Which Premier League footballer has the most vowel-heavy name? | The Knowledge

“A conversation about Aaron Mooy (55.55% vowels) made us wonder which current player in the English top flight has the highest proportion of vowels in their combined first and last names? After much discussion we came up with Étienne Capoue (61.54% vowels). Are there any current (or past) Premier League players with a higher ‘vowelage’ rate?” wonders Richard Barnett (28.57%).

There certainly are, Richard. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of people reminding you of Jérémie Aliadière (62.5%),” writes Brian Spurr. Sticking with north London, former Spurs player Teemu Tainio clocks in at 63.6%. Mike Turnbull winds the clock back more than 40 years to improve on that. “Good old Ian Ure of early 70s Arsenal and shortness of name fame would seem to have 66.67% of his name in vowels.”

Chris Page points out that Iain Dowie, George Weah’s – ahem – “cousin” Ali Dia and Ugo Ehiogu could all match this figure, while the Guardian’s own Chris Taylor offers a really snappy example in Edu, who comes in at the same percentage figure despite having only one consonant in his name. “Had either Ali Daei or Lounes Gaouaoui ever appeared in the Premier League, we could push it up to 71.43%,” writes Rob Hick.

We can match that figure with a former Premier League player, though. “Ola Aina, now at Torino, has a name that is 71.43% vowels,” points out Steve Hyde. “Liverpool’s Ovie Ejaria, on loan at Reading, is close behind on 70%.” A tip of the hat to Chris Page, who also stumbled upon the vowel-heavy Aina.

Songs sharing names with teams

“Amanda Palmer released a single called Leeds United, and The Divine Comedy a track called Queen of the South – what’s the highest-charting song to share its name with a football team?” tweets NotThatHunter.

Let’s keep this in the spirit of the question and discount songs officially written for clubs – and unless the song title intentionally mentions a club, we’re also going to ignore them. So tracks such as Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé’s ‘“Barcelona” are out. It doesn’t leave us with much but here goes. Chris Warner writes: “‘One for the Bristol City’ by the Wurzels got to No 66 in the UK charts I believe.” It did, Chris. It was first released by Somerset’s leading scrumpy and western band in 1977 to unofficially celebrate the club’s promotion into the top flight but there are no records of whether it charted. It was soon after adopted as the club’s official anthem and the Robins run out to it to this day. A re-release in 2007 made it to No 66.

Surely we can go higher than that though can’t we? Well, only if we head to Germany. “In 2000, Die Toten Hosen had a song called ‘Bayern’ which reached No 8 in the national charts,” writes Kristof, who also has a warning for us. “The chorus translates to ‘I would never join Bayern München’. Whether you like Bayern or not , it’s a terrible song, don’t ever listen to it, seriously.” We already have. It’s diabolical but we’re going to embed the official video anyway.

Theoretically playing more than 90 games in a season (revisited again)

We’re getting to the small print now, but it seems that David Southworth’s 96-game English season (last week) can potentially be topped …

Here are Dan and James. “Assuming David’s 96 games are correct, there is potential for one additional game in the League One season,” they write. “If the teams finishing second and third are exactly level (on points, goal difference, goals scored, head to head, wins, goals scored in away games, best disciplinary, lowest red cards), then Regulation 9.8 of the EFL rules states:

If the above procedures do not separate the clubs, then the clubs concerned shall play off a deciding league match or matches under arrangements determined by the League …

Guidance: play-off matches as detailed above only take place in practice when directly involving automatic promotion or relegation places. Those involving home or away advantage in the play-off semi-finals may be resolved by alternate methods which are mutually agreed.

“Therefore, if our hypothetical team loses the extra game, they have one extra League One game to play prior to entering the play-offs, making 97 in total.

“Two side notes, the guidelines were not clear if a play-off would also be required to separate the bottom-placed team in the play-offs and the team that just missed out. If so, our scenario could equally apply to a League One team finishing sixth or seventh and winning the resulting play-off. There is also a possibility envisaged in Regulation 9.8 of more than one such additional game: ‘League match or matches,’ potentially resulting in a 98th game through a two-legged tie for example.”

Knowledge archive

“A Southend-supporting friend claims the team once played a league game at Wembley? Is he having me on?” asked Stuart Jacks in April 2012.

Ludicrously, he wasn’t. Southend were one of two teams – Brentford being the other – to play against Clapton Orient in Division Three (South) at Wembley back in 1930, owing to ground improvement work at Orient’s Lea Bridge Stadium. Their official website took up the story:

Following a league match against Torquay (which the O’s won), officials from the Devon club complained about the perimeter fence being too close to the pitch. The Football League was duly asked to inspect the ground and agreed that alterations had to be made before any more games could take place, suddenly the Orient found themselves without a stadium to play in. Incredible as it seems Wembley was suggested and the O’s actually played two league games in 1930 against Brentford and Southend United, winning 3-0 and 3-1 respectively. To this day the Orient is the only Football League side to have played home games at Wembley Stadium!

Since then of course, Tottenham Hotspur joined Orient in becoming league residents at Wembley.

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Can you help?

“With regards to Barcelona’s €300 Griezmann-related fine, has there ever been a lighter monetary slap on the wrist for a football club versus club revenue?” asks Tony McGlennon.

“I recently stumbled upon this article about Tony Hibbert signing for an unbeaten Sunday league team in 2017 and missing a penalty for them in a 1-0 defeat on his debut. Which other former professionals have extended their careers into Sunday league football after retiring?” asks George Jones.

“I seem to recall that in an episode of Match of the Day once, a match had such an abysmally uneventful first half that Gary Lineker introduced the highlights package by explaining that they were jumping straight to the second half,” writes Jack Scourfield. “Was this a unique occurrence on the show and, if so, can anyone remember what the unmemorable fixture was?”

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