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“On 13 September, Andrew Tod scored a hat-trick for Dunfermline v Arbroath,” notes Ian Golightly. “His father, Andy Tod, scored a hat-trick for Dunfermline v Dundee on 1 January 2005. Are there any other examples of a father and son who have both scored a hat-trick for the same club?”
You would only need to travel around 18 miles for the first example. “After many years enjoying the feature I may finally have something to add involving my beloved Hibernian,” writes Rory Macpherson. “Gary Murray scored a hat-trick against Clydebank in 1981, with his son Simon Murray hitting another against Arbroath in 2017.”
Next up: Benfica, where the legendary José Águas scored 16 hat-tricks between 1950 and 1962. His son Rui Águas bagged three of his own between 1986 and 1993, either side of a spell at Porto. Thanks to João Almeida Moreira and Rui Miguel Tovar for that one.
And to Álvaro Sánchez for taking us to the north side of Dublin. “In November 1967, 19-year-old Jimmy O’Connor scored a pretty memorable hat-trick for Shelbourne against Bohemians,” begins Álvaro. “At two minutes 13 seconds, it’s the fastest in a top-flight domestic league! His son Barry O’Connor played for Shelbourne for just half a season apparently, but he scored a hat-trick in the last game of the 1993-94 season against Galway United.” Barry’s hat-trick was a leisurely affair, taking him a whole 20 minutes.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Allen family won’t be surprised that they are also on the list. “Les Allen scored five goals for Tottenham against Crewe in the fourth round of the FA Cup in February 1960,” notes John Curry. “His son, Clive Allen, scored several hat-tricks for Spurs, his first against Aston Villa in the opening game of the 1986-87 season.” Didn’t do much for the rest of the season though, did he?
We have tried to find any father-daughter and mother-daughter examples, but the closest we got was Karna Solskjær playing (but not scoring) for Manchester United, where her dad snaffled three hat-tricks. If you know of any, please get in touch.
A low for Guardiola?
“Manchester City had 32.8% possession at the Emirates on Sunday,” writes Ian Perkins. “Is that the lowest for a Pep Guardiola team?”
It’s certainly the lowest in his 601 league games, comfortably beating the previous record of 36.5%. That was set at the Emirates, too, when City won 3-1 in February 2023 and began the process of overhauling the long-term leaders Arsenal. We don’t have possession data for all of Guardiola’s cup games as manager but it feels unlikely that any of his teams have had less of the ball across a full game.
Even when Guardiola’s teams have been thrashed, the damage has generally been done in transition. Take Bayern Munich 0-4 Real Madrid in the 2013-14 Champions League semi-final second leg; that night, Bayern had 64% possession.
An XG we should have buried
In last week’s Knowledge we looked at the most prolific players with the initials XG or GA. There were a couple of notable omissions. Dozens of you mentioned Xavier Gravelaine, a talented French journeyman who won four caps in the early 1990s and had almost as many clubs as Carlos Kaiser.
A few of you wrote in to say you were “shocked” or “amazed” by our failure to include Gravelaine last week. Fear not, appropriate action has been taken: we’ve asked Santa to bring you a new vocabulary for Christmas.
Gravelaine scored 141 goals for his various clubs, according to Transfermarkt, with 125 in league football and 16 in various cups. That puts him 97 ahead of our previous XG winner (sic), Xhevdet Gela. We also missed off a few prolific players with the initials GA (as in goals + assists), including penalty expert Graham Alexander. Thanks to everybody else who corrected us.
Gareth Ainsworth (QPR, Wycombe, etc) 61 goals + 25 assists = 86
Graham Alexander (Preston, Scotland, etc) 130 goals + at least 19 assists = 149+
Graham Arnold (Roda, Liège, Australia, etc) At least 181 goals; no data on assists
That puts Arnold close to the clubhouse leader, Bulgaria’s legendary striker Georgi Asparuhov, who scored at least 206 goals across a career that was tragically cut short when he died at the age of 28.
Knowledge archive
“Both Sheffield teams are propping up the Championship,” writes Joe Scott. “Should this continue, it would be the first time Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday have been relegated in the same season. I wonder if a city has had this happen before? In a similar vein, which relegation trio has had the tightest geographical spread?”
Both sides were actually relegated in 2020-21 after finishing rock bottom of the Premier League and Championship, respectively. We had a similar question back then, and answered thus.
Kirk Burton takes us to Edinburgh for a tale of double woe in the not so distant past. “Hearts and Hibs were both relegated from the Scottish Premiership in the 2013-14 season, meaning three of Scotland’s biggest clubs were in the second tier for 2014-15 (they were joined by Rangers who finished third behind them both).”
The Robins and the Gas both dropped out of the same division in the same season – and it was particularly painful for Ted Keene. “On 29 August 1980 I took my 10-year-old son to his first ever match – a riveting 0-0 derby draw between Bristol City and Bristol Rovers at Ashton Gate. The reverse fixture was 0-0 as well and both got relegated to Division Three in May 1981. Naturally, my son became an Aston Villa fan that year. In September 1989, the Ashton Gate derby was another wonderful 0-0 draw. This time both teams got promoted back to Division Two.”
Fans in Ankara have also experienced the low of a double-drop this season [2020-21]. “Ankaragücü and Gençlerbirliği both got relegated from the Turkish Super League this weekend,” reports Önder Susam. Gençlerbirliği needed to win their final game to survive, but a Benik Afobe winner in the 87th minute for Trabzonspor confirmed their relegation.
Can you help?
Last Tuesday, Stalybridge Celtic won 6-4 away to Trafford, with the visitors’ Ruben Jerome (brother of Cameron) scoring five goals, including a first-half hat-trick. Trafford substitute Kieron Molloy then scored a hat-trick of his own between the 69th and 89th minutes. How common is it for players from different teams to score a hat-trick in different halves?” wonders Richard Greenwood.
Motherwell have drawn their first five league games, apparently a Scottish record,” points out John McAlpine. “What’s the record for consecutive league draws, both from the start of the season and overall?”
Tottenham men’s and women’s teams currently have a first-team player with the surname Spence (Djed for the men and Drew for the women),” notes Martin Willis. “Both players also wear the No 24. Are there any other instances of a club having multiple players with the same name and number combo?”
Last week, St Mirren’s fans celebrated their Scottish League Cup quarter-final win at Kilmarnock with a pitch invasion. Has there ever been such a large-scale pitch invasion so early in the season?” wonders Rohan Back.
We live in an increasingly data-driven world,” notes Andrew Hornbuckle. “I was wondering: what are the most significant unknown pieces of football information? Are there any results, records, lineups, or other pieces of information, that despite their importance are still up for debate or even completely unknown?”
Wolves started with three players named Gomes (Toti, João and Rodrigo) against Leeds on Saturday. When was the last time a Premier League team played three or more players who had the same surname?” asks Adey Jewkes.
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