"Most of Spain's World Cup-winning squad have won a few things at club level, except for Alvaro Arbeloa," notes Matt Prior (not that one). "At 27, he now has a European Championship winners' medal and a World Cup winners' medal to his name, but no club trophies. Have any other players won so much with their country, yet so little with their clubs?"
Not quite, Matt, since all of the French players who have done the World Cup-European Championship double also picked up trophies with their clubs, and ditto the West Germans of the mid-1970s. The same is true of the assorted Brazilians and Uruguayans who have simultaneously been kings of South America and the world. However, Arebloa can draw inspiration from one German who left it very late to garnish his international silverware with a club honour: Andreas Köpke was part of the West German squad that won the World Cup in 1990 before saving Gareth Southgate's penalty en route to victory at Euro 96 – but he did not win a club medal until the last season of his career when, in 2001, he topped the German second division with Nürnberg.
Others who have soared to the highest summit at international level while toiling fruitlessly with their clubs are worth a mention. "Take note of George Cohen, the bullish, charging right-back from Fulham who was left on his backside more than once by Siggi Held in the 1966 final," says David Warriston. "Cohen, like his captain Johnny Haynes, won the same amount of domestic silverware as his one-time team-mate Jimmy Hill: zero." The other 1966 England squad members who never won anything with their clubs were the reserve goalkeeper Ron Springett of Sheffield Wednesday, the Blackpool stalwart Jimmy Armfield and Southampton's Terry Paine. And unlike Cohen, that trio were not even awarded medals in '66, as these were reserved exclusively for players who had actually played in the final.
OUTLAW FOOD
Last week we looked at odd objects that have been banned from stadiums. This week, due to popular demand, we'll lengthen the list. "In 2007 Chelsea banned their fans from bringing celery into Stamford Bridge in 2007 and set up a celery hotline for fans to report other fans seen carrying the offending vegetable," recalls Andrew Coxon, who helpfully includes a link to an article that appeared on that very subject in a top publication, the Guardian.
"Less widely broadcast was the banning of confectionery at a number of lower-league grounds in the 1990s when Brentford were the visiting team," adds Mike Deller. "Indeed, at one match (a promotion deciding end-of season thriller at Southend) I was personally stopped outside the turnstiles by a member of Southend's finest and asked: 'Excuse me sir, but do you have any ... confectionery about your person?' (This was delivered with all the gravitas of an undercover narc asking if he might 'score some weed, maaaan' at the Loonpants-a-Go-Go Discotheque some time in the late Sixties). Fortunately for me, all I had was a packet of wine gums and a king-sized tube of Refreshers; the constabulary were set on locating people attempting to smuggle handfuls of Chomp bars into the ground.
"At the time, an enthusiastic set of Bees supporters had managed to obtain an advertising hoarding depicting an oversized Chomp bar, at the time just about the cheapest bar in existence, and would, at any contentious refereeing decision, brandish said board, chant "Chomp, chomp, chomp" and lob handfuls of bars on to the pitch. Chomp bars were therefore banned. The Chomp lads rebranded themselves, if memory serves well, as the Brentford Cheesemen, holding aloft varieties of dairy product at appropriate (and inappropriate) moments during matches in subsequent seasons – but never, ever, throwing them on to the pitch. You couldn't accuse them of having no regard for the wellbeing of the sportsmen of the day."
And there's more. "Estadio Morera Soto of Liga Deportiva Alajualense in Costa Rica bans a whole bunch of stuff, as listed on a billboard at the entrance: glass containers, knives, firearms, musical instruments, cameras and large fruit," says Kerry Flote. "The large fruit is from a time when Liga's then manager – sorry, his name escapes me – insisted on the team eating watermelon at half-time, his belief being that the combination of liquid, salts and vitamins in this fruit provided perfect rehydration for the players. This lead to visiting fans hurling two- and three-kilogramme watermelons at the Liga dugout."
MARATHON GOALSCORING RUNS
"I recently noticed that Marseille's Josip Skoblar was the top scorer in the French league for three seasons in a row (1971-73), is this a world record?" asks Claude Peterson.
No, Claude, that is not even close to being a world record. In fact, it's not even a record at Marseille, for Jean-Pierre Papin was Ligue 1 top scorer in five consecutive seasons (1988-1992). An impressive feat – unless you're Imre Schlosser, the most prolific striker in the history of the Hungarian league and a man who can boast of having been top scorer six seasons in a row (1909-1914) when playing for Ferencvaros. Just for good measure, he then topped the charts once more when with MTK Hungaria in 1917.
But even that achievement can be beaten: Sotiris Kaiafas of Omonia Nicosia was top scorer in the Cypriot league eight times between 1972 and 1982 (the 39 goals he struck in the 1975-76 season earned him the European Golden Boot). You will note, though, that there were a couple of seasons in that run in which Kaiafas was not No1, so if it's back-to-back chart-topping you're looking for, then you must turn to Atilio García. Born in Buenos Aires in 1914, this striker spent most of his career with the Montevideo club Nacional and was top scorer in the Uruguayan league for eight consecutive seasons, from 1938 to 1946. Now that's consistency.
KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE
"I'm obviously not the only person bored to death by the latest on Chelsea's million-pound player hit list, so for a bit of relief I'd like to know who is/was the cheapest player in modern football (not counting free transfers)," asked Monty Reeve in 2004. And here's an answer we published, promptly as ever, two years later.
Earlier this season it transpired that the Romanian fourth division side Regal Hornia signed the defender Marius Cioara from the second division club UT Arad for the princely sum of ... 15kg of pork sausages! "We gave up the team's sausage allowance for a week to secure him, but we are confident it will be worth it," revealed a Regal spokesman.
However, the deal went sour within 24 hours when Cioara decided he had endured enough bangers-related ribbing to last a lifetime and promptly retired. "The sausage taunts all got too much, they were joking I would have got more from the Germans and making sausage jokes," he moaned. "It was a huge insult. I have decided to go to Spain where I have got a job on a farm." Hopefully away from the pigs. Regal were less than chuffed as they wheeled out their spokesman for a final lament: "We are upset because we lost twice. Firstly because we lost a good player, and secondly because we lost our team's food for a whole week."
For more knowledge than you could stuff a sausage with, check out the knowledge archive.
Can you help?
"Last season in the Championship Scunthorpe United conceded 84 goals and still avoided relegation. Has any other team conceded more goals and survived?" asks Eamonn McGuinness.
"While having a trawl through Wikipedia I noticed that Alan Smith has only ever played for Uniteds, namely Leeds, Manchester, and Newcastle. Has any player played for more Uniteds or indeed Towns or Citys or anything else?" wonders Dudley Armitage.
"In his first match of the Austrian Bundesliga 2010 campaign the referee Alexander Harkam awarded four penalties in the game between Wiener Neustadt and LASK Linz. In his second game of the season, Harkam awarded two penalties in the First League game between Lustenau and Grödig. I am wondering: has there ever been a referee who has awarded more than six penalties in back-to-back games?" hollers Gerald Emprechtinger.
"The Brazilian midfielder Marcio Richardes of J League side Albirex Niigata scored an unlikely hat-trick of set-pieces this past weekend: firstly from the penalty spot, secondly from a free-kick, and finally – in the fourth minute of second-half stoppage time – directly from a corner. His feat was certainly unusual, but is it unprecedented?" ponders Ben Mabley.
Send your questions and answers to knowledge@guardian.co.uk