“Justin Kluivert scored a hat-trick of penalties for Bournemouth at Wolves. Who else has achieved this and who was the last player to do it in the English top flight?” asks Robbie Considine.
Kluivert’s hat-trick of penalties was the first in Premier League history and the first in the English top flight for 67 years. In December 1957, Manchester City’s Ken Barnes did the necessary three times in a big win over Everton. “No other explanation of Manchester City’s drastic 6-2 defeat of Everton at Moss Side, Manchester, on Saturday is possible except that of sheer brilliance,” wrote the Manchester Guardian’s correspondent. “Barnes had the unusual experience of scoring three goals – all from penalties. What is more, he seized the occasion to demonstrate how easily a goalkeeper may be beaten by the silkiest, gentlest of kicks, provided due regard is paid to placing.”
Barnes and Kluivert are members of an elite club that has only two other members. Billy Walker scored three penalties in Aston Villa’s 7-1 victory over Bradford in 1921-22, and Villa were on the receiving end when Charlie Mitten did likewise for Manchester United in 1949-50. Mitten went one better by scoring from open play to give him four in the match; Manchester United won 7-0.
There are some more famous examples in other competitions, including two in the League Cup in the mid-1980s. Scottish midfielder Andy Blair scored three for Sheffield Wednesday in a 4-2 win over Luton in November 1984, a feat that stood out even more because Wednesday had already missed three penalties that season.
Two years later, Jan Molby repeated the feat for Liverpool in a 3-1 win over Coventry at Anfield – and then scored another penalty against them in the league three days later.
In 1989, Scotland hosted the Under-16 World Cup and reached the final before losing to Saudi Arabia on penalties. The tournament was a pretty big deal and was even featured on Saint & Greavsie. Earlier in the tournament, at Hampden Park no less, Bahrain’s Khaled Jasem scored all of their goals from the spot in a 3-0 win over Cuba.
You almost certainly don’t remember that, but you might recall the next example. In June 2004, Brazil beat Argentina 3-1 in a World Cup qualifier thanks to a hat-trick of penalties from Ronaldo. According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, there has been only one hat-trick of penalties in senior football at an actual tournament rather than during qualification. That was in February’s Asian Cup final: Jordan 1-3 Qatar, or Jordan 1-3 Akram Afif.
Last, and emphatically least, most of you will remember Argentina’s Martín Palermo missing a hat-trick of penalties against Colombia during the 1999 Copa América. At least, as the accompanying photo shows, the Colombia players showed sympathy for their fellow man.
Players dominating a club’s goals
“In the 1927-28 season, Dixie Dean scored 58.33% of Everton’s goals in all competitions (63 out of 108). Is that a record?” asks Vasco Wackrill.
To our abundant surprise, Dixie Dean’s percentage of Everton’s goals is nowhere near the record. Before we get to that, and with thanks to David Warriston, let’s look at those who ran Dixie close and one who equalled his percentage.
Kevin Phillips (Sunderland, 1999-2000) 30 out of 68 goals 44.11% (52.63% of their Premier League goals)
Igor Protti (Bari, 1995-96) 24/49 48.98%
Ron Davies (Southampton, 1966-67) 43/87 49.43%
John Charles (Leeds, 1956-57) 39/73 53.42%
Giorgos Giakoumakis (VVV-Venlo, 2020-21) 29/54 53.70%
Gordon Turner (Luton, 1956-57) 35/60 58.33%
“I don’t know which player holds the record, but I can offer at least two players who topped Dixie Dean’s percentage,” says Dirk Maas. “In the 1969-70 season, Lothar Emmerich was responsible for 66.67% of Beerschot’s goals in all competitions (30 out of 45). And eight years earlier, Frans Rutten scored 25 of the 35 goals scored by Rapid JC (the current Roda JC Kerkrade). The next highest was Huub Lens with three. Rutten scored 71.43% of the goals.”
Roy Race would struggle to beat that. Hell, so would Walter Mitty.
Increasing tallies of goals in scorelines
“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.
Middlesbrough needed to score seven at home to Blackburn last Wednesday to keep this question alive. They lost 1-0. Their three-match scoring sequence is nowhere near the record; no surprise, given they made life difficult for themselves by starting on four goals.
“The record in England’s top four divisions is held solely by Sheffield Wednesday, who had a sequence of six matches starting in March 1913,” writes Chris Roe. “The scores in those games were 0-2, 1-0, 3-2, 4-1, 5-2 and 6-0, which gave them a total of 19 goals. But the record for the number of goals scored in such an increasing sequence is held by Millwall. In April 1928 they won consecutive games 2-0, 3-0, 4-2, 5-2 and 6-0 for a total of 20 goals.”
Body parts in club names (two)
Last week we looked at the very serious subject of football clubs with body parts in their names and we’ve had a couple more suggestions.
David Ede points out one we really shouldn’t have overlooked. “May I humbly suggest my own team, CHESTerfield, founded in 1866 – albeit with most accounts acknowledging we were a little informally administered in those earliest days (and in some more recent days, you might argue).”
While Conor Delaney winds the clock back just the 182 years for two examples. “A special shout out for oldest teams with body parts in their names. Newspaper articles describing the game between the Body-guard Club and the Fear-nought Club, held on Christmas Day 1841, Rochdale. Now defunct, but worth a mention given they contain body and ear respectively.” Body isn’t really a body part though is it?
Knowledge archive
“Has a league’s lowest scoring team ever won the title?” wondered Sophie Midwood in 2013.
As far as we could ascertain it’s happened not once, but twice. The first occasion came in 1998 when AIK won the Swedish title, despite scoring only 25 goals in 26 games. And more recently Aduana Stars romped to the Ghana Premier League in 2009-10, despite scoring a faintly ludicrous 19 goals in their 30 games – winning the title thanks to their head-to-head record against Ashanti Gold (rather predictably the Stars won one of their meetings 1-0, while the other was a 0-0 draw).
And thanks to the wonder that is the RSSSF, we can present the Stars’ full fixture list in all its binary glory: 1-1, 0-0, 0-1, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0, 2-1, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0, 0-0, 0-0, 0-1, 0-1, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0, 1-1, 2-0, 1-0, 1-0.
Final standings: P30 W15 D8 L7 F19 A10 Pts53 Pos 1st
Can you help?
“Arne Slot won 18 of his first 20 games as Liverpool manager in all competitions,” notes Daniel Hill. “Has any manager in European top-flight history had a better start?”
“With Pep Guardiola’s recent travails in mind, what’s the soonest that a manager of a top-flight club has been sacked after signing a contract extension?” asks The Kop Stefan Glosby.
“With mid-late 90s legend Mikheil Kavelashvili very likely to be Georgia’s next president – and George Weah until January the president of Liberia – can (presuming Kavelashvili wins) any team boast a greater tally of heads of state among former members of the playing staff than MCFC?” wonders Will Dean.
“Liverpool have won eight major trophies on penalty shootouts; European Cup/Champions League in 1984 and 2005; FA Cup in 2006 and 2022; EFL Cup in 2001, 2012 and 2022 and the European Super Cup in 2019. Their only loss was in the 2016 EFL Cup final. Have any other teams won more finals on penalties?” asks Mitesh Karia.
“Before my team (Dagenham & Redbridge) caused an upset at Wimbledon, there was a very real danger of no non-league teams being in the FA Cup third round draw. Has that ever happened?” asks John Benstead.
“The 2024 snooker UK Championship semi-final between Barry Hawkins and Mark Allen began on 30 November and ended just before 1am on 1 December,” begins Jack Hayward. “Has a football match ever been played over two calendar months? Bonus points for matches that were delayed, or were scheduled to run past midnight local time, as opposed to being abandoned and resumed at a later date.”
“After 10 league matches, Tre Penne are undefeated. However, their record of two wins, eight draws and no defeats and total of just 14 points places them ninth in San Marino’s Campionato table, and in the bottom half of the 16-team league. Is that the worst position an undefeated team has had after at least 10 league matches?” ponders David Shannon.
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