“When Reinildo Mandava started for Sunderland in their 3-0 win over West Ham, he became the first Mozambican to play in the Premier League, which has now hosted players from 125 different countries,” noted Owen Collins last week. “That only dates from 1992 though – are there any nationalities that played in the old First Division that haven’t yet been represented in the Premier League?”
Mandava’s debut actually takes the number of Premier League nationalities to 127, but are there any countries only represented in the English top flight before 1992? Well, the logical starting point is nations that only existed prior to 1992. Take it away, Darren Jalland: “Sergei Baltacha was, as far as I can tell, the only player from the Soviet Union whose entire club stint in England came before 1992 – he played for Ipswich Town from 1988 to 1990.”
“Several Yugoslavia players, including Raddy Antic (Luton), Ivan Golac (Southampton) and Nikola Jovanovic (Manchester United) played in the old First Division,” Darren adds. “As the country broke up in the early 90s and the Yugoslavia national team’s final game was in March 1992, no player representing Yugoslavia ever played in the Premier League.”
A caveat is required here: from 1992 to 2003, players from Serbia and Montenegro did represent a Yugoslavia team. That means a few Premier League players, including Savo Milosevic (Aston Villa), Sasa Curcic (Bolton, Villa and Palace) and Dejan Stefanovic (Sheffield Wednesday) did play for a team called Yugoslavia, albeit a separate entity to the former unified team. All are counted as Serbian internationals by the Premier League; no Montenegrins played in the Premier League until 2011.
Moving on, Peter Tomlin points out: “Cheung Chi-doy was born in Hong Kong and played for Blackpool in the First Division. He was the first Hong Kong-born player to play in Europe and scored against Sheffield Wednesday in November 1961.” Cheung only played twice for the Tangerines but earned a unique place in history.
As to whether Hong Kong counts as an independent nation: they are a Fifa member, which is good enough for us. Regardless, Cheung can actually claim to be the sole representative of two countries – like a number of other Hongkongers, he played for Taiwan (then called the Republic of China) internationally in the 1960s.
Peter also suggests an honourable mention for Jack Butler, who played as a centre-half for Arsenal from 1914 to 1930. Butler earned one England cap but was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). Also worth noting are Matthias Breitkreutz and Stefan Beinlich, who joined Aston Villa in 1991 from Bergmann-Borsig, an amateur club from the eastern side of Berlin.
With German reunification completed in October 1990, the duo were technically representing Germany but had been brought up as East German citizens. “I was the picture-perfect ‘Ossi’ – I even had a mullet,” Beinlich claimed later on. “We were picked up from Birmingham airport in a Rolls-Royce – it was like a fairytale.” Both players did go on to feature in the Premier League; you can read more about their unlikely English adventure here.
Finally, to Andrey Kanchelskis, who signed for Manchester United in March 1991 while a USSR international, scored the Soviets’ last-ever international goal in November, and then turned out for the short-lived Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at Euro 92, weeks before the Premier League kicked off.
Capital pains, part two
Last week, we looked at capital cities with the longest title droughts – but we’ve received a few more candidates in our inbox.
“No club from Ankara has officially won the Turkish title,” notes Jeremy Ives. “Ankaragucu did win the 1949 Turkish Football Championship – a playoff among regional champions, but not recognised as a national competition by the Turkish FA.
“Also, there has been no winner from the Welsh capital, Cardiff, in the League of Wales/Welsh Premier/Cymru Premier, since the league was founded in 1992. Inter Cardiff were runners-up in four of the first seven seasons.” Cardiff Met’s best placing came in 2022-23, when they finished fourth.
From Cardiff to Canberra, thanks to Graham Brown. “It would seem likely that the Australian capital has never had a team which won their national league.” That’s partially correct: Canberra has no team in the A-League Men and two different clubs, Canberra Arrows and Canberra Cosmos, failed to make much impact in the A-League’s predecessor, the National Soccer League.
Away from the men’s game, though, Canberra United won the A-League Women (then known as W-League) title in 2012 and 2014, while Canberra Eclipse claimed a Women’s NSL crown in 2002. Finally, back to A-League Men, where three-times champions Central Coast Mariners can claim a Canberra connection, having played home games there (a four-hour drive from Gosford) in 2009, 2016 and 2017.
Results may not vary
“Aldershot Town of the National League have lost their three opening games of the season 3-2,” wrote John Morris. “What’s the longest run of games where a team has won or lost each game by an identical scoreline?”
The Shots have certainly offered value for money this season, following up a trio of 3-2 defeats to Altrincham, Boston and Eastleigh with a 5-1 win over Solihull Moors, a 4-0 rout of Morecambe and a 3-3 draw at Gateshead. But can anyone match that run of odd-goal-in-five defeats? Chris Roe has crunched the Football League numbers.
“Eight EFL teams have opened their league campaigns with two 3-2 losses (most recently Wycombe last season), but no team has done it in their first three games of a season. Five teams have recorded three consecutive 3-2 losses, most recently Ipswich Town in November 2011.”
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Paul Jewell’s side livened up an otherwise forgettable Championship campaign by losing 3-2 to Doncaster, Nottingham Forest and Reading in consecutive games. Ipswich led 2-1 against Forest but conceded in the 84th and 91st minutes – then somehow topped that by shipping two injury-time goals against the Royals. The run of painful late defeats was ended … by a 4-0 shellacking at Burnley.
“The record for any consecutive losing scoreline is five games, held by five different teams,” continues Chris. “From 15 September 1906, Liverpool lost five straight matches by a scoreline of 2-1. The other four teams all lost each game 1-0. In date order, they are: Sheffield Wednesday (March 1975), Stoke City (December 2004), Tranmere Rovers (March 2013) and Morecambe (August 2024).”
Knowledge archive
“What is the latest point in a season that a team has topped the league and still gone on to be relegated?” asked Andy Brook in May 2020. “Obviously excluding huge points deductions, relegations for rule breaches, etc.”
“In the First Division (now the Championship), on 9 December 1995 top-of-the-table Millwall came to Roker Park to face Sunderland,” writes Richard English. “They headed back home in a glum mood after a 6-0 spanking from the hosts, who went top for the first time that season and went on to win the second-tier title. Millwall on the other hand dropped like a stone, and on the last day of the season fell into the bottom three, suffering relegation to the third tier. Millwall’s Ben Thatcher was visibly upset by it in a post-match interview, though whether this was the motivation for his notorious ‘shoulder charge’ on our Nicky Summerbee in 2000 is not certain.”
Can you help?
“In the Belgian Pro League this season, Vincent Euvrard saw his Dender side lose 1-0 at home to OH Leuven on 24 August. The coach then took over at Standard Liège – and lost his first game on 31 August, 1-0 away to … OH Leuven (who also sacked Euvrard in 2020),” writes Jan Huyse. “Has any other coach lost to the same team in the space of a week, with two different clubs?”
“In their Conference League game away to Legia Warsaw on Thursday night, Hibs wore parts of all three of this season’s kits – third shirt, away shorts and home socks. Has any other team done this before?” asks Euan Williamson.
“I noticed after Aberdeen’s Europa League loss to FCSB that both club crests feature two stars, representing European trophies,” notes Dave Watson. “But who were the first team to put a star on their badge to mark a trophy or trophies?”
“Kerem Akturkoglu scored Benfica’s Champions League playoff winning goal against Fenerbahce … then two days later, he joined the club he had just eliminated,” writes Antonio. “Has anything similar happened before?”
“Cheltenham, Swindon and Bristol City are all within 40 miles of each other, and all three clubs are known as ‘The Robins’,” writes Owen James. “Are there any other examples of close neighbours with the same nickname?”
“Ipswich’s signing of Darnell Furlong from West Brom means they can now field an entire defensive unit of players who were at the Hawthorns four seasons ago (Furlong, Alex Palmer, Conor Townsend, Cédric Kipré and Dara O’Shea). Have any other clubs essentially reunited another club’s backline?” wonders Matthew Graham.
