Fascinating Facts – manager and club records

Royce Franklin, a life member of the Association of Football Statisticians, digs up yet more fascinating facts about football

HARRY REDKNAPP has managed six different English clubs – Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth (twice), Southampton, Spurs and currently QPR.

Some would regard him as one of the more successful England-born managers and the press have written about his England manager credentials.

Yet his managerial role got off to a most inauspicious start when, as acting manager for Bournemouth, his first game was a 9-0 defeat at the hands of Lincoln City on December 18, 1982.

There are certain teams in the top division today whom most of us feel will be permanent members of the Premier League. Few would disagree about the list if it were restricted to five but to go down to 10 there would likely to be some differing views. Sadly the days when teams other than Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City or Manchester United will win the top prize are, it seems, have long since gone.

The last team to break into that elite group were Blackburn Rovers in 1994/95 and that was thanks to a certain Jack Walker. Today there are now too many ‘Jack Walker’s’ around with bulging wallets to get even any semblance of an even playing field.

For consecutive seasons in the early 1980’s, the Midlands boasted eight teams out of 22 (36-per-cent) in the then First Division.

In 1980/81 there were Aston Villa; Birmingham, Coventry; Leicester; Nottingham Forest; Stoke City; West Bromwich Albion and Wolves. For the following year Notts County replaced Leicester.

It seems unlikely that such dominance from one part of the country will ever be repeated. Derby did not feature either season as they were in Division Two. They had been relegated at the end of 1979/80 season.

Today there is only one Football League side from my native Lincolnshire – Scunthorpe. As recently as 2006/07 there were four. At the end of that season Boston United were relegated. Grimsby Town followed suit at the end of 2009/10 and Lincoln City suffered a similar fate two years later.