The last British football team

"Was the 1936 Olympics the last time Great Britain entered a football team into the tournament, and do you know who the team was?" asks Matthew Ashton. "I believe my great uncle, Dan Pettit, was a member of the team as well as playing for Liverpool, Arsenal, and Everton."

Far from it, Matthew. As recently as 1972, GB entered a team for the Munich Games, but failed to qualify, losing out over two legs to Bulgaria. Whereas GB fielded an amateur team, in line with the then-Olympic ideals, Bulgaria were able to field virtually their World Cup line-up as the country had no professional footballers. Despite this, Slough Town's Joe Adams fired Britain to a 1-0 first-leg win at Wembley in March 1971, only for a 5-0 hammering in Sofia two months later to deny them a place in Germany. According to the FA's website, the predominantly English team that lined up at Wembley was: John Swannell (Hendon), Paul Fuschillo (Wycombe), Bill Currie (Albion), Ted Powell (Wycombe, captain), Derek Gamblin (Leatherhead), John Payne (Enfield), Roger Day (Slough), Rod Haider (Hendon), Peter Hardcastle (Skelmersdale), Ken Gray (Enfield) and Joe Adams (Slough).

The last time a British team actually reached the Games themselves was in 1960, but here they crashed out in the group stage, unable to emulate past glories of 1908 and 1912 when they had won gold on both occasions. GB was represented in London for the former by the English amateur team; their path to the final included a 12-1 battering of Sweden and a 4-0 win over the Netherlands, before goals from Frederick Chapman and Vivian Woodward sank Denmark 2-0 in the final at White City.

In Stockholm four years later, it was again the Danes who found themselves on the wrong end of a 4-2 beating in the final, as GB triumphed again - aided somewhat by Harold Walden's 11 goals in three games.

As for your great uncle, Matthew, we can't find any record of him, so if anybody else has any information, contact us at knowledge@theguardian.com.

ROMANIANS OF THE DAY?

"I see that Bucharest has got three teams into the group stages of the Uefa Cup; is that some sort of record for teams from the same city in the same competition?" enquires Thomas Baardseng.

"The record for a city with the most teams in one European competition is Moscow, with four Uefa Cup entrants in 1996-97 (Spartak, Dinamo, Torpedo, CSKA)," explains Sam Mongon. If you're interested, Britain's best-represented city ever was London in the 1999-00 competition with just three teams: Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham.

However, domestic competitions have a much bigger return for one city providing many teams. Buenos Aires currently supplies 10 out of the 20 teams in Argentina's top division, plus a record five teams in this year's Copa Libertadores; here's how the capital-centric leagues shook down when we featured the subject back in 2001.

IS THERE SOMETHING IN THIS IDEA?

"When was the last time [before the game with Austria] that England started without a Manchester United player in their team?" wonders Tony Palmer.

Wonder no more, Tony, as it was back in the last century: Kevin Keegan's starting line-up for the 2-1 friendly win against Belgium on October 10, 1999 had no United players. What's more, he even found room for Steve Guppy. The team for that game at the Stadium of Light was: Seaman, Guppy, Southgate, Keown, Adams, Dyer, Redknapp, Lampard, Ince, Shearer, Phillips.

WHERE DOES THE TERM SIXES AND SEVENS COME FROM (2)

In last week's Knowledge we looked into the origins of the term "sixes and sevens", suggesting a possible derivation from gambling. However, Ben Campbell - and others - notes that another explanation may be more likely.

"The saying originates from a situation in 1327 and relates to the Guilds of Tradesmen in the City of London," writes Ben. "The Merchant Taylors and the Skinners were founded within a few days of each other, five other Guilds having already received their charters. The age of each Guild dictated its position in the Lord Mayor's procession. The Merchant Taylors and the Skinners argued for 50 years as to which should go sixth in the procession. In the end, in 1494, Sir Robert Billesden, the then-Lord Mayor, decreed that they should take it in turns to go sixth and seventh. These days, members of both the Worshipful Company of Skinners and the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors can wear black ties with gold sixes and sevens on them in memory of this. The Merchant Taylors website has the original reference, at 1484."

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"Which is the smallest football league in the world, how many teams does it have, and how many times do they meet each season?" asked John Manser, back in 2002.

"The smallest league in the world is on the Isles of Scilly," explained Charlie Connelly. "It has two clubs, Woolpack Wanderers and Garrison Gunners, who play each other about 20 times a season. They compete for two cups too. Lots of people turn up and sing 'Can we play you every week?' and each thinks they are the first to think of it.

"Honourable mention should perhaps go to Liechtenstein," he added. "Despite having seven senior clubs they have no league at all - everyone plays in the Swiss leagues. They do have the keenly-contested Liechtenstein Cup however, with a place in the Uefa Cup up for grabs for the winners, who are regarded as the champions of Liechtenstein. I saw one of the quarter-finals last season - it finished FC Vaduz 14 Schaan Azzuri 2."

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Can you help?

"After Wayne Rooney's recent sending-off for a sarcastic gesture, are there any other examples of sardonic play being punished?" wonders John Thompson.

Jason Maloy would like to know: "Is the UK the only state encompassing more than one FA and/or national team?"

"I noticed that for Bolton's recent Uefa Cup game they had made the pitch bigger, but immediately reverted back to their old size for their next Premier League match. Why?" asks Colin Noakes.

Rob Ballentyne enquires: "Does anyone know the most disallowed goals 'scored' in a single match?"

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