ON THIS DAY

Stuart Pearce had a decent playing career. He made nearly 600 League appearances, mainly for Nottingham Forest but he also played for Coventry, Newcastle, West Ham and Manchester City. He also won 78 England caps. But arguably the highlight of his playing career came at the age of 53 and some 14 years after he played his last match in the Football League. He signed for non-leaguers Langford FC. They were members of the Gloucestershire Northern Senior League Division 2 and they were described as 'the worst team in the country'. They had lost every match they had played in 2015/16 which included home defeats against Bibury (17-0) and Quedgeley Wanderers (15-0) and away loses at Lydney Town Reserves (16-0) and Woolaston (14-0), He made his debut for them - in fact his only appearance for them - on Saturday 12th March 2016 as a second half sub against Wootton Rovers. Langford only lost that one 1-0 but it was against the second worse team in the division. After that 'Psycho' returned to footballing obscurity! 13 th March

Frustrated by the opposition to their attempts to improve their Highbury home Arsenal made a surprise £120million bid to buy Wembley Stadium. The FA were not amused believing that a club-owned Wembley would hinder their strong bid - well what they thought was a strong bid - to bring the 2006 World Cup finals to England. Arsenal eventually went to Ashburton Grove and the 2006 World Cup finals were hosted by Germany although the Gunners did play 6 home Champions League matches at Wembley Stadium in 1998 and 1999.

Pelé had started to hit the world headlines back in 1958 but it wasn't until 12th March 1973 that he finally played in London for the only time in his career. Fulham hosted a friendly against his club side, Santos, with the 21,464 crowd being Fulham's highest gate of the season, more than doubling their average Second Division attendances at Craven Cottage in 1972/73. Pelé scored from the penalty spot for Santos but goals from Alan Pinkney and Steve Earle gave Fulham a memorable 2-1 win although the occasion was spoilt when after the match the Brazilians accused Fulham of fiddling the gate receipts.