Forgotten* Football Facts #6

67% of English fans reckon that the greatest player that ever played the game was one that they can never have seen playing live and so base their judgement on journalistic reports, friends, family or unrepresentative TV highlights. Only 24% of fans at grounds built in the last 10 years would rathe...

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Forgotten* Football Facts #5

Music special! 43% of Championship fans said they would boycott matches if their traditional theme tune was changed at the team sponsors insistence. The Wedding Present's album - George Best - was originally going to be called 'Nobby Stiles'. The 1980s pop group Visage were named after Giuseppe V...

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Forgotten* Football Facts #4

Neil Armstrong originally wanted to take a football to the moon - but NASA deemed it to be un-American. The compromise was to allow a golf club and ball instead. The 'banana shot' has rarely been heard in commentary in recent years as it is not a politically correct way of describing a curled drive...

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Forgotten* Football Facts #3

The 'Arsenal Stadium Mystery' would have been entitled the 'Highbury Mystery' but for a local council injunction. Jeff Armitage was officially the Plymouth Argyle manager but after being asked to drive the team bus from Plymouth to Doncaster, due to the normal driver's illness, was given the amusin...

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Forgotten* Football Facts #2

Forgotten* Football Facts #2 The word 'wangle' is commonly thought to derive from 1910s Arsenal wing-half Phillip Wanglesthorpe, for his ability to emerge from tackles with the ball. As in 'the wing-half has wangled the ball out of an impossible situation'. In a recent survey of accident and emer...

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Forgotten* Football Facts #1

In California there are 14 alternate ways to say 'goal' but only one way to describe a 'defensive midfielder' or 'shortstop' as they are known. The word 'shilly-shally' is named after a Blackpool outside-left from the 1920s, Albert Shilly, who was notorious for failing to deliver crosses. Brondby ...

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