The most interesting pieces of soccerball trivia you know (that are 100% false)

115. Southampton's St Mary's Stadium had originally been planned to be built on a purpose built "soccer rig" five miles off the south coast of the Isle of Wight for tax purposes. The plan was abandoned in favour of signing Lee Todd from Stockport County.

116. In 1975, to attract younger fans who would more likely to be getting their news fix at 5.00 in the afternoon, the board at Fulham decided to change the name of their ground from Bosanquet Cottage to Craven Cottage.

117. Willie 'Prince' Albert is not only the oldest professional footballer currently in the game in England, he is also the only man to have scored in every FA Cup final.

118. The white horse of White Horse Final (1923) wasn't white at all, but green.

119. Paolo Maldini attempted to sue singer Scott Walker in 1997 after becoming convinced that the song "Farmer in the City" was a disguised accusation regarding Maldini and an illegitimate son. Maldini dropped the case when Walker personally assured him that the song - and indeed the entirety of 1995's Tilt - was in fact an elaborate criticism of Matt Le Tissier's refusal to leave Southampton for a bigger club.

120. Former WWF favourite Fred "Tugboat" Ottman is a huge soccerball fan, and can now be found writing about his adopted favourite sport for the Times under the pen name Martin Samuel.

In the early 90s, the nascent J-League had its own version of sport prankster Karl 'Fat Neck' Power in the shape of Merzbow, who can be seen playfully tweaking Gary Lineker's nipple in the 1993-94 Grampus Eight team photo

122. As Chris Waddle lined up a free kick in Spurs' fixture against Oxford United in the 1986-87 season, all but one floodlight in the ground was dimmed - the remaining light focusing on one spectator, who had stood idly by as Waddle's best friend drowned some years back. The shot ended up an easy save for Oxford's keeper, but Chrissy was still satisfied to have made his point

1. Claudia Caniggia doesn't sweat.

123. That wasn't a typo.

124. Banksy is actually Gordon Banks's son.

125. Paul McGrath denies all knowledge of his man-of-the-match performance against Italy at USA '94, angrily insisting to this day that he spent the entire group stages of the tournament drunkenly heckling children at a swimming pool in Roscommon.

126. The Norwegian commentator of "your boys took a hell of a beating tonight" fame had a preprepared list of famous Englishmen written for him by Norway's most enthusiastic young Anglophile, Geir Hongro

127. George Best is the only football player in history who is known by both The Lex and Tuomas.

128. 'Fistful of Love' by Anthony and the Johnsons is the song his local MLS team Red Bull New York run onto the pitch to.

129. In the 1927-28 season, notorious for its particularly harsh and disruptive winter, Plymouth FC were the runaway champions of the First Division. Experts have since credited the team's domination that year to its decision to play in sweaters during the colder months, the pattern of which was incorporated into the team's name following a fan vote on the 50th anniversary of that championship, their last major trophy.

130. Ron Atkinson's original nickname for Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson was Peter, Paul & Mary.

131. When the Football League was rebranded in 2004, the original names for what became Leagues One and Two were to have been Joy Division and Scarlet Division. However, at the last minute these names were changed on grounds of taste, after it was pointed out that Scarlet Division was also the name of Jamie Oliver's group.

132. Yordan Letchkov invented the USB Flash Drive.

danny invincibile's autobiography was adapted for the film 'accidental hero' starring dustin hoffman and andy garcia.

^^^^^
133. sorry.

134. David Ginola is (or was, I guess) an anagram for VAGINA DILDO.

135. The Premier League is considering expanding the league season to 39 games so that an additional ten games can be played abroad, with the extra fixture being determined by a draw, seeded so as to avoid the top five having to play each other.

136. Oh shi-

137. While matches may be played earlier, the Major League Soccer season only officially commences with the first game in which Claudio Reyna injures himself and is replaced before halftime.

(127: are you sure it's false Ken?)

138. I am Takayuki Suzuki.

103. Thanks to US ringtone sensation Soulja Boy, the hot new slang amongst American teens is "Paul Jewell that ho", an act involving taking a girl out to a pleasant meal at Pizza Express.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, February 5, 2008 1:36 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

Prophetic!

This doesn't actually mention Pizza Express though.

How DID Dom know about Paul Jewell and that ho? Still wondering.

I... have no idea.

28. The Brazillian version of Deal Or No Deal is hosted by Cafu wearing a sailor's outfit.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 11:33 (3 months ago) Bookmark Link

This is really, really funny

139. Sir Alex Ferguson doesn't actually chew gum through matches but psychoactive plant qat. Explaining why he thought Wes Brown's worth 50 grand a week.

140. A Guy Called Gerald's 'Voodoo Ray' was inspired by Butch Wilkins antics in the Man Utd dressing room where he would stick pins into dolls of opponents (and sometimes, just for laughs, Arnold Muhren) before games.

141. Michael Ballack's aunt was a wasp.

142. 0.07% of phone calls to Pierluigi Collina actually go through to Stan Collymore due to alphabetical proximity and clumsy thumbs.

143. Pierluigi Collina does not have Stan Collymore's phone number, despite repeatedley being offered to swap by the doe eyed former nottingham Forest star at a plumbing trade exhibition in doncaster in 1997.

144. Costa Rica's 1990 World Cup song, "Passes and Molasses", was written by Guru Josh.

isn't that true? or am i thinking of the remix by scooter?

SCOOOTER BACK IN COSTA RICA

145. England are 3/1 favourites to win Euro 2008

146. Hollywood icon Danny Glover was loosely based on Paul Mariner

147. With their domestic league suspended, Bulgarian club Lokomotiv Plovdiv spent the second world war transporting Eastern European Jews to extermination camps.

148. 1967 European Footballer of the Year Florian Albert first hypothesized the supercontinent Pangea in a half-time conversation with Wycombe Wanderers mascot Bodger

Albert:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2a/LeTrotskyDB.jpg/350px-LeTrotskyDB.jpg

Bodger:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/do_that/2004/02/wycombe_pancakes/pic_04.jpg

Pangea:
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/Images/Glossary/Pangea.png

149. The famous Manchester United haven't been to Rome to see the Pope since 1998, when manager Alex Ferguson was ordained as a minister in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.

150. Jurgen Klinsmann made a little-known comeback under a false name in 2003. He appeared for the mighty Orange County Blue Star in the American Premier Development League as the mysterious hobo striker "Jay Goppingen". He scored five goals in eight matches with the club, before leaving professional football and disappearing forever.

151. Swiss side Young Boys of Berne were the subject of the 1984 US documentary 'Children of the Corn'. The film was a modest success but ultimately did little to raise the profile of the sport in America.

152. Though not obvious from archive footage, footballs have been getting bigger through the decades. When Herbert Chapman's Arsenal were English champions in the 1930s, the standard football was a lace-up about the size of a regulation ten-pin bowling ball; when England faced Scotland for the first time in 1872, they played with a cricket ball clad in a quarter-inch of pigskin.

Football is of course derived from the Roman game, harpastum, meaning "midget kickabout". Fulham's Johnny Haynes was the first man over five foot allowed to play professionally in England.

153. Pele was named after the telephone, which is called the "pelefone" in portugese.

154. Joe Biden was only named the Democratic VP pick the original choice, Jimmy Bullard, turned the role down over Barack Obama's voting record on fishing rights.

Lord Djibril Cisse, on his return to the UK, stipulated that Sunderland provide him a manservant to look after his grounds while he is at Toni & Guy. This prompted Roy Keane to complete the signing of David Healy.

A possible 'Ted and Ralph' style TV series has been mooted.

155.

156. Peter Thorne is the UK's leading expert on the Big Bang, but declined an invitation to participate in the recent CERN experiments: "I'm under contract at Bradford and I'm fully focused on giving 110% for our fans at Valley Parade, week in, week out, but I do still keep an eye out for the CERN lads' results on Teletext, and I still hope that one day I can have another run out in the Geneva outfit's famous boiler suit and face mask."