Football: A game of three halves.......Sunderland 8 (3,3,5) Derby 0

http://www.victorianfootball.co.uk/the-game-of-three-halves/

In September 1894, Sunderland and Derby County played a complicated game of three halves at Sunderland’s Newcastle Road ground.

The weather was perfect, and 8,000 spectators turned up, but unfortunately the referee didn’t. Tom Kirkham had missed his train connection, so a chap named John Conqueror volunteered to take his place.

The match kicked off, the great John Campbell scored for Sunderland, and by half-time the ‘team of all talents’ held a 3-0 lead. Then Mr Kirkham arrived, declared the first 45 minutes to be null and void, and ordered the match to be restarted under his stewardship.

Sunderland’s three goals were erased from the records, and the second half became the first half. If it seemed like the referee had done Derby a favour, that didn’t prove to be the case. Perhaps mindful that a first half score had already been telegraphed to newspapers around the country, Sunderland managed to exactly reproduce it in the second first half, playing ‘strongly and finely’, and restoring their 3-0 lead.

Then came the third half, which was actually, of course, the first second half. By this time, despite the best efforts of goalkeeper John Robinson, Derby were resigned to a hiding. John Campbell scored again, and Sunderland blitzed the third half 5-0. They’d scored 11 goals over the three halves, but only the second and third halves counted, so the official final score was 8-0 to Sunderland.

Goalkeeper Robinson blamed the huge defeat not on the referee but on his failure to find any rice pudding in Sunderland before the match. Robinson, whose motto was ‘no pudding, no points’, ate a bowl of rice pudding before every match.

Dessert-based superstition aside, Derby had been subjected to an unusually extended thrashing. The result, despite its strange circumstances, highlighted the huge gulf in class between the two sides. Sunderland went on to win the league, while Derby finished second bottom, avoiding relegation courtesy only of a narrow test match win over Notts County.

 

Interesting story that, the goaly blamed "not having rice pudding" as the blame !. Nearly as bad as 'the bald eagle' wind excuse in 1990. There is a book in menkind in the bridges with weired football related stories, I might buy it next time I am in there and put some up on the site. They reckon Bon accord sent the cricket team when they lost 36-0 to Abroath. If a player gets sent off in an abandoned match it does not count right ?.

 

Depends what they are sent off for. Dangerous play probably still counts.