ON THIS DAY

I n May 2008 Rochdale striker Lee Thorpe could only watch his team-mates from the sidelines when they played their League 2 play-off final against Stockport at Wembley, Rochdale's first-ever match at Wembley. He had broken his arm in three places a couple of weeks earlier. He did it in an arm-wrestling contest with team-mate Rene Howe on the coach to the semi-final against Darlington! Striker Chris Dagnall was seemingly full of sympathy when he later described the incident. ' Everybody on the bus heard the snap, it was that loud .' Ouch!

A lob from 45 yards out on the right touchline by former Tottenham player Nayim beat David Seaman in the last minute of extra time and gave Real Zaragoza a 2-1 victory over holders Arsenal in the final of the European Cup Winners Cup played at the Parc des Princes in Paris.

The four British Football Associations - England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales - have had something of a love-hate relationship over the years with FIFA, the governing body of world football. In 1928 - not for the first time - the four home country FAs withdrew from FIFA, this time due to a disagreement over FIFAs proposal to allow 'broken time' payments to amateur players. The four rejoined FIFA in 1946 and so on May 10th 1947 Hampden Park in Glasgow hosted a friendly between Great Britain and the Rest of Europe to help celebrate that re-unification. The fixture was described as 'The Match of the Century' with the GB side consisting of English players Frank Swift, George Hardwick, Stanley Matthews, Wilf Mannion and Tommy Lawton while Archie Macaulay, Billy Steel and Billy Liddell were from Scotland, Billy Hughes and Ron Burgess from Wales and although Jackie Vernon was the only Northern Irish player the opposition included Johnny Carey, an Irishman from south of the border. Goals from Mannion (2), Lawton (2), Steel and an og saw GB win 6-1 with an amazing 137,000 crowd producing £35,000 in receipts which was donated to FIFA. Rejoining FIFA meant that the home nations could enter the World Cup and there were great hopes that they would dominate that competition. If only!