What is the largest aggregate football scoreline over two league matches?

“Newcastle have beaten Sheffield United 13-1 on aggregate this season,” tweets Craig. “Has there been a larger margin before?”

Newcastle romped to an 8-0 victory at Bramall Lane in September, then beat Sheffield United 5-1 at St James’ Park last month. The aggregate score is a Premier League record, pipping Manchester City 12-0 Watford (2019-20) on goals scored. But won’t somebody think of the rest of the world, and women’s football, and the years 1888-1992? Yes, yes they will. And we’ll stick with league matches, too, as that was the basis for the question.

The largest aggregate in the WSL is 13-0, achieved by Chelsea against Yeovil in 2018-19. It might have been broken in 2019-20: Arsenal beat Bristol City 11-1 in December, but the return fixture was never played due to Covid. They also beat City 7-0 in the League Cup a month earlier.

“The record in the English top flight – and the top four leagues – is Nottingham Forest v Leicester Fosse in 1908-09,” writes Michael Haughey. “Forest won 12-0 and 3-0 for an aggregate of 15-0.”

That 15-0 aggregate margin was equalled twice below the top tier, as Chris Roe and others pointed out: Small Heath (now Birmingham City) v Northwich Victoria in Division Two in 1892-93 and Barnsley v Accrington Stanley (1932-33, Division Three North). Small Heath also beat Northwich Victoria 12-2 on aggregate the previous season.

And so to Europe. In happier times for Erik ten Hag, during the Covid season of 2020-21, his Ajax side battered VVV-Venlo 16-1 on aggregate, including a 13-0 win away from home. But that looks positively competitive compared to a couple of examples from Hungary that Ben Janeson has dug out.

First, a bit of context. MTK Budapest won the Hungarian title 10 years in a row between 1913 and 1925. In the first five post-war seasons, their league record was, and you’ll like this, P118 W107 D7 L4 F571 A72 Pts 221. They were never more dominant than in 1917-18, when they dropped only two points (a 2-2 draw away at third-placed Törekvés SE) and scored 147 goals in 22 games. Over a third of those goals came against two unfortunate opponents. “In the 1917-18 Hungarian top division (Nemzeti Bajnokság I), MTK Budapest had a 28–1 aggregate against Magyar AC, with scorelines of 18–1 and 0–10; and a 23–0 aggregate against MÁV Gépgyári, with scorelines of 17–0 and 0–6,” adds Ben.

T-w-e-n-t-y-e-i-g-h-t-o-n-e.

And to those of you who are already furiously writing in to mention AS Adema 149–0 SO l’Emyrne from Madagascar in 2002. That match was part of a four-team round-robin playoff to determine the league title, so not part of the regular season.

Playoff losers back for more

“All the teams that reached, and lost in, the League One playoffs last season (Peterborough, Bolton and Barnsley) have reached them again this year. Has this happened before?” ponders Tom Davies.

Ponder no more, Tom, for the answer is yes. “It has actually happened twice before,” writes Pete Tomlin. “In 1989-90, in the old Division Three (now League One of course), Notts County, Tranmere Rovers, Bury and Bolton Wanderers finished in the playoff places, with County winning promotion by beating Tranmere 2-0 in the final.

“Bolton, Tranmere and Bury all made it again the following season, when they were joined by Brentford. Tranmere were successful this time around, beating the unfortunate Bolton 1-0 after extra time. Bolton had missed out on automatic promotion on goal difference and finished the regular season five points ahead of Tranmere.

“The only other time this situation has occurred was in Division One (now the Championship) between 1998 and 2000. Ipswich Town, Birmingham City, Watford and Bolton reached the playoffs in 1998-99, with Watford beating Birmingham 2-0. The following season, Ipswich, Birmingham and Bolton made it again, joined by Barnsley. This time, Ipswich won promotion to the Premier League by beating Barnsley 4-2 in the final.”

Phil Jolly has a bit more detail: “The sequence carried on, though. Birmingham and Bolton reached the playoffs again in 2001, when Bolton were victorious. Birmingham made it again in 2002 and finally earned promotion at the fourth attempt. So the four playoff teams in 1999 were the next four playoff winners, with each of them competing in the playoffs every year until they won.”

Even bigger cumulative cup attendances

In last week’s Knowledge we looked at the biggest cumulative attendance for a cup tie. The clubhouse leader was the Scottish Cup final of 1971 between Celtic and Rangers, which went to a replay and was watched by a total of 223,424 people. But the existence of this entry tells you there’s a but …

“The attendance at the Scottish Cup final of 1966, which also went to a replay and also featured Celtic and Rangers, beats that of 1971,” writes Bernard Maguire. “The attendance over the two matches totalled 224,754 (126,552 and 98,202). Both matches were non-ticket and estimates at the time were that the actual attendance on the Saturday far exceeded the official attendance. I was there that day and have never experienced such a crowd and in fact missed many episodes of excitement as the surges of the crowd lifted me and many others off our feet. I was 17 at the time and terrified.”

Yet even that isn’t a record. Robbie Smyllie, Jim McEleny, Joe Stynes and others mentioned the Scottish Cup final of 1948 between Rangers and Greenock Morton, though we don’t think any of them were there. “How does 262,926 sound? Rangers v Greenock Morton in the final was 129,176 and the replay 133,750,” posts Dan Almond.

And finally, last week we had the highest cumulative attendance for a cup tie in England at exactly 200,000. Wrong! “In English cup ties surely the 209,748 that watched the three games of the 1977 League Cup final between Aston Villa and Everton deserves a mention,” messages Ben Tolley. Don’t shoot the mentioner. And here’s another.

“I was disappointed that in your item on the largest aggregate attendances today you missed the 200,000 people who watched Crook Town v Bishop Auckland in the final and two replays of the FA Amateur Cup in 1954,” notes David Middlemiss. “Given the, today, unlikely two teams, I thought this remarkable stat was well known.” It is now!

Knowledge archive

“How many times has a player been promoted twice from the same division in a season?” asked Scotty Walden. “Michael Gyasi went on loan to champions Tamworth but came back to win the play offs with Boston this season.”

We had this question back in 2021, but at Knowledge Towers we’re very much into responsible recycling. “In 2008-09, Charlton loanee Josh Wright played in the Gillingham team which won the League Two playoff final; indeed he set up the winning goal,” explained Chris Matterface. “Earlier in the same season he had been loaned to Brentford, who went on to win League Two. But he only played five games, so I am unsure if that would have been enough to gain him a medal.”

“In 2018-19, Blackburn’s Scott Wharton managed the feat in League Two with loan spells at Lincoln and Bury,” added Dave Evans. The following season he was promoted again while on loan, this time with Northampton Town. Talk about a League Two lucky charm! Sébastien Bassong, the Cameroon defender, played 11 league games on loan at Watford from October to December 2014. Watford went on to win automatic promotion, by which time he had returned to his parent club, Norwich. They went up via the playoffs, with Bassong starting the 2-0 win over Middlesbrough at Wembley.”

Finally, striker Scott Hogan, then of Aston Villa, achieved a similar feat in 2018-19 after spending some time on loan at soon-to-be-promoted Sheffield United.

Can you help?

“Juventus have so far collected only 20 points in the second half of the season compared to 46 in the first half. Looking at top divisions only, what are the biggest points differences (positive and negative) in each half of the season?” asks Lorenzo Carli.

“Granit Xhaka is unbeaten in his first 45 games for Bayer Leverkusen,” notes Scott Campbell. “Have any players attained a longer unbeaten streak upon joining a new club?”

“I was struck a while back by how many former Arsenal players used to score against them. That got me wondering, what is the record for consecutive goals scored against a team by ex-players?” asks Andrew Kluth.

“Birmingham City have played Hull City four times this season, twice in the league and twice in the FA Cup, and every time had a different manager (Wayne Rooney, Steve Spooner, Tony Mowbray and Mark Venus). Is this some sort of record?” wonders John Curry.

“What is the smallest crowd ever to see a top flight soccer match in Europe’s five major leagues and in the USA?” asks Kurt Perleberg.

“Last week, the first leg of the Champions League semi finals were played with no English teams. But four English players started - Kane, Dier, Bellingham and Sancho. Has there ever been a set of ECL or EC semis with no English clubs featuring and four (or more) English players in the starting lineup?” wonders Ally Clow.

“Sheffield Wednesday dropped into the bottom three on August 12 after losing our second game and only climbed back out again 254 days later on April 21 after winning our 43rd game. Are there teams with a longer time spent in days, games or proportion of the season in the relegation zone who managed to stay up?” asks Bevan Lal.

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