I'll start. The Wedlock Stand at Bristol City is named after Billy Wedlock, a famous ex-player from years ago. His grandson was the folk singer Fred Wedlock, who had a hit in the early 80's with The Oldest Swinger In Town.
The biggest city in the country to have never had a football team in the football league is......Wakefield !!! Or at least that's what somebody told me at work today
Bear with me while I attempt to explain this one. Barbados once played somebody or other in a competition where they had to win by 2 clear goals to go through and with 5 minutes to go they were winning 2-1. Nothing too problematic I hear you say, they just needed to net another one and it's a two goal lead right? Well yes but that would be too easy. Barbados were on the back foot by this point and realised they'd struggle to get another goal in 5 minutes so they looked to the rule book which said that if the game was drawn at full time it would go to extra time where it would be golden goal but with the added oddness that if you won in extra time the game would be recorded as a victory by two goals (yeah I've no idea why either but it's true). Anyway Barbados knew this so they figured that if they conceded a goal before the end of the game then it would be 2-2 and they'd have half an hour to hopefully get a goal from somewhere making it 4-2 and a 2 goal victory sending them through. So they did the only thing they could think of and that was to score an own goal. Brilliant thinking right? The only problem they had now was that the other team quickly worked out what was going on so THEY tried to score an own goal as well so that they would lose 3-2 and stop Barbados going through (remember they needed to win by 2). So a minute ago we had Barbados trying to score an own goal (and succeeding) and now we had the other team trying to do the same thing. Barbados weren't daft though so they sent everyone up the pitch, not to attack but to stop the other team from scoring an own goal so that the game stays at 2-2 and gives them an extra half hour to get a lucky goal that counts as 2. Can't fail surely? Well yes it can. The other team figured that if barbados were going to send everyone forward to stop them scoring an own goal then they would just run down the other end and score a proper goal so that they win 3-2 instead of losing 3-2, either way they wree happy because extra time wouldnt happen and barbados wouldn't get their 2 goal win. Now we already know Barbados weren't daft so they worked out what was going on again and sent half the team back to defend their goal leading to 8 or 9 minutes of the other team trying to score in any goal and Barbados trying to keep the ball out of both ends which they somehow managed to do and the game finished 2-2 which sent it into the extra time they had hoped for. Extra time came with Barbados now needing to score in the right net (or they'd have a 2 goal loss obviously) so for 30 minutes the game went as normal and ended with no extra goals taking it to penalties which Barbados won giving them a 2 goal victory and sending them through to the next round. So in summary Barbados once went through to the next round of a cup by scoring an own goal against a team who was also trying to score an own goal, or a normal goal or indeed just any goal while Barbados were trying to defend every goal in the stadium. That only took me 6 hours to work out in my head and type out.
Wow that's amazing (I realise this is no compliment for the time you gave to this fact, but it's all I got)
