ON THIS DAY

They say don't mix sport and politics but that's often far from possible. That was the case in the Barcelona area on 1st October 2017 when the people of Catalonia were voting in a controversial referendum to decide if they would declare independence from Spain while FC Barcelona (Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia) were due to entertain Las Palmas in La Liga. Expecting tensions to be high FCB requested that the match be postponed but that request was refused. On 1st October tensions were indeed high and with chaotic and violent scenes in Barcelona the football club considered calling the match off. But that would have risked suffering a 6-point penalty so instead shortly before kick off they decided to play behind closed doors. Average home League attendances up that point of the season had been over 50,000. Even an empty Nou Camp didn't stop the conflict. One fan did get in and promptly 'invaded' the pitch while the two clubs had opposing views on the referendum. Las Palmas were firmly in the 'stay' camp and had the Spanish flag and date printed on their shirts while Barcelona were in the 'leave' camp and used their scoreboard to promote their message. Barcelona won the football match 3-0 and the separatists were victorious in the political vote and from then on you just knew that Brexit would be sharing the news summaries with a new story! 2 nd October

West Ham United set a new Premier League record in their visit to Queens Park Rangers - eight of their players received yellow cards! West Ham didn't get a red card though, unlike their London rivals QPR who finished the match with 10 players. West Ham won 2-1 to continue QPR's winless run - they didn't win any of their first 16 Premier League matches of the season and finished the campaign in bottom spot. The Hammers held that particular record until Tottenham took it off them in May 2016. In another all-London match Spurs had nine players booked in a fixture against Chelsea.

After weeks of speculation and waiting Arsène Wenger finally has his first day in charge of Arsenal. He was not a universally popular appointment. Ex Barcelona manager Johan Cruyff had been favourite for the job so the appointment of an unknown Frenchman managing Grampus Eight in Japan was met by a London Evening Standard headline of ‘Arsene who?’ and a nation trying to come to terms with how to pronounce his name. Things would change!