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Daft questions (football edition)


Decky

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Got a question about shirt numbers.

 

I just picked this page at random, but when I'm browsing old cup finals, they'll show the lineups and the players are lined up from 1-11. Was this incredible luck that all the players were fit or did shirt numbers change depending on the game?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_FA_Cup_Final

 

Players didn't have a specific number assigned for the season back then, they just wore 1-11. The fact that this is an actual question makes me feel very old.

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Wiki:

 

In 1993, The Football Association switched to persistent squad numbers, abandoning the mandatory use of 1–11 for the starting line-up. The first league event to feature this was the 1993 Football League Cup Final between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday,[citation needed] and it became standard in the FA Premier League the following season, along with names printed above the numbers.

 

Squad numbers became optional in the three divisions of the Football League at the same time, but only 10 out of 70 clubs utilized them. One of those clubs, Brighton & Hove Albion, issued 25 players with squad numbers but reverted to traditional 1-11 numbering halfway through the season.[12]In the Premier League, Arsenal temporarily reverted to the old system halfway through that same season, but reverted to the new numbering system for the following campaign.

 

Most European top leagues adopted the system during the 1990s.

 

The Football League made squad numbers compulsory for the 1999-2000 season, and the Football Conference followed suit for the 2002-03 season.

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Did squad numbers come in with the premier league, it was around that time.

 

I remember when sky first put the score in the top corner of the screen too, there was hell on about it. :lol:

 

Edit: iirc every pitch in the premier league has a slight camber, to aid drainage. Except Southampton which is flat. We're the only club to have a noticeable slope, and at maybe 4' to 5' it would be considered significant even in league 2.

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Jeez, are we really at the stage were younger fans don't know what position wears what number?

1 GK

2 RB

3 LB

5,6 CB

4,8 CM

7 RW

11 LW

9.10 CF

The no.6 and no.4 are okay in either position IMO

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Jeez, are we really at the stage were younger fans don't know what position wears what number?

1 GK

2 RB

3 LB

5,6 CB

4,8 CM

7 RW

11 LW

9.10 CF

The no.6 and no.4 are okay in either position IMO

Liverpool's Ray Kennedy, centre midfiled "5", Steve Heighway left wing "9" and  John Toshack centre forward "11", and some little bloke up front "7" another reason I started to hate them early!
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You can go back further and 4 and 6 were wing-halves, 8 and 10 inside-forwards traditionally, but people were experimenting anyway, so the positions weren't fixed except in the public understanding. I remember watching a doc about Swindon, of all teams, from the early 60s, and they were pretty much playing a 4-5-1/4-3-3 50 years ago. Mike Summerbee and Ernie Hunt included, oldsters. :lol: Some arse wrote a whole book about the history of numbering shirts in different countries, but I'd rather watch Big fucking Brother than read that, at least I wouldn't have to try to stay awake.

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Some rugby union team used to have letters. A to M or something, whatever the 15th letter of the alphabet is I can't be arsed counting.

 

Leicester were the most recent to change to numbers I think.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Jeez, are we really at the stage were younger fans don't know what position wears what number?

1 GK

2 RB

3 LB

5,6 CB

4,8 CM

7 RW

11 LW

9.10 CF

The no.6 and no.4 are okay in either position IMO

Liverpool's Ray Kennedy, centre midfiled "5", Steve Heighway left wing "9" and  John Toshack centre forward "11", and some little bloke up front "7" another reason I started to hate them early!

Toshack wore 10 , Ian Callaghan was 11.

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Whatever happened to that legends 5 a side competition that Pedro and Berestford et al used to play in? That still going?

It's not been going on for a few years.

Not people were turning up, we used to have one of the biggest turnouts and at most it only used to be half full. Combined with the fact that players these don't often stay at clubs to be legends and generally go elsewhere to live they couldn't get that many players to join anymore to keep the interest up. Arena's can have another event on instead which will fill up and bring them more money.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Watching Kilmarnock v Celtic it occurred to me there's at least two artificial pitches in the top flight in Scotland. Plus God knows how many in the lower divisions.

 

I thought we'd seen the back of them but iirc the women's world was mostly played on artificial grass. Are the new ones that good? The ones I played on years ago were downright dangerous, full of sand which ripped your skin off. Could we really see one in the premier league at some point?

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