ON THIS DAY

When you hear that a referee kicked a player and then sent him off like me you might be thinking in a Sunday League match perhaps. It did happen - and amazingly it was in a French Ligue 1 game between Nantes and Paris St Germain. Ref Tony Chapron had been knocked to the ground after an accidental collision with Nantes defender Diego Carlos and he then then kicked the player and sent him off after giving him a second yellow card. He was later banned for six months, half of which was suspended. He got away with it lightly I would have thought!

When Cheung Chi Doy saw Blackpool play in Hong Kong in 1958 he decided that a footballing career in England was for him so he travelled to England, had a trial with Blackpool and signed for the First Division club. After scoring regularly for the reserves he was picked to make his first team debut for Blackpool against Wolves at Bloomfield Road on Saturday January 14th 1961. But the day that saw the first Chinese-born player appear in the Football League was cut short - the match was abandoned after just nine minutes because of fog! He made his official debut the following week against Blackpool but made just one further first team appearance (scoring a goal) before leaving Blackpool. Links - Abandoned Matches , Blackpool results 1960/61

One of the greatest shocks in FA Cup history, Walsall beat Arsenal 2-0 in a Third Round tie. Arsenal were the top dogs in England at the time - they won five League titles and two FA Cups in the 1930s - while Walsall were in the Third Division.

There have been some strange going-ons in the long and varied history of football. One of those strange going-ons was back in 1911 when Grimsby Town met Croydon Common in the First Round of the FA Cup. Grimsby were in the Midland League at the time – they had lost their Football League place at the end of the previous season but would gain their place back for the start of the next season – while Croydon Common were a Southern League side. So the cup-tie was a long trip for the Londoners and on Saturday 14th January 1911 they made that long trip and were beaten 3-0 by Grimsby. But Croydon weren’t happy and protested to the FA with their complaints being two-fold. First, their players had been left to wait outside in the freezing cold for ten minutes waiting for the second half to start while Grimsby had sat in the warmth of their changing-rooms changing the studs in their boots! Second, it seemed that towards the end of the second half one of the linesmen handed his flag to a Grimsby official to take over from him as he had a train to catch! The FA upheld the protest, annulled the result of the match and ordered it to be replayed. But things didn’t go too well for Croydon Common. They made that long trip north again on January 26th for a Thursday afternnon kick off – and lost 8-1 this time!