“Curtis Jones is the ninth Jones to play for the England men’s team, after Alf, William, Harry, Herbert, Bill, Mick, Rob and Phil. Do any countries have a more capped surname?” asks Jack Hayward.
There are plenty of countries who don’t need to keep up with the Joneses because they went past them ages ago. In one case, they are the Joneses.
“Ah, Jones, that quintessentially English surname …” sighs Jamie Woods. “Look west! Croeso i Cymru, where 54 Joneses have played for the Welsh national men’s side, along with the small matter of 44 players with the surname Davies, 32 Williamses, 22 Robertses and 21 Evanses..”
Mykola Kozlenko can trump that with a surname which, in truth, isn’t among the most evocative in football history. But it is among the most prolific. “Looking at this (likely non-exhaustive) list,” they write, “I see 78 Vietnam players with the last name Nguyễn and two more with Nguyễn as their middle name.”
But we all knew where this road was going to end, didn’t we? “As over 20% of all South Koreans have the surname Kim, that might be the answer,” writes David Shannon. “Wikipedia’s category of South Korean men’s international footballers contains 83 different Kims with articles. There would be more, but I haven’t found a list of all South Korean players.”
Thanks to all of you who contributed answers to this question, which allowed us to compile the following list of caps by surname. It’s for men’s international football only, as the data for women’s football is much harder to find, and we’ve included surnames with at least 30 different players for a single country.
Williams (Wales) 32
Nilsson (Sweden) 35
Karlsson (Sweden) 40
Singh (India) 40+
Jensen (Denmark) 43
Davies (Wales) and Johansson (Sweden) 44
Nielsen (Denmark) 51
Jones (Wales) 54
Andersson (Sweden) and Hansen (Denmark) 65
Nguyễn (Vietnam) 78+
Kim (South Korea) 83+
Uni-tied
“Let’s say, hypothetically, that Trent Alexander-Arnold moves to Madrid in January and then Real meet Liverpool in the Champions League final,” hypothesises Gavin O’Sullivan. “He would be cup-tied but would be up for a winner’s medal if his old club won the competition. Has this scenario ever happened before?”
It happened only a couple of years ago, though not in the Champions League. “After losing his spot in Newcastle’s goal to Nick Pope at the start of 2022-23, Martin Dubravka went on loan to Manchester United and played against Aston Villa and Burnley in the Carabao Cup before being recalled in January,” writes Jim Hearson. “Pope committed that handball against Liverpool, which meant he was suspended for the Carabao Cup final against, yes, Manchester United. Loris Karius was the Magpies’ best option in goal. He was powerless to prevent the Red Devils’ 2-0 victory, for which Dubravka ended up receiving a medal.”
Rout 66
“Germany beat Bosnia-Herzegovina 7-0 in Freiburg on Saturday. Their last five games in Freiburg have finished 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0 and 8-2. A cumulative score of 36-2 across five matches on one ground has to be some kind of record, right?” writes Christoph.
It deserves to be a record, but it’s not because of a net-busting orgy that took place 23 years ago. “Australia played four games in the space of a week in April 2001 at Coffs Harbour,” writes Tom Dempster. “They won by an aggregate of 66-0, including the (in)famous 31-0 hammering of American Samoa. The other wins were 22-0 v Tonga, 2-0 v Fiji and 11-0 v Samoa.”
Chris Roe has a standout example from club football, too. In five successive home league matches in 1931 Everton won 9-3, 8-1, 7-2, 9-2, 5-1,” writes Chris, “for a cumulative score of 38-9.” Everton’s next home game after that was a boring 5-0 victory over Blackburn.
Old heads
“Who are the oldest team in world football with a body part hidden in their name?” asks Masia Graham. “For eg, LEGia Warsaw, BourneMOUTH, HEART of Midlothian etc. Correct terms only please, anyone thinking of Arsenal or other such terms need not apply.”
We always wanted to be on Richard Osman’s House of Games, and this is about as close as we’re going to get. Ignoring the fact that most football clubs have foot in their full name, and that a load of chest hair is not officially called a forest (Nottingham Forest, 1865) we think we have the answer. The runners-up are the aforementioned Heart of Midlothian, who were founded in 1874 and provide both a heart and an ear by way of answer. Four years earlier, Maidenhead United came into existence. All humans have a head, even if we tend to lose it with increasing frequency.
Foreign Premier League managers: update
In last week’s Knowledge we looked at which foreign countries had produced the most Premier League managers. We also listed the biggest football nations without a Premier League boss. For some reason we included Israel; as literally dozens of polite pedants, this is entirely incorrect: Avram Grant managed Chelsea, Portsmouth and West Ham.
We also had a few emails about the former Huddersfield manager, David Wagner, who was born in Frankfurt and played at under-age level for Germany before switching to the United States at full international level. As mentioned in the boring housekeeping bit that you may have wisely skipped, we took the nationality of each manager from the official Premier League site – in Wagner’s case, the USA. This was for reasons of speed and consistency, even though he is usually described as German in these.
Knowledge archive
“During the Stuttgart v Augsburg game in the Bundesliga, the home team wore a special kit to mark their mascot’s 25th birthday – with his face on the front. Can any other fans recall a mascot being given such special treatment?” asked Steve Joseph in October 2017.
Fritzle’s birthday – Stuttgart’s alligator mascot emerged from a giant red and white egg on 22 August 1992, the egg having been first seen in Stuttgart’s 1992-93 team photo – was marked by a fairly uninspiring 0-0 draw at the Mercedes-Benz Arena and he isn’t the first mascot to have featured prominently on a club’s shirt. “Didn’t the mighty Jags, aka Partick Thistle, have their LSD-trip-gone-wrong mascot on their shirt all of the 2015-16 season if not longer?” wonders Tim Maitland. They did indeed.
Can you help?
“In the 1927-28 season, Dixie Dean scored 58.3% of Everton’s goals in all competitions (63 out of 108). Is that a record?” asks Vasco Wackrill.
“Seven Tottenham players scored while on loan last weekend: Alfie Devine (Westerlo) and Manor Solomon (Leeds) scored twice, while Bryan Gil (Girona), Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (Marseille) and Dane Scarlett (Oxford) also scored. Is this a record?” wonders James Gerard.
“Ken Charles scored a hat-trick for St Albans City in their 6-3 loss to Aveley. What’s the record defeat for a team despite one of their players scoring three or more goals?” wonders Jack Hayward.
“What is the longest run of games a manager has gone without changing their lineup?” asks Licas Wiedebach.
“Was there ever a match like, for instance Bolton v Preston, where Bolton had a player named Preston and Preston had a player named Bolton?” asks Stig Wallerman.
“Sheffield Wednesday have now gone 73 games without being awarded a penalty,” notes George Parkinson. “Does anyone know what the record is for a British league?”
“Back in the 1970s I remember Clemence, Shilton, Jennings et al not wearing gloves. When was the last time this happened in the English top flight?” asks Ian Burgoyne.
“My beloved Middlesbrough have scored four, five and six goals in three consecutive games. What is the longest run of such an increasing tally of goals scored by a team in both number of games or goals scored?” wonders Adrian Burns.
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