Trivia

Scott Parker getting the Fulham job after Claudio Ranieri was a fairly unremarkable story when the appointment was announced. He is the club’s third manager this season and their relegation from the Premier League is almost guaranteed. His inability to halt Fulham’s slide into the lower league should not take away from the fact that Scott Parker is someone with a quietly remarkable career featuring a couple of unique records.

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Gordon Banks, England’s world cup winning goalkeeper in 1966 and a legendary name in the English game, passed away last week. He was a very good goalkeeper who pulled off many great saves including a famous one from a Pele header at the 1970 world cup.

Banks managed to divert a goalbound header over the crossbar, using incredible reflexes and suitably aided by his gloved hands.

Four years earlier, Banks had been in goal as England won their first and only world cup till date. His gloves were more like gardening gloves and had better grip than many which his contemporaries wore. Actually, during that period, goalkeeping greats such as Alex Stepney and Pat Jennings did not even wear gloves at all.

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Mark Hughes. Good Ol’ Sparky has lost his spark for a while now despite the best efforts of various Premier League clubs reaching out to him with their job offers in recent years. He eventually got fired by Southampton who panicked at the thought of heading further south to the bottom of the table. Mark is now marked with the unenviable record of being the first Premier League manager to be sacked twice within one calendar year.

As the saying goes, two kinds of football managers exist; those who have been sacked and those who are going to be sacked.

Which springs the question: When was the last season that all the clubs in the English top division finished the season with the same manager they had at the start? 

It just seems it is inevitable that at least one manager leaves his position every season (either by consenting ”mutually” or not consenting but leaving with lots of cash to wipe away any tears).

The answer to our question is season 1965/66.  Fifty-Two Years ago. 52 and counting. It must have been a truly care-free campaign because even the relegated (and relegation-threatened teams) couldn’t be bothered with typing a sack letter at any point during the season.

Blackburn and Northampton went down. Fulham, Sunderland and Nottingham Forest all struggled at the lower end of the table (in fact, the nine teams who finished above relegated Blackburn were separated by only four points). Despite this, all the managers who started the season finished it in situ.

It is highly likely that we will never see it happen again, due to the fact that the stakes are much higher nowadays and clubs get so twitchy because of the vast amount of millions involved.

So let’s stay tuned and observe the ”sack race” for season 2018/19.

 

Oladimeji Sapoloso

It runs in the family. Through out the history of the game, there has been numerous examples of football talent and ability flowing through generations of families and siblings. From the Charltons, to the Maldinis, the Nevilles to the Schmeichels, football has witnessed family members having varying levels of success and displaying of different grades of skills.

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