ON THIS DAY

and 2013 Pre-season friendlies are rarely memorable fixtures but for two League clubs July 21st was the date of matches that have gone down in the histories of those two clubs - friendlies against Real Madrid. Back in 1973 Plymouth Argyle famously beat Santos in a friendly at Home Park, the Brazilians including Pele in their line-up. On Friday 21st July 2006 it was the turn of mighty Real Madrid to play the Pilgrims in a friendly fixture. The match was played in Austria and came about in very unusual circumstances. Plymouth were in Austria preparing for the new season. Real Madrid were in Austria for the same reason but their new manager Fabio Capello - he had only been in the job a couple of weeks - had been disappointed to find that the hotel in his favourite resort in the country had been booked......by Plymouth Argyle. So a deal was reached with Plymouth moving to a new hotel with the Spaniards taking their place, paying the English club's expenses and most importantly, agreeing to play Plymouth in Austria in a friendly. Ok, it wasn't played before a full Nou Camp but a more modest 4,000 at the less well-known Franz Fekete Stadium in Kapfenberg. The friendly saw future England boss Capello record a victory in his first match as manager of Real Madrid but it was by the narrowest of margins with the Spanish giants scoring the only goal of the match in the 75th minute from the penalty spot after Luc Nalis had handled in the area. Fast forward seven years to Sunday July 21st 2013 and it was another new Real Madrid manager - Carlo Ancelotti - who visted another south-coast English side - Bournemouth - in his first match in charge of the mighty Madrid. Interest in the match was sky-high with fans queuing over night to buy tickets which cost up to £60 each - amazing for a pre-season friendly! OK the visitors beat the Championship side 6-0 but hey, a 11,772 crowd saw Bournemouth play Real Madrid! A 6047 crowd watched in amazement as the Irish side took a 3-0 half time lead against a Rangers side who were playing for the first time under a foreign manager, Dick Advocaat. His first half time talk did the trick though - Rangers won the match 5-3. Football On This Day – 22nd July 2002 After plenty of speculation Manchester United signed Rio Ferdinand from Leeds for a British record transfer fee of £29,100,000. Football on This Day – 22nd July 2006 Arsenal played their first match at the Emirates, the Gunners defeating Ajax 2-1 in the testimonial match for Dennis Bergkamp. 23 rd July Football On This Day – 23rd July 1966 Geoff Hurst replaced the injured Jimmy Greaves in the England side for the World Cup quarter-final against Argentina at Wembley – and scored the only goal. The Argentine captain Antonio Rattín was sent off and England manager Alf Ramsey refused to allow his players to exchange shirts with their opponents at the end of the match, later calling the Argentines ‘animals’. 24 th July Football On This Day – 24th July 1995 After a campaign by the Sun newspaper Southampton goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, Wimbledon keeper Hans Segers and Aston Villa striker John Fashanu were all charged with conspiracy to fix matches. After two trials the trio were cleared two years later.

Tottenham Hotspur forward John White was killed by lightning when sheltering under a tree during a thunderstorm at the Crews Hill golf course in Enfield. 'The Ghost' had been an ever-present in Spurs double-winning side of 1960/61 and had played 22 times for Scotland.

Back in 1914 the Football Association was asked by its Argentine counterparts to send out an English team to help improve the standard of Argentinian football. So on the boat to Argentina was sent a non-league side, Exeter City, who were then members of the Southern League. They played eight matches in Argentina, losing just once. They then agreed to play three matches in Brazil on the way back. In the first of those matches they beat a team of English expats 3-0. The second match was against one of the two major regional teams in Brazil. Brazil was - is - a huge country and their football was based in two separate regional centres - Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. That second match was against the Rio select side and Exeter won 5-3. The third match - played on July 21st 1914 - was against a combined Rio and Sao Paulo side and was considered to be the first match played by the Brazilian national team. And in their first match Brazil beat Exeter City 2-0 and the fans certainly came out to witness the occasion. OK, not 200,000 at the Maracana but the it was thought that Fluminense's 6,000 capacity Estadio das Laranjeiras ground probably had 10,000 present in it to witness the match. So when you think of Brazil winning the World Cup give a thought to the part Exeter City played played in starting it all off!