For most people, the English Football League ends at the Premiership. Academically, they may know of the Championship, and have a dim awareness of a couple of leagues beyond, particularly around FA Cup time, when some half-forgotten name from the past is drawn against one of the giants. Few know of anything beyond the Conference, at which point the national system is discarded in favour of regional leagues. Members of the top eleven tiers (of which the Conference is fifth) are eligible to play in the FA Cup.
And yet the league system goes beyond this. From their lofty perch atop the Premiership, Manchester City look down on twenty-four levels, nearly five hundred divisions, around seven thousand teams and hundreds of thousands of players, staff, youths, etc. Right at the bottom of this pyramid is the Gray Hooper Holt Mid Sussex Division Eleven, the only division in Tier 24 (A true pedant with too much time on his hands, i.e. me, would point out that technically, it is in Tier 23, but as the winners of the Gray Hooper Holt Mid Sussex Premier League, which is technically at Tier 11, get promoted to another Tier 11 division, in practice all the divisions are a tier lower than their nominal position). Right at the bottom of this division, at time of writing, are a team called Scaynes Hill III. Scaynes III are, as a result, the worst team in the English League by league position. In the unlikely event of a Russian oligarch or Arab princeling deciding to purchase the club and invest millions into it, he had better be in it for the long haul, as even with steady promotion, it would take decades for the club to reach the Premiership.
Statistics and information on the Mid Sussex eleventh division are understandably thin on the ground. The current leaders are Ridgewood, though it would appear that AFC Haywards are on a run of form, winning most of their matches by double figures, including a 20-0 drubbing. On the off chance one finds a bookmakers willing to take a bet on such matters, a punt on AFC Haywards to win promotion to the Mid Sussex tenth division might be a good move. The likelihood, of course, is that at these depths, putting eleven men on a pitch is an achievement in itself, and crazy results are as much a product of a difference in quantity of players rather than quality.
The above was illustrated in a tragicomic incident in the now defunct Mining League Division One in 2010. In the hierarchy of leagues, the Mining League Division One was a Tier 13 division based in Cornwall. Newly promoted Madron faced a mass exodus, as any team who punches above their weight has to deal with. In addition, the manager left during the summer, throwing the team into chaos. This led to an unfortunate run of form that saw them concede 227 goals in eleven games and score only twice, culminating in a 55-0 defeat to Illogan RBL Reserves. Only seven Madron players bothered to show up, and the team found themselves without a goalkeeper. Of course, these results are only possible where there is a huge disparity between teams, something that league tier systems are designed to reduce. No such limits apply in international tournaments.
In 2001, Australia faced up against Tonga and American Samoa in qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup. On April 9th, the Aussies demolished Tonga 22-0, setting a record for an international match. Two days later came the turn of American Samoa. In an area replete with minnows, the Samoans were the most minute of all, placing bottom in FIFA's ranking system. In addition, much of their team was blocked from travelling to Australia because of passport problems, though Australia left many of their senior team out. Everyone knew it was going to be a rout, but the scale was astonishing. In the 90 minutes between kickoff and when referee Ronan Leaustic put the Samoans out of their misery, Australia managed to put 31 goals past them without reply. One player, Archie Thompson, scored 13 goals, setting an individual record in an international game. Within the space of three days, Australia had twice broken the world scoring record for international matches. The disparity between Australia and New Zealand on one hand, and the Pacific Islands on the other, was a major factor in the Aussies' decision to join the Asian Confederation in 2006.
Prior to the introduction of preliminary rounds into Cup games, such results were also possible in domestic games. On 12 September 1885 in Dundee, Dundee Harp were playing in the first round of the Scottish Cup against Aberdeen Rovers. The evident disparity between the teams meant that the Dundonians flattened their opposition 35-0, the highest senior result recorded up till that point. So high was the scoreline that the referee was unable to keep track, and reckoned the score at 37-0. However, a tally by Dundee players of their individual goals put it at a more modest 35-0, which they insisted be recognised as the score, a decision they would soon regret.
In the aftermath of the match an Irish player, Tom O'Kane, treated his teammates to a meal and drinking session in the Dundee Arms hotel. Like many teams of the time, Dundee Harp had been formed as a club for Irishmen, and O'Kane had moved there during the summer from nearby Arbroath. Legend has it that, in the spirit of mischief, O'Kane persuaded his club to send a telegram to Arbroath boasting of Harp's record-shattering achievement. If true, this backfired badly, for, on the same day, eighteen miles away, Arbroath had gone one better against Bon Accord in another Scottish Cup first round game.
By rights, Bon Accord should never have been in the Cup. The club's real name was Orion, and due to a mix-up, they had been invited to compete. Unfortunately, the invite, which was meant for Orion Football Club, was instead sent to Orion Cricket club. At the time, anyone could enter a team into the Scottish Cup, and the cricketers, whether out of stubbornness or a belief that seeing as both sports involved a ball and eleven players it couldn't be too hard, gamely decided to compete. The name Bon Accord was adopted after a Scottish phrase from the storming of Aberdeen Castle in the fourteenth century. Forty-five minutes and fifteen goals later, several players reconsidered, possibly after realising that this was not in fact a cricket game. Only seven players returned to the field for the second half. By the time the final whistle blew Arbroath had won 36-0. Only the heroic efforts of referee Dave Stormont, who made extremely creative efforts to disallow several additional Arbroath goals in order to mitigate the humiliation visited upon Bon Accord, prevented the margin of victory going into the forties. Diehard Arbroath fans would suggest that the team were hampered by the lack of goal nets, which both made goals harder to verify and made recovery of the ball a longer process. The ball went between Bon Accord's goals at least forty-one times, but 36-0 is the accepted result.
In a club that hasn't exactly set the world alight before or since, Arbroath's margin of victory has been a major point of pride. The record stood for over a century. It survived a narrow scare in 2001 following a 41-0 victory in Romania, but the Guinness Book of Records held that seeing as said match was not in a professional league, it could not be counted, which was fortunate as Arbroath had just begun a major attempt to cash in on their piece of sporting history. However, all records eventually fall, and so it was that, on 31st October 2002, Arbroath's record was shattered in spectacular style in the most unlikely of places.
Stade Olypique de L'Emyrne Antananarivo (SOE) were, at the time, Madagascar's reigning champions. However, due to a disputed penalty decision in the previous match, they were going to lose that particular crown to arch-rivals AS Adema, the team they would face on that fateful day. As can be imagined, SOE were out to make a statement, which they duly did over the course of ninety of the most amazing minutes the sport has ever known. Calmly, methodically, and precisely, SOE sent 149 goals between their own posts by way of protest. As possession returns to the team who conceded the goal, regardless of whether or not it was an own goal, after each kickoff SOE simply ran the ball back to their own goal and over the line, meaning they finished the match with nearly 100% possession and the biggest margin of defeat in history. As can be imagined, a riot very nearly broke out among disbelieving fans.
Historical it may have been, but the Madagascan Football Federation did not see it that way. SOE's manager, Zaka Be, received a four year suspension for bringing the game into disrepute, and a number of players received varying suspensions too. Still, it speaks volumes about the discipline of the team that they could commit collective sporting suicide in such a manner.
And so, should you be unfortunate enough to find yourself on the wrong end of a football score that looks more like a cricketing one, take comfort from the fact that you are a long way from a new record.
Greg Bowler once tried and failed to sign up for Bon Accord. He is currently applying for citizenship of American Samoa
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