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

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."

157. Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" was originally entitled "I Kisser Amr", detailing the singer's passionate affair with Egyptian Wigan Athletic goal machine Amr Zaki. However, the song's titled was changed as Perry's boyfriend, him with the twatty face from Gym Class Heroes, insisted he'd dump her if he ever discovered she'd touched a Muslim.

158. Yeovil stopper Josh "Count Canuckula" Wagenaar was born a cyclops and wears a ski visor during games so as not to upset the children in the front rows, or squeamish celebrity fan Richard Digance.

159. The shape of Benito Carbone's mother when she was pregnant with him was the inspiration for the shape of the bumper on the Fiat 500

160. Apart from coming up with the Anfield Rap, inventing the Predator boot and adopting a seven-year-old Yossi Benayoun from a Tel Aviv orphanage, Craig Johnston was also the inspiration for The Divinyls' "I Touch Myself".

161. John Wark and Eric Gates will be starring in the title roles of the play 'Romeo Zondervan & Juliet' at the Ipswich Regent Theatre this Christmas.

162. Phil Brown is the latest comedy persona of "Ali G" satirist Sacha Baron Cohen.

163. Members of Reading's squad privately believe that the principal reason for club's relegation from the Premier League in 2008 was manager Steve Coppell's erroneous belief that he had signed midfielder Dušan Švento in the January transfer window of that year. Coppell insisted on selecting Švento in left midfield despite the fact that the player had opted to remain with Slavia Prague; the Svento-shaped hole down Reading's left side left Nicky Shorey exposed, leading to a series of demoralising defeats in the last few months of the campaign.

New manager Brendan Rodgers has vowed that the mistakes of the past should not be repeated, and reiterated his belief that Kevin Doyle can lead the club to a place in next season's UEFA Europa League.

164. Italian-American self-harming performance artist 'Franko B' is in fact the alter ego of Francis Benali. Benali's late 80s/early 90s career doubled as an extensive conceptual piece where he would unleash his rage on society by wounding fellow players; Franko B's later performances served as a mirror to Benali's carefully created persona

165. David Seaman was never a merchant seaman, but he did obtain a dutch seaman's ticket (a Monsterboekje) in order to steam out of Ijmuiden and avoid the queues for the ferry once.

166. Jack Wilshere has no concept of the colour purple.

26. Ulises De La Cruz' real name is Richard Higgins. A native of Blackheath, he adopted the gimmick of an Ecuadorian footballer who donates his salary to his home village from a recurring minor strip in the short-lived 1990s relaunch of Roy of the Rovers. The strip centred around De La Cruz' far-fetched exploits to support the fictional village of Piquiucho and was once famously described by Alan Parry as "the second most racist thing I have ever seen".

― That mong guy that's shit, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 11:31 (2 years ago)

wish that dude came back tbh

167 loïc rémy has adverse reactions to sulphites and cannot drink cognac

168 urby emanuelsson was upbraided by geert wilders for appearing to suggest that polygamy was compatible with liberal values, prompting then manager martin jol to threaten to 'cunt [his] fucking skull in' when he confronted the controversial politician at a livestock auction

169 Gabriel Batistuta speaks Welsh.

169 joachim loew combines a stellar managerial career with critically acclaimed jazz freestyle sets, playing sax in a troupe called 'cooking on loew'. Many speculate that the group were never picked up by a major label because that's not how you pronounce 'loew'

170 the welsh community of patagonia presented batistuta with a golden leek for his contribution to fiorentina's demolition of inter in 95-96, considering it a belated revenge for the milanese swindler who had convinced them of the transmutative properties of llama urine, a costly delusion that bankrupted many in the 1920s

'llama urine' was a welsh inside forward who ran a successful bar in bridgend after retirement before it was burnt to the ground by an angry mob in the 1920's

171 artem milevskiy is known as 'piki', a reference to a controversial leaked video which appeared to show the then dynamo kyiv striker trying to hyponotize a capybara

172 rivaldo responded to suggestions that he was accepting blood money during his lucrative stay at budyodkor by telling journalists that he was 'not shami fucking chakrabarti'

173 jerome boateng is a wiccan

174. Martin Taylor's dad believes that 'Dune' is historically accurate.

175 eidur gudjohnsen's transfer to stoke was cast into doubt by an interview given to icelandic tv in which he compared the town's inhabitants to 'the kyphotic orcs who live in the cesspool [by the] bridge in akureyri -- inbred fucking scum, basically'

176 the daily sport reported in 2008 that ugo ehiogu had suffered an ectopic pregnancy, a mistranslation that caused the censure of a sub-editor and much mirth in the west midlands' retired footballer community -- 'to be honest with you it came out of the blue', says ehiogu, 'joachy [julian joachim] gave me a bit of stick but at the end of the today i wasn't even pregnant in the first place so it didn't effect things too much'

177 Today, 9th December 2010, Mike Ashley will propose the capture of Eddie McAvoy as Newcastle United's next manager and that he has the full support of the board.

178. Most football fans know that Alf Common was football's first £1000 transfer. Not many know that Common was also the first footballer to sign a sponsorship deal, which led to him playing the 1904-05 season with the Bass Beer Red Triangle tattooed on his face.

179 jordan henderson can be seen dressed as an SS officer in the background of the 22/10/02 edition of 'songs of praise'

180 ian holloway was deported from israel for defecating beside the wailing wall

181 during chris hughton's time writing for the morning star, he was among a delegation to albania that kicked to death an 'ideologically unsound' parrot for the personal entertainment of enver hoxha

182. Tony Pulis reproduces by parthenogenesis.

183. Owing to a rare genetic abnormality, if you cut Trevor Brooking he bleeds Claret and Danish Blue.

184 neil ruddock attributes his lactose intolerance to a curse from a gypsy girl who he projectile-sharted all over in nursery school

185 adam lallana was convicted for stealing a bart simpson toothbrush from the havant branch of superdrug

186 ruel fox was fired from the fox soccer channel in 2005 when execs discovered a passage in the news corporation 'ethics' guidebook that prevents employees from sharing the name of a product

187 Lee McCulloch was born Zephyrinus de Roumanie Mircea Bourbon-Parma, Prince of Hohenzollern and twenty-sixth in line to the Romanian throne, but for twenty years has lived life as a Caledonian commoner following an unfortunate impulsive decision made after watching Disney's 1990 adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper.

188 sidney samson's dance hit 'riverside' was inspired by chod, a teeside hardcore continuum offshoot that samson discovered during visits to his stepbrother, marvin emnes

189 hugo viana curbstomped a gateshead bookie in a 2004 dispute over the authenticity of pessoa's english-language poems

190 yuri zhirkov received a fine for littering in New Haven CT, pleading via an interpreter that he believed this was within his rights as a visiting dignitary

191. Mark Bright delivered his first son, specifically so he could ensure the first words the child heard were "There is no Father Christmas".