“Have just found out that Motherwell are the only non-Spanish side to win the Copa del Rey,” tweets Dave Chamberlain. “Are there any other examples of teams winning another country’s cup competition whilst not being a member of their FA?”
Let’s start with a bit of housekeeping: specifically, Motherwell winning the Copa del Rey. It happened in 1927, although there’s an asterisk against the whole thing. No, not that sort of asterisk.
Technically it wasn't THE Copa Del Rey, as Real Union had already won that earlier in the season. The trophy Motherwell won was an "unofficial" Copa Del Rey (a post-season, four team tournament). Sorry to put a dampener on things...
— Jamie Fitzgerald (@JamieFitzg98231) June 8, 2023
Real Unión beat Arenas 1-0 in the official Copa del Rey final. The clean sheet was kept by Antonio Emery Amocena, grandfather of Unai (who bought a stake in the club in 2021, but that’s another story). At the end of the 1926-27 season, the Royal Spanish Football Federation invited Motherwell (runners-up in the Scottish league) and Swansea (12th in the old Division Two) to take part in a special edition of the competition.
They faced each other for the right to play Real Madrid, whose team included a number of players from other clubs, in the final. Motherwell beat Swansea 4-3, a match King Alfonso XIII of Spain reportedly described as a “brilliant display of scientific football”, then outclassed the Madrid select XI 3-1. You can read more about it on the official Motherwell site.
There’s another example from Scotland worthy of mention, though it involves a near-miss rather than actual trophy-lifting glory. “While Motherwell won a Copa del Rey rather than the Copa del Rey, a Scottish side has reached the final of the FA Cup twice – though without winning,” writes Alasdair Brooks. “Queen’s Park lost to Blackburn in both 1884 and 1885. The Scottish FA banned Scottish sides from participating in the English tournament in 1887, after six teams from north of the border (Queen’s Park, Partick Thistle, Hearts, Renton, Third Lanark and Rangers) entered the 1886-87 cup, with Rangers reaching the semi-finals.”
For obvious reasons, Britain is fertile ground for this question. A number of English clubs have won the Welsh Cup, with Hereford the most recent in 1989-90. English teams in close proximity to Wales, particularly from border areas, were invited to beef up the competition until the rules were changed in the mid-1990s.
Not certain that any of the following Welsh Cup winners, Shrewsbury Town, Chester City, Crewe Alexandra, Hereford United, Tranmere Rovers, Bristol City, South Liverpool, were ever members of the Welsh FA
— dan almond (@ferrararabbi) June 6, 2023
In Germany, Rapid Vienna won the 1938 Tschammer-Pokal (now the DFB-Pokal) – although the match was actually played in January 1939, 10 months after the Anschluss.
Rapid Vienna won the German Cup in 1938 and the Gauliga (the Nazi-era championship) in 1941.
— Mike Meehall Wood (@MikeMeehallWood) June 7, 2023
They were previously in the Austrian FA, which was annexed into the German sports federation, though in practice only included clubs from what we would now call Austria.
Next to south-east Asia, where, in 2010, the Thai team Bangkok Glass won the Singapore Cup thanks to an own goal from the former Sheffield United defender Benoît Croissant.
Anyway to answer your question, in the 2000s Singapore’s football cup competition (the Singapore Cup) invited teams from abroad to contest. The 2010 contest was won by Thai team Bangkok Glass.
— Ben Chia (@BenChiaCars) June 6, 2023
All these success stories pale next to the achievements of the Singapore FA team, who won the Malaysia Cup 24 times between 1921 and 1994, when they famously hammered their rivals Pahang 4-0 in the final. The Singapore FA had decided to withdraw from the tournament, so it was the last game they played in it. “A dispute over gate receipts, the omnipresent whiff of match-fixing and even the Lions’ enviable success perhaps all contributed to the breakup, despite the fact that Singapore had been represented in the Malaysia Cup in 1921,” wrote Neil Humphreys for an ESPN feature in 2015. “It didn’t matter. Singapore football had to start over.”
LionsXII, a team made up of Singaporean players, won the Malaysian FA Cup in 2015. Back in the 20th century, Brunei and Singapore both used to have a team in the Malaysian league, and also participated in the Malaysia Cup (the league cup) which both teams had won.
— AzrieMir (@azrie_mir) June 7, 2023
Singapore won it 24 times while Brunei won it once back in 1999.
— AzrieMir (@azrie_mir) June 7, 2023
At international level, Mexico have come close to winning the Copa América on a few occasions. They were first invited along with the United States in 1993 when Conmebol decided to expand the tournament to 12 teams. Mexico didn’t win any of their group games, but sneaked through to the quarter-finals as one of the best third-placed teams. They hammered Peru 4-2 in the quarters, took care of the hosts Ecuador 2-0 in the semis – but then ran into a rampant Gabriel Batistuta in the final. He scored twice in a 2-1 win for Argentina.
Mexico were runners-up again in 2001, this time losing 1-0 to the hosts, Colombia, in the final, and have reached the semis of three other Copas in 1997, 1999 and 2007. The United States (1995, 2016) and Honduras (2001) have also reached the semi-finals.
One World Cup, one Hong Kong Senior Shield
“Bobby Moore is the only player to have won both the men’s World Cup and the Hong Kong Senior Shield, having won the latter in 1982 with Eastern Athletic Association,” explains Kári Tulinius. “Are there any other trophies that have been won by just a single World Cup-winning player?”
An excellent question. “I put this question to my friends in our football trivia WhatsApp group, and here’s what we came up with,” notes Mark Cooper, setting our messaging peer group jealousy levels high. “Among England players, Jack Charlton won the 1975-76 Anglo-Scottish Cup as Middlesbrough manager, while squad member Terry Paine won the Welsh Cup with Hereford as a player in the same season.
“Further afield, France’s Stéphane Guivarc’h won the 1997-98 Scottish League Cup with Rangers, while Italy’s Alessandro Nesta won the Canadian Championship with Montreal Impact in 2013,” he adds. “Finally, just last week, West Ham’s Alphonse Areola became the first player to win the World Cup and Europa Conference League.”
Thanks Mark, and a hat-tip to Tom, Liam, Simon, Chris and Paddy too. Here’s David Carr with another example from 1966. “Geoff Hurst is the only World Cup winner to have won the Watney Cup,” he writes. “He was in the Stoke team that beat Hull in the 1973 final. Bobby Charlton played in the first Watney Cup final in 1970, but Manchester United lost to Derby.”
Anyone we’ve missed? Drop us an email or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.
Dominant league top scorers
“The 25-goal gap between Dixie Dean’s 60 and George Pell’s 35 in (Knowledge, 24 May), raises the question: has there been a bigger gap between the top two strikers in a season?” asks John Burton.
Here is stats guru Dirk Maas with the breakdown. “Using the RSSSF database, I found three examples that come close …
34 goals: Archie Stark (67 for Bethlehem Steel) and Andy Stevens (33, New Bedford Whalers), 1924-25 American Soccer League
30 goals: Gyula Zsengeller (56, Ujpest) and Gyorgy Sarosi (26, Ferencvaros), 1938-39 Hungarian NB I
27 goals: Dudu Georgescu (47, Dinamo Bucharest) and Florea Dumitrache (20, Jiul Petrosani), 1976-77 Romanian Divizia A.”
Knowledge archive
“I was recently watching the Test between India and West Indies,” wrote Manas Phadke in July 2011. “I was quite surprised to see Billy Doctrove (an umpire) sitting in a stand named after him wearing a Liverpool jersey and kissing the badge for the cameras. Are there any other umpires in international cricket (present or past) who publicly pledged their allegiance to a football club?”
Roy Proctor was on hand with a few answers. “The most obvious cricket umpire to have a publicly acknowledged football affiliation is the incomparable Harold ‘Dickie’ Bird, who in an article for the Guardian in 2008 proclaimed: ‘I’ve supported Barnsley for 70 years so there’s no way I will miss this afternoon.’ The afternoon in question was an FA Cup quarter-final between the Tykes and Chelsea, a match Barnsley won. Another, more current, umpire is Ian Gould, a wicketkeeper who played in goal for Slough Town and Arsenal, earning him the nickname ‘Gunner’. In July 2009, Gould became chairman of Burnham FC of the Southern Football League. And although I’m not sure which team he supports, the legendary West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor, like Gould, was a goalkeeper, playing for Jamaica at schoolboy level. He went on to be a referee and took charge of a World Cup qualifier.”
Can you help?
“After watching the West Ham win a trophy, at the ceremony the refs went first to pick up their medals,” writes Roger Kirkby. “Which ref has the most medals?”
@TheKnowledge_GU which player has played for the most clubs in cities namechecked in Panic by the Smiths?
— Kris (P) (@krisfoster) June 10, 2023
“After adding a treble with Manchester City to the World Cup with Argentina, Júlian Álvarez has now won 12 trophies – each in a different tournament – at the age of 23,” writes Niall McVeigh. “Are there any other players with such a diverse honours list?”
It's now over 30 years since an English manager won the top division in England - has any other league gone longer without a winning manager from that nation?
— Mike Wood (@myclwd) June 13, 2023
“The reborn and now renamed Bury FC will play at Gigg Lane next season, around 221 weeks since Bury’s last competitive game at the ground, against Port Vale in May 2019,” writes David Triggs. “Will this be the longest gap between a team playing two home games at the same stadium?”
With David Moyes winning his first major honour after 1097 games as a manager, what’s the longest run of games a manager has had before winning their first major honour?
— Ben (@BenNFFC2002) June 13, 2023
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