November 20 – Mac o’ Nine Tales

TED MacDougal might sound more like a resident of Craggy Island than a record-breaking footballer, but today in 1971 the Bournemouth striker went goal-crazy, bagging nine goals in an FA Cup tie against non-league Margate.

SuperMac didn’t waste much time against the Gate, scoring five in the first half before completing his treble hat-trick after the break as Bournemouth romped to an 11-0 win. The nine goal haul remains the most goals scored by a single player in an FA Cup match.

The Scottish striker was something of a journeyman. Racking up ten clubs in a 24-year career, he was nothing if not prolific. After being released by Liverpool as a 20-year-old he made a name for himself at York City, scoring 40 goals in two seasons and earning a £10,000 move to the club that was then known as Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic.

A three year spell at Dean Court was goal-packed, with many of them trademark diving headers. Proving he had a taste for the FA Cup, a year before his exploits against Margate, MacDougal put six past Oxford City in an 8-1 win.

After three seasons and 126 goals SuperMac left the now-rebranded AFC Bournemouth for the heady lights of Old Trafford in a £200,000 move. With United struggling to replace Sir Matt Busby the club looked to blood in a new generation of stars as legends like Denis Law and Bobby Charlton were past their best and George Best’s boozing was becoming more and more of a problem.

A forgettable season at United saw MacDougal move to West Ham, but after a dressing room punch up with Billy Bonds following a defeat to Leeds United, he was on his bike again. Spells at Norwich and Southampton followed, where he got back on the goal bandwagon, before he returned to Dean Court for two seasons.

After a year in America at NASL side Detroit Express SuperMac spent his final season by the seaside at Blackpool and hung up his boots with a record of 259 goals in 542 games.

See a Bournemouth highlight reel below and see what else was going down today here. We’ll be back tomorrow, but if you can’t wait that long, check out our new OTFD book, available here or at all good (and not so good) bookshops now.

November 19 – Walter’s Back

TOGETHER with England, the Scottish national side is one of the two oldest in the world, after the two faced each other in the first ever international match in 1872.

Despite these proud beginnings the Scots have had rather more trouble in creating a dynasty of success to match their status as one of the world’s oldest teams. The team has never won the World Cup or the European Championship but they do have a good record of reaching the tournaments and turning out some of the world’s best players as well.

The team qualified for every World Cup from 1974 onwards apart from USA 94, but after the 1998 tournament in France the Tartan team went into something of a decline. No longer producing the kind of talent that had graced the top club sides for years the team began to struggle under Craig Brown and missed out on both Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup.

Brown stepped down and was replaced by the country’s first foreign manager, Berti Vogts in 2002. It proved to be a disastrous appointment and the German presided over the worst period in the history of the side as they lurched from one bad result to the next including defeats like 6–0 to Holland, 5–0 to France, 4–0 to Wales, 4–1 to South Korea and 3–0 to Hungary.

After two years of watching the team slide down the Fifa rankings the Tartan army could take it no more and Vogts fell on his sword.

On this day in 2004 the Scottish FA interviewed the man who would replace Vogts when former Rangers and Everton boss Walter Smith put on his best suit and tried to think of all his strengths and weaknesses (None…ah well, ah’m a bit of a perfectionist actually) as he faced the SFA interview panel.

Walter got on with the job in hand and quickly whipped his charges into shape as results picked up. The team began to pick up wins and under Smith they even beat France twice, once as part of their qualification campaign for the 2006 World Cup. Smith just failed to get them to the tournament, finishing third in the group behind Italy and Norway, but he had, as the cliche goes, restored a lot of pride.

Scotland began the qualification campaign for Euro 2008 with renewed optimism and Smith once again pulled off another win over France at Hampden Park before the lure of club management with his first love, Glasgow Rangers, proved too much and he handed over the reigns to another former Rangers manager Alex McLeish.

Something of rather more note happened on this day in 1969 when the world’s best ever player notched up a personal goal scoring landmark, which you can read about here. More tomorrow folks, but in the meantime, see Walter Smith giving the BBC’s Chick Young a hard time below.

November 18 – Keano’s Shock Exit

WHEN he was Alex Ferguson’s on-field snarling all-tackling, all dancing lieutenant in the Manchester United team, Roy Keane was loved by the Old Trafford faithful but despised by most other fans. Indeed, your humble author thought he was little more than a spiteful yet energetic thug with a good line in stinging criticism which he dished out to everyone from international managers to corporate fans at Old Trafford.

However, since Keane’s conversion into a forthright and (save for the kjnkj) successful manager, he deserves a reappraisal and yours truly is having to have a re-think about Keano. Far from being the complete disaster of a gaffer that we and others predicted, he has thus far been doing pretty well and seems to be becoming the kind of thoughtful and insightful manager that Tony Adams seems to desperately be trying to come across as in his press conferences.

Keano started his playing career in England under Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest before moving to Manchester United in 1993. It seemed like a perfect fit as Keane became one of Europe’s top midfielders and thrived in the all-conquering 1990s team Sir Alex built. The relationship between manager and player seemed to be one of the tightest in football but that all came to a sudden end on this day in 2005 when Keane dramatically quit the club after 12-and-a-half years.

The news was as unexpected as it was sudden although there had been signs Keano was not entirely happy at the club. The catalyst for his departure seems to have been an interview he gave to MUTV which was never broadcast but contained harsh words for some of his teammates.

With the club going though something of a shaky patch, Keane was typically upfront with his views of his fellow professionals at the club, notably John O’Shea, Alan Smith, Kieran Richardson and Darren Fletcher. He also directed his ire at Rio Ferdinand and said: “Just because you are paid £120,000-a-week and play well for 20 minutes against Tottenham, you think you are a superstar.”

Keane had gone from being Fergie’s most trusted player to a loose cannon and the old man dealt with him in a typically ruthless manner. Keane was out, apparently by mutual consent. His last match was a 0-0 draw against arch-rivals Liverpool in September.

Both Keane and Fergie issued typically bland PR-ish statements. Keane said: “It has been a great honour and privilege for me to play for Manchester United for over 12 years. During my time at the club I have been fortunate to play alongside some of the best players in the game and in front of the best supporters in the world. At all times I have endeavoured to do my best for the management and the team.

“Whilst it is a sad day for me to leave such a great club and manager I believe that the time has now come for me to move on. After so many years, I will miss everyone at the club. I send my best wishes for the future to the management, players, staff and supporters of the club.”

Ferguson said: “Roy Keane has been a fantastic servant for Manchester United. The best midfield player in the world of his generation, he is already one of the great figures in our club’s illustrious history. Roy has been central to the success of the club in the last 12-and-a-half years and everyone at Old Trafford wishes him well in the rest of his career and beyond.”

Roy went on to sign for Celtic and spent six months with the club, winning the SPL and Scottish League Cup, before he retired from playing altogether.

As usual we will have more for you tomorrow, meantime read about another famous midfielder arriving at Old Trafford on this day here.

November 17 – Eight Second Wonders

TODAY in 1993 England were up against it in their efforts to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. Graham Taylor’s men had stumbled their way into a scenario where they had win their last game against San Marino by seven clear goals and hope that Holland lost away to Poland in order to qualify for USA ’94.

One would have been forgiven for thinking that the eleven men representing the Three Lions that night would have gone at the team of part-timers from the start, but after only eight seconds England were already playing catch up when Davide Gualtieri scored straight from the kick off.

The plucky San Marinions (Marinos? Marino-ites? Marinese?) held the lead for 20 minutes and dared to dream that one of the biggest upsets the game had ever seen was on after they had scored only their second goal in the 10 match qualifying campaign.

Situated the Apennine Mountains of northern Italy, the tiny nation of San Marino covers an area of 60.5 sq km and the population of the country can just about fit into Bolton’s Reebok Stadium. So what they were doing beating England in a do-or-die World Cup qualifier is anybody’s guess.

Eventually England got their act together and scored seven goals, with Arsenal striker Ian Wright bagging four as England played out a 7-1 win in front of 2,378 fans, the lowest attendance at an England international in the 20th century.

With England only winning by six goals and Holland beating Poland 3-1, it meant curtains for their USA 1994 hopes and also marked the end of Graham Taylor’s reign as national team coach as he fell on his sword six days later.

Taylor had been under the cosh since England’s exit from Euro ’92 when his substitution of Gary Lineker, stranded one short of Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 49 international goals saw the tabloid press start an obsession with photo-shopping Taylor’s face on vegetables.

Terry Venables jetted in to replace Taylor and luckily for him was not tasked with qualifying for the next international tournament, as England played host to the European Championships in 1996.

See some footage of some of the abuse that Taylor got below and check out what else was happening today here.

November 16 – Willie’s Haul

IN THE 1930s England had a real superiority complex. After leaving Fifa in 1928, the Three Lions ignored the newly-established World Cup, believing they were above that kind of thing as they were easily the best in the world at the beautiful game. This was no doubt enforced by feats such as the one Willie Hall accomplished today in 1938, when he scored a hat-trick in three and a half minutes, setting a record for the fastest treble in international football that would last for more than 60 years.

Willie Hall was one of the day’s leading lights on the football field. After starting his career at Notts County in 1930 he earned himself a move to Tottenham in 1932 for £2,500 where the inside forward would play out the rest of his career.

After less than a year in north London Hall broke into the England team, making his debut against France in December 1933. Complementing his skilful dribbling was an insightful football brain that saw him filling positions in both defence and attack.

Hall was becoming a England regular in the 1937/38 season and if not for a certain angry German’s antics on the continent he would have bagged more than 10 caps. Despite this, he managed to cement his place in the record books when England faced off against Northern Ireland today in 1938.

England would romp to a 7-0 victory and Hall bagged three goals at the end of the first half in a devastating three minute and thirty second spell as he helped himself to five goals that afternoon. This record would not be bettered until Japanese striker Masashi Nakayama scored his treble 27 seconds quicker against Brunei in 2000.

Hall only turned out three more times for the national side, but could boast of an impressive nine goals in his ten caps. Eat your heart out Andrew Cole. Hall carried on representing Spurs in friendly matches throughout the war whilst also being a member of the London Police Reserve.

His playing career was abruptly ended in 1945 when an illness meant he had to have the lower part of both of his legs amputated. Fellow England forward Tommy Lawton paid tribute to him saying: “What a tragedy it was that Willie should lose both his precious legs, the legs that had thrilled us all in football for many a year.”

A testimonial at White Hart Lane saw a crowd of 30,220 raise £3,000 and Hall would later become vice-president of the Spurs Supporters Club. He would supplement this by working as a publican before he died in Newark in 1967, aged 55.

Unfortunately the Sky Sports camera’s were found lacking that day, so no footage of Hall’s goals exist. Instead have a gander at a more recent quick-fire hat-trick below and check out what else was going down in the world of football today here. If you can’t wait until tomorrow for your daily football fix then why don’t you have a gander at the new OTFD book – available here and in all good (and bad) book shops now.

November 15 – KK Wins His First Cap

WE have made no secret of the fact Kevin Keegan is one of our favourite characters in the world of football and comedy, but normally on our humble blog we tend to focus on KK’s managerial career.

We have told you about Keggy’s first foray into management, his legendary bonkers rant on Sky Sports, the time his charges came up trumps by thrashing Manchester United, and of course his many and varied dramatic resignations.

Today in 1972 a young KK was making waves as a player when he made his England debut aged 21. Despite constantly being told he was too small to make it as a pro, and having been rejected by hometown club Doncaster Rovers and Coventry City, Mighty Mouse kept on trying and eventually became a professional at Scunthorpe. “Rejection drove me on,” says Keegan. “A few people close to me said: ‘Now you’ll have to concentrate on your school work.’ They didn’t think I was good enough, and I used it as a spur. I think most of the top players have been rejected somewhere along the line, and most top business people have problems before they get to the top. Edison had failures before he got the lightbulb going!”

His perseverance paid off and when he was just 20 Bill Shankly snapped him up for £35,000 for Liverpool. Shanks told his new young charge that he would go on to wear the Three Lions shirt and sure enough, within a year of arriving at Anfield Keegan was called up by Sir Alf.

He started for England in a World Cup qualifier against Wales at Ninian Park in Cardiff and impressed as England won 1-0 thanks to a Colin Bell goal.

The man himself said: “My second match for England was also against Wales, and the third was in 1974, again in Cardiff. We won and I scored my first goal. By that time, I was wondering if I was Welsh or English. I was living in North Wales and other players started calling me Taff Keegan!”

Sadly for one of England’s best players, and certainly one of the best of his generation, the height of Keegan’s powers coincided with a slump in England’s fortunes. The team didn’t make it to the World Cup in 1974 and 1978, or the European Championship in between. The 1982 World Cup in Spain was to be KK’s only appearance at the world’s best tournament and even then an injury curtailed his playing time to just a cameo role in the crucial match against the hosts Spain when he missed a point blank range header with the match at 0-0. The game ended goal-less and England were out without losing a game. “As I headed it, I thought ‘Goal!’ because I didn’t usually miss from there.”

“There aren’t any excuses,” Keegan said. “England weren’t good enough as a nation at the time. It doesn’t matter if I thought we were unlucky or whatever, we just didn’t have enough good players. And I obviously wasn’t good enough, either.

“Yes, we did get to the World Cup in Spain in 1982 – and people say myself and Trevor Brooking were the main reason we got to that tournament – but both of us got injured, and we only played about 20 minutes each.”

The draw against Spain was Keegan’s last in an England shirt as he began to wind down his playing career.

Have a look at a very young KK giving his thoughts to a BBC chappy below and come back tomorrow if you need a footy fix. Before you go click here to read about Europe’s greatest ever player making his debut.

November 14 – Fantastic Mr Fox

MANY things have caused football matches to be delayed over the years from crowd trouble, bad weather, or even dodgy floodlight failures. But today in 1996 a match no less important than the Old Firm derby at Parkhead between Celtic and Rangers was interrupted thanks to an intruder on the pitch. Sadly Erica Roe was nowhere in sight as the invader was a fox, who must have mistaken Parkhead for Filbert Street.

The referee Hugh Dallas had to delay Celtic from taking a corner as the fox weaved this way and that like a four-legged Maradona, evading several players before dashing back into the crowd.

Celtic public relations manager Peter McLean said: “We were very impressed with the pace of the fox. It still hasn’t been caught. We don’t know how it got in and how it escaped. We have even been given the brush-off by its agent.” Basil would have been proud of that one. Boom boom!

Old foxy’s appearance in an SPL game is not the only time an animal has interrupted play. There was the incident we told you about last year when Jimmy Greaves had to use all his skill to nab a dog that had run onto the pitch during England’s 1962 World Cup clash with Brazil. Similarly in 2005 a cat made a brief appearance on Preston’s Deepdale pitch, while a squirrel decided to try his luck during a Stevenage versus Bath City cup tie in 1999. Lovely footwork mind.

Rather more seriously former Brent goalkeeper Chic Brodie came-a-cropper when a pooch ran on to the field during their match with Colchester. As Brodie went to receive a back-pass the dog launched himself at the ‘keeper, shattering his kneecap in the process. He was stretchered off and said afterwards: “The dog might have been a small one, but it just happened to be a solid one.”

Keen to prevent the mammals from having all the fun, there have been a number of bird strikes during games as well. In 1976 during the Bundesliga match between Bayern Munich and VfL Bochum a duck landed close to German goalkeeper Sepp Maier who made himself big and lunged for the bird, missing spectacularly. Foul! More recently in the Finnish first division when TPS took on KuPS a duck which had wandered into the middle of the match was struck particularly hard by a corner kick from Seth Ablade which knocked it unconscious. Some kindly nearby fireman apparently brought the duck round (how do you do that??) and it recovered to make a nuisance of itself elsewhere.

Last in our You’ve Been Framed-style round up of comedy animal capers is the tale of Carlos Secretario and the rabbit. At the Bernabéu during the 1996-97 league game between Real Madrid and Betis a rabbit found itself on the pitch and it fell to Real’s Secretario to use his lightening quick reactions to catch the blighter. Commentator Arsénio Iglesias remarked: “Secretario may or may be not a good player, but he is indeed a great hunter!”

We will leave you with a compilation of some of these animal cracker matches, and have a look here for the tale of an epic encounter between England and Italy at Highbury on this day in 1934.

November 13 – Webbsfleet United

NON-LEAGUE side Ebbsfleet United found themselves becoming unlikely internet pioneers today in 2007, as the Kent side was taken over by 27,000 keyboard chairmen when the website MyFootballClub agreed a takeover deal for the club.

The fans’ community website had been established with the aim of recruiting 50,000 fans to chip in £35 each for equal shares in a club that would see the members voting on matters on and off the field, from team selection and transfer to what sort of half-time grub should be up for grabs at the ground.

Once the 50,000 member barrier was broken they all got clicking on their mouses to decide which team to go for. Leeds United initially led the way, with Nottingham Forest and Cambridge United also being popular choices.

By August 2007 it had emerged that four clubs had approached MyFootballClub to moot the idea of a possible sale. The now defunct Halifax Town saw this as a way to escape the debt that would eventually engulf the club at the end of the 2007/08 season and they were joined, cap in hand, by Mansfield Town and Leigh RMI.

Eventually the keyboarded masses opted for Ebsfleet United, the club that had been known as Gravesend & Northfleet until May 2007, changing their name to match the Ebbsfleet International railway station, ran by their sponsors Eurostar and proving that the Fleet aren’t afraid of being branded as sell-outs.

Over 95% of the members had voted to take over the club and manager Liam Daish towed the line nicely: “As a football fan, I think the MyFootballClub idea is fantastic. As the coach, I look forward to the challenge of working with thousands of members to produce a winning team,” he opined. “My assistant Alan Kimble and myself are 100% committed to making this work.”

And to be fair to Daish, it hasn’t yet been a case of too many chefs. The Fleet made their first trip to Wembley and defeated Torquay United to win the FA Trophy for the first time in their history in May 2008 and in January Daish’s transfer plans were given the backing of the board, as more than 95% of them gave him the thumbs up.

See how Sky Sports’ most famous Torquay fan took defeat to Ebbsfleet at Wembley below and also see what else was going on today here.

November 12 – Don’t Call it a Comeback

EVERY so often England come up with a performance that will get the nation believing again and the ‘we’re going to win the World Cup’ bandwagon starts again. Today in 2005 a battling display from Sven’s men saw England dramatically down World Cup favourites Argentina 3-2.

Whereas most England friendlies are a labourious affiar, clashes between these two have always had an edge, ever since Sir Alf told the world what he really thought of Antonio Ratin in 1966. Oh and that little disagreement over the Falklands at the start of the 1980s and a certain handball didn’t help diplomatic relations either.

A month earlier both sides had qualified for the 2006 World Cup so took to Geneva for the clash, both sending out full-strength teams.

Argentina were first out of the blocks when Chelsea striker Hernan Crespo put the Albicelestes in front, but a Wayne Rooney equaliser meant the sides went in level at the break. Walter ‘The Wall’ Samuel put the Argies in front at the start of the second half and as the match went on it looked like another frustrating English defeat.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man though. Michael Owen, who knows a thing or two about scoring against Argentina, nodded in an 87th minute header from a Steven Gerrard cross and in injury time the striker bagged the winner, when he headed in Joe Cole’s floated pass.

England had won their second consecutive match against one of their bitterest enemies following their Word Cup 2002 win in Sapporo and the press and public alike then proceeded to get far too over-excited about the Three Lions’ chances in the next summer’s World Cup.

Needless to say, metatarsals and penalties conspired against England in Germany the following summer as it was a case of same old. See the pulsating climax of the game below and see what else was happening today here. We’ll be back tomorrow for a look down at the non-leagues so don’t go changing.

November 11 – Club-versus-Country

THE club-versus-country issue is one of the biggest problems in modern football. When clubs pay the players’ wages they are a tad loathe to see said players disappear off on long-haul flights at critical times of the club season and risk getting injured.

In 2001 a big row was brewing over a friendly international match between Australia and France, scheduled to take place on this day in Melbourne.

Led by publicity hungry Arsenal bod David Dein, many of the clubs of those players due to travel for the match decided to try a bit of collective action to get the game called off. The match was preceded in September by France’s friendly away to Chile.

For once, Manchester United were in agreement with Arsenal about the issue. Alex Ferguson said in September: “I think it is ridiculous. We put up with their friendly against Chile earlier this month, but the Australia game is in November when all the top clubs will be in the middle of European campaigns. Suddenly they are asking for our players to be put on 23-hour flights to and from Australia. The French authorities must know that will be so taxing.”

Manchester United and Arsenal were joined by Chelsea, Fulham, Leeds United, Roma, Parma, Juventus, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Olympique Marseille in opposing the match.

Fifa stepped in to try to calm the situation and first asked the French Football Federation to cancel the match. When that was rejected they pushed for the FFF to only select one player each from the top clubs for the trip.

“Last week at the Uefa meeting in Prague, Blatter and Zen-Ruffinen came to ask me if it was possible to cancel that trip to Australia,” said FFF president Claude Simonet. “I told them that the date had been decided a year ago and that nobody had spoken up at the time.

“I said I was within my rights and when they suggested we take only one player per foreign club I said I was not France’s manager.”

Simonet added that Lemerre had told him he did not take orders from foreign coaches.

“The game goes ahead. Some 40,000 tickets have been sold and there are TV rights and contracts which the FFF will respect.”

Frenchman Arsene Wenger showed his colours were more North London than Les Blues with his reaction. He said: “I had hoped that France would see that cancelling the match was the sensible option because nobody else thinks the match is a good thing.

“They have already been to Chile on a long trip from which the players came back with stomach illnesses and were jet lagged.

” I feel that trips like this could work against France in the end.”

Despite a lot of posturing from Dein, Wenger and Ferguson, the match went ahead and finished in a 1-1 draw meaning no one was the winner on the day, least of all football.

Below is a clip from the Socceroos 2006 World Cup campaign, and have a gander here at political correctness taking a beating from Mike Newell on this day in 2006.