

OK we know that they were the biggest band of all time, but 27 different football clubs actually have something linked to them as their nickname. Why or how this happened is something we will never be able to understand, but even a big and successful team has it with Villarreal being called the yellow submarines.

5.The term coach

We are all familiar with the term coach being used, but it actually happened purely by accident. It occurred due to the manager of a team called Plymouth Argyle being asked to drive the team coach after the driver took ill. People referred to him as coach for a joke and the entire idea stuck.

6.The World Cup trophy

You would imagine that the most famous trophy in the game would always be kept safe and sound, but when the World Cup was in England in 1966 it was stolen just days before the tournament started. Luckily for the organizers it was discovered by a dog behind some bins, but they were still left with red faces at what had happened.

7.dead against it

People know that supporters in South America are a bit crazy, but in Colombia they did take things a bit too far by bringing their dead friend to the game in his coffin. The 17 year old had been shot dead and after his wake his friends decided to take him to see one last game before he was buried leading to some rather strange images being taken.

8.The distance they run

Thanks to new technology we can now see how far a player will tend to run in any given game. It is not unusual for them to cover more than six miles with the vast majority of this actually happening when they do not have the ball.

9.Bad call!!

A referee made a very bad call in a game that acted as a qualifier for the Olympics in 1964 that led to over 300 people being killed. The game took place in Peru and the referee disallowed a goal leading to a riot and all of those deaths.

10.Score against themselves

OK now this is strange, but in 1994, Barbados had to score against themselves in order to progress in a tournament. To qualify they had to win by two clear goals and were winning 2-0 until Grenada scored with less than 20 minutes to play. This meant Barbados had to push it into overtime as they played a golden goal, which was worth two. It led to them trying to score in their own net and Grenada trying to stop them.

11.death on a pitch

Tragedy struck in 1998 when a thunderstorm passed over a game in the Congo. However, that is not the weird part because when lightning struck the pitch all 11 players from the same team died while the other team were ok. Perhaps God was not a fan.

12.149 - 0?

Technically this is the highest scoring game ever, but it was purely through sabotage, so for the purists this does not count. The game where it happened was between SOE and AS Adema in the Madagascar league with SOE protesting about a penalty that lost them the game and the title. They then proceeded to score 149 times in their own net at the next game.

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