Football Facts and Stories
| What a match! |
| This took place at White Hart Lane, of all places in 1945. Arsenal were playing Dynamo Moscow when a dense fog descended on the pitch. The referee refused to abandon the match because the visiting team had come all the way from Moscow. The game swiftly reduced to farce! One Arsenal player was sent off for fighting, but sneaked back on again in the fog. The Russians substituted a player, but never sent their player off. Indeed, there were strong suspicions, that throughout the game, the Russian side secretly increased from 11 players to 15! The problem was that no-one could actually see enough to count them. The final confusion happened when the Arsenal goalie became disorientated in the fog, ran into the goal post and knocked himself out. He was replaced by a member of the crowd. |
| Hungry Footballers |
| This record goes to Fernando d'Ercoli playing for Pianta against Arpax in Italy 1989. When he was given the red card by the referee, he got so mad that he snatched the red card from his hand and ate it all! Another display of temper came from Mike Bagley of Bristol in 1984. When the referee booked him for swearing, he took the ref's notebook, ripped out the page with his name on, and ate that! |
| Worst Disciplinary Record |
| No doubt about it, this record goes to Ricky Goddard of North Warnborough. By 1992, he had been suspended for five out of his nine years as a footballer. On one occasion, he was banned for six months when he sneaked into the ref's changing-room at half time and urinated over all his clothes. |
| Longest throw-in |
| 48.17 metres (158 ft 0.4 in) - Michael Lochner at Bexley High School, Ohio (USA) in June 1998. |
