“Nottingham Forest played Derby on Sunday,” begins Doug Walmsley. “Their head-to-head in major competition is 34 wins to Derby, 37 to Forest with 23 draws. Derby having scored 144, Forest scoring 141. Is there a closer derby record?”
To answer this, first we must define closeness. Clearly it requires both clubs to have won a similar number of all the matches played between them but how important is it that they have also scored a similar number of goals? While clearly adding a little luxurious sheen to the statistics Doug Walmsley quotes, in the Knowledge’s opinion it’s no more than a handy bonus – what we’re really looking for is the smallest difference between the number of wins recorded by rival teams in head-to-head encounters.
So we’ve taken a semi-exhaustive list of the classic rivalries in English and Scottish domestic football, found the teams’ all-time head-to-head records (accepting that in some cases the matches started before the rivalry), worked out the difference between the number of games won by the two teams and expressed it as a percentage of all games won by either team (leaving draws out of it, as they’re even enough already). We’ve then ranked the rivalries by this percentage figure (which we’ve termed the supremacy rating) to find which are the most closely-contested, and which the most one-sided, with the lowest figures indicating the most closely-balanced battles and the highest the most one-sided. We have used all-competition statistics – some might argue that we should only have used the league results, but we think they’d be wrong.
As the questioner suggests, Nottingham Forest and Derby County do have a very well-contested rivalry, with a supremacy rating of just 2.8, but that is only good enough to put them fourth on our list. There are two rivalries that are perfectly poised, with nothing between Crystal Palace and Brighton despite playing 98 matches (they’ve drawn 24 of them) and Fulham similarly conjoined with QPR after 31 games.
How, then, to split these two to decide the most finely-fought derby in the nation? In many ways it would be fairest just to award the honour to the Eagles and the Seagulls for having played more than three times as many games as the two London sides, but in the spirit of the question we’ll go back to goals. In their derby games Fulham have scored 24 times and QPR 17, so the difference between their two tallies (7) amounts to 17.1% of the total; in the M23 derby Palace have scored 139 times and Brighton 131, with the difference between their tallies (8) amounting to just 3% of the total. It is, then, any way you look at it, the closest derby in the land.
British football rivalry wins and ratings
Crystal Palace 37-37 Brighton
Supremacy rating 0 Fulham 13-13 QPR
Supremacy rating 0 Blackburn 41-39 Burnley
Supremacy rating 2.5 Derby 35-37 Nottingham Forest
Supremacy rating 2.8 Bolton 15-16 Wigan
Supremacy rating 3.2 Colchester 28-30 Southend
Supremacy rating 3.4 Sheffield United 45-42 Sheffield Wednesday
Supremacy rating 3.4 Sunderland 49-53 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 3.9 Rangers 160-145 Celtic
Supremacy rating 4.9 Aston Villa 42-38 Birmingham City
Supremacy rating 5 Ipswich 43-38 Norwich
Supremacy rating 6.2 Leeds United 25-29 Huddersfield
Supremacy rating 7.4 Liverpool 64-75 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 7.9 Port Vale 16-19 Stoke
Supremacy rating 8.6 Wrexham 37-31 Chester
Supremacy rating 8.8 West Brom 64-53 Wolves
Supremacy rating 9.4 Middlesbrough 40-49 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 10.1 Cardiff 22-27 Swansea
Supremacy rating 10.2 Watford 28-35 Luton
Supremacy rating 11.1 Brentford 16-20 Fulham
Supremacy rating 11.1 Plymouth 32-25 Exeter
Supremacy rating 12.3 Chelsea 63-49 Tottenham
Supremacy rating 12.5 Nottingham Forest 39-30 Notts County
Supremacy rating 13.0 Middlesbrough 46-60 Sunderland
Supremacy rating 13.2 Everton 66-88 Liverpool
Supremacy rating 14.3 Arsenal 74-54 Tottenham
Supremacy rating: 15.6 Man City 48-68 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 17.2 Bury 24-16 Rochdale
Supremacy rating 20 Blackpool 31-48 Preston
Supremacy rating 21.5 Hereford 9-14 Shrewsbury
Supremacy rating 21.7 Grimsby 47-30 Lincoln
Supremacy rating 22.1 Bristol City 47-29 Bristol Rovers
Supremacy rating 23.7 Dundee 45-75 Dundee United
Supremacy rating 25 Millwall 6-10 West Ham
Supremacy rating 25 Charlton 19-33 Crystal Palace
Supremacy rating 26.9 Hearts 138-79 Hibernian
Supremacy rating 27.2 Manchester United 46-26 Leeds United
Supremacy rating 27.8 Oxford 13-23 Swindon
Supremacy rating 27.8 Portsmouth 9-19 Southampton
Supremacy rating 35.7
The Knowledge is aware that football exists outside the British isles, and readers have tipped us off about a few South American rivalries that would come close to, or better, anything we’ve got to offer. “The Superclásico Mexicano features Mexico’s two largest teams, Club América and Club Deportivo Guadalajara (Chivas),” writes Tim Dockery. “They have faced off 183 times in official games (non-friendlies). América (having won 65) has a five-game win advantage which equals 4% of all of the games won by either side. Chivas has outscored América by four goals in those games, a difference of 0.87% of all 458 goals scored.” Closer still is the Clásico Regiomontano, between Monterrey and Tigres. “Of the 102 games that they have contested,” Tim continues, “Monterrey have won 36, and Tigres have won 35 [a supremacy rating of 1.4]. In those games, Monterrey has scored two more goals than Tigres out of an aggregate of 222 goals, a difference of 0.90%.”
Ecuador’s biggest derby, between Barcelona (not that one) and Emelec – otherwise known as the Clásico del Astillero – is another close one. “Counting National Championship plus Copa Libertadores, Barcelona lead 68-65 [a supremacy rating of 2.3], and by 230-226 in goals,” writes Jordi Gomez. “Actually, the question comes a bit late. After Emelec won 1-2 at the Monumental in 12 June 2010 the record was exactly 62-62, and they drew in the following five derbies. Nothing could split them until Barcelona won 2-0 in 19 November 2011.”
But reader Martin K tipped us off about a derby that would better anything on our list. According to Wikipedia, the head-to-head record in Argentina’s Clásico Santafesino, between Colon and Union of Santa Fe, is 26 wins each from 82 meetings, with 95 goals to Colon and 99 to Union, the difference between the teams’ goals (4) being 2.1% of the total goals scored.
If you know of a more finely balanced derby, let us know at the address below – or if you know of a particularly unbalanced one there’s another derby-based question at the bottom of the page that might be of interest.
PIZZA, GOLD DISCS AND SEXY CAR WASHES
“What is the most unusual prize awarded to a football player or team for their performances on the field?” asks Claire Smithson.
I refer the question-poser back to the Knowledge of 3 July 2013, which recounted tales of goalscorers being given free stuff (beer, mainly) in return for their net-busting feats. This question opens the topic up to all players in any position, thus opening the door to a few different tales.
When Sevilla won the Europa League earlier this year, every player was given their own body weight in beer by the club sponsor, Cruzcampo. In all they got over 4,000 bottles. Similarly(ish), Sir Alex Ferguson received a lifetime’s supply of Carling in 2003 in recognition of his managerial achievements, although given his well-known preference for fine wine he’s unlikely to have actually drunk much of it.
Foodstuffs have been a fairly popular bonus, with the former Bournemouth goalkeeper Ian Leigh famously given a lifetime supply of pizza by a local Italian restaurant in return for his keeping a clean sheet against Manchester United in the 1984 FA Cup third round, the game that put Harry Redknapp on the managerial map. A couple of years later the restaurant was sadly taken over my a new owner, who refused to honour the pledge. The miserly new boss was a certain Mr H Redknapp.
Then there’s celery. “Not sure this counts,” writes Joseph Tesoriero [I’ve checked, and it does], “but Ian Rush was given some celery and some wine by then chairman of Chelsea Ken Bates when the two teams faced each other in Rush’s final game in his first stint for Liverpool in 1987. This was apparently to recognize Rush’s achievements with Liverpool. The celery was Chelsea’s official vegetable at the time.” In a very vaguely similar vein, Trevor Francis played so well for Birmingham that Jeff Lynne of ELO gave him a gold disc, “to show our appreciation of him as the best footballer in the world”.
Houses always come in handy, and have been regularly handed out, including to every member of the 1930 Uruguay World Cup squad, and every member of Zaire’s 1974 team. The Leopards also got a green Volkswagen, particularly handy as cars are always near the very top of any footballer’s wishlist. Last year the Mansfield Town chairman, John Radford, was so impressed by the team’s 8-1 victory over Barrow he gave the manager, Paul Cox, his Aston Martin. “You’ve got to give people targets and things like that,” Radford explained. “He fancied the car and I thought I’m about ready for a change.”
The then Cannes chairman, Alain Pedretti, came good on a promise to give Zinedine Zidane a car on the occasion of his first goal in professional football in 1994. In 2012 the Doncaster Rovers chairman, John Ryan, said he’d buy Kyle Bennett a brand new Bentley Continental if he scored – but specified that the midfielder would have to notch not just once but 20 times that season before he was handed the keys. The incentive didn’t do much to improve the player’s goalscoring record: Bennett, who when the offer was made that August had scored in both of his side’s first two league games of the season, ended the campaign with a tally, in all competitions, of three.
Players at NEC Nijmegen last season didn’t get new cars, but they did get their old cars to look like new – instead of the traditional bubbly whoever was named man of the match got their car cleaned by three bikini-clad blondes – or, as the club put it, a “sexy car wash”.
Elsewhere, a perusal of recent auctions of sporting memorabilia reveal that players historically received a lot of cigarette cases and tankards, neither of which the modern sportsman would of course have any need for (although Jack Wilshere might find them handy). More wholesomely, Gerald Emprechtinger writes that “after winning the 1989 European Competition for women’s football, each player of the victorious West Germany team received the 41-piece Villeroy & Boch Mariposa coffee set by the DFB”.
Though as it didn’t reward a performance on the pitch it doesn’t really count, it’s still worth mentioning that the Preston footballer Harry Jones was presented with the Royal Humane Society’s honorary testimonial in 1932 for rescuing a drowning 10-year-old boy from the Manchester Ship Canal. And finally, it is the Knowledge’s sad duty to report that the 2006 Guardian headline “America offer World Cup carrot to Rossi” referred to the then Manchester United youngster Guiseppe Rossi getting the chance to claim a place in the United States squad for that summer’s football tournament in Germany, not to him potentially being presented with a title-winning root vegetable.
MANAGERS WHO WALKED DURING PLAY
“Having been taken off on a tangent by Wikipedia, not for the first time, I arrived at the page of Guy Roux,” wrote Eamonn Kelly a few weeks back. “Reading on I saw that Roux had resigned from RC Lens during a 2-1 loss to Strasbourg. Upon further investigation I discovered that he actually resigned after the game but my interest in the subject was piqued and hence my question: have any managers resigned from their posts during a game?”
“It was the 10th of March 2007 and the former European champions, Red Star Belgrade, hosted Vojvodina in the Serbian Superliga,” recalls Rastko Stanisic. “The Serbian championship is quite like Scotland’s (before Rangers were relegated) in that only two teams have a genuine chance of winning it, and their every slip-up is either costly or is seen as an unforgivable sign of weakness. So it is no surprise that, after Vojvodina cruised to a shock 3-0 lead, Red Star fans, not famed for their patience and apparently being too drunk to remember that their team had a six-point lead over Partizan at the time, began chanting: ‘Dusan Out!’
The Dusan in question was Dusan Bajevic, the manager (who also coached Olympiakos and AEK Athens to eight league titles in total and who sat on the bench when the former failed to defend THAT Steven Gerrard 90th-minute volley which put Liverpool through the group stage en route to Istanbul). What followed is one of the most hilarious and at the same time most pitiful scenes in recent Serbian football history. In the 72nd minute, as the chants continue, Bajevic responds by looking at his watch and slowly trudging off the pitch. He failed to show up at the post-match conference and no one at Red Star saw him again. And it took until last year for them to see the title again.”
“His exit was a blow to his reputation and that of Red Star,” the club president, Dragan Stojkovic, said at the time. “Red Star is bigger than any individual and there has to be a clear line separating emotions from professional obligations.”
Incredibly, Bajevic had previous. AEK Athens fans were so furious when he left them to take over at Olympiakos in 1996 that they simply refused to accept him when he came back for a second spell six years later. For a couple of seasons he put up with it but it all came to a head during a match against Iraklis in 2004 when the coach’s wife received so much abuse she fled the stadium before the kick-off, and her husband proceeded to quit shortly before half-time after fans unveiled a giant banner that read simply “traitor”. The truly remarkable thing about the incident is the fans’ hatred came to a head in a match AEK won 4-0. “You all saw and heard what went on. I cannot take that - it is a matter of ethics, it hurts me,” he said. “I regret leaving a job half-done. The players asked me to stay but I could not cope with this situation any longer.” Even more remarkably he was to return to AEK in 2008 for a third spell, which ended in 2010 a couple of weeks after he was punched in the face by a fan during a pre-season friendly.
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
“Can you tell me where the name ‘Posh’ for Peterborough United originates?” asked Mr CM Holmes, back in 2002. “Not one of my football chums knows.”
We didn’t either, to be honest, until we went to the Peterborough United website. According to the club, their nickname probably comes from an advert looking for posh players placed 15 years before they were formed.
“[The nickname’s] origins are obscure, but are widely believed to have stemmed from player-manager Pat Tirrel, who said in the close season of 1921 he was looking for ‘Posh players for a Posh team’,” writes Russell Plummer.
Tirrel wasn’t player-manager of Peterborough, however, but another side – Peterborough and Fletton United. In 1932 they folded, leaving behind debts of £248.1s.11p. Two years later, the Peterborough United of today were formed. As a completely separate entity, they didn’t have to take the debts of Peterborough and Fletton United. They did, however, take one of their nicknames: Posh.
For thousands more questions and answers, take a trip through the Knowledge archive.
CAN YOU HELP?
“Federico Fazio made his debut for Spurs the other night at the Partizan Stadium in Belgrade, a cool 1,700km or so from White Hart Lane (or a 20-hour drive according to Google Maps),” ponders Dave Miller. “Is this the furthest from his home ground a player has made his debut?” The Knowledge expects that Dave’s referring to competitive debuts and tales of pre-season friendlies in outlandish outposts won’t cut it.
“While watching a pre-match report on Portuguese TV recently, I learned that Lisbon’s third club Belenenses had not won away to local rivals Sporting in over 60 years (a 1-1 draw at the Estádio José Alvalade ensured this record continued),” Oliver Farry reports. “Such unsuccessful streaks are not uncommon (I recall Spurs went more than 70 years without winning at Anfield before a 1-0 win in 1985 broke that duck) but are there worse instances in derby fixtures?”
“My team in the League of Ireland, Longford Town, played last week and Stephen Rice and Mark Salmon both scored,” writes Padraig Stapleton. “Just wondering if any similar food combos have ever scored in the same game? Or even played in the same team?”