Totally useless information/trivia

[The_Rev]

The Ozzy Osbourne track "A V H" supposedly stands for Aston Villa Highway.

[The_Rev]

A strawberry is not actually a berry. A banana however, is.

[Stevo985]

A strawberry is not actually a berry. A banana however, is.

Yeh I've heard this one before. There's a lot of stuff with berry in the name that isn't a berry. Raspberry, blackberry. Anything with seeds on the outside isn't a berry.

I think a coconut is actually a berry too.

[Tomaszk]

I thought a coconut was a seed?

[Stevo985]

Hmmm, not sure now. Maybe it's a legume.

Anyway, it aint a nut!

[soprano]

Is bird shit a berry then.

[BOF]

"Nasazzi's baton" (named after Uruguay's 1930 world cup winning captain Jose Nasazzi), is a virtual title that was created upon Uruguay winning said world cup. It is currently held by the Netherlands. The baton passes to the next team if they manage to beat the current holder in normal time of any FIFA category 'A' game.

It will next be contested when the Netherlands face San Marino in a 2012 European Cup qualifier.

[islingtonclaret]

Leeds Castle is in Kent

[mjmooney]

Leeds Castle is in Kent

I assumed that was fairly widely known.

[leviramsey]

"Nasazzi's baton" (named after Uruguay's 1930 world cup winning captain Jose Nasazzi), is a virtual title that was created upon Uruguay winning said world cup. It is currently held by the Netherlands. The baton passes to the next team if they manage to beat the current holder in normal time of any FIFA category 'A' game.

It will next be contested when the Netherlands face San Marino in a 2012 European Cup qualifier.

The Unofficial World Championship is more interesting, IMO, as it goes back to the dawn of international football and includes any extra time and penalties. Spain are the current holders, having beaten the Netherlands in the World Cup final (one of the comparatively rare times that a WC final has been a title defense).

The first ever international match was a 0–0 draw between England and Scotland, on 30 November 1872 at Hamilton Crescent. The Unofficial World Championship thus remained vacant until the same two teams met again at the Kennington Oval on 8 March 1873. England won 4–2, and so are regarded as having become the first ever Unofficial Football World Champions. Wales entered the 'competition' in 1876, and Ireland in 1882. The Championship however, continued to swap between Scotland and England until March 1903, when Ireland beat Scotland 2–0. Wales won the title for the first time in March 1907, beating Scotland 1–0.

Scotland regained the Championship the following year, which saw England playing internationally. Scotland however, didn't do the same and so retained the title. By the end of 1909, England had taken the title and defended it outside of the British Isles for the first time.

Ireland won the title for the third time in 1927, beating England 2–0: of the two teams using the name Ireland at that time, this was the team representing the Belfast-based Irish Football Association, subsequently known as Northern Ireland.

The fact that none of the Home Nations teams competed in the 1930, 1934 or 1938 World Cups kept the title from travelling too far abroad, and the First and Second World Wars hindered football's globalisation process further.

It was 1931 when the title was first passed outside the British Isles, to Austria. It was back with the home nations within four months, and for all but the last few months of the decade it was held by those four teams. In the 1940s the title was held by continental teams, notably those representing the Axis powers and countries neutral during World War II, but was recaptured by England in time for the 1950 World Cup. Here, in a shock result, they lost to the United States in one of the biggest upsets ever. This was the first venture of the title onto the Americas, where it remained for all but one of the following 16 years.

This time included the reign of the Netherlands Antilles, who beat Mexico 2–1 in a CONCACAF Championship match to become the smallest country ever to hold the title. The UFWC returned to Europe in time for the 1966 FIFA World Cup with the Soviet Union. As it happened, the England v Scotland match of 1967, which first gave rise to the idea of an unofficial world championship, really was a UFWC title match. The title stayed in Europe until 1978, when it was taken by Argentina's 1978 World Cup winning side. It remained in South America until the 1982 World Cup where Peru lost to Poland. The UFWC remained in Europe for the next ten years, except for a one year tenure by Argentina.

In 1992, the title returned to the United States and then was held for one match by Australia, and then worked its way through several South American nations, back through Europe and to its first Asian holders, South Korea. The Koreans lost the title to Yugoslavia at the first time of asking, and the UFWC remained in Europe until March 1998 when Germany lost it to Brazil in a friendly. Argentina then defeated Brazil in a friendly to carry the UFWC into the 1998 World Cup.

France repeated Argentina's 1978 feat by taking the title as they won the World Cup on home turf, beating Brazil. England took the title for the last time to date at UEFA Euro 2000. France and Spain enjoyed spells as champions before the Netherlands won the title in March 2002. As the Dutch had failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, the UFWC was, unusually, not at stake at the official World Cup. The Netherlands retained the title until 10 September 2003, when they lost 3–1 to the Czech Republic.

The Czechs defended their title a few times, before losing it to the Republic of Ireland in a friendly. The title then went to an African nation for the first time, as they lost it to Nigeria. Minnows Angola won and kept this title through late 2004 and early 2005. They were then beaten by Zimbabwe, who held the title for six months before Nigeria re-gained it in October 2005. Nigeria were beaten by Romania who lost it to Uruguay within six months. Uruguay became the highest ranked team to hold the title since 2004, but their failure to qualify for the World Cup finals meant that, for the second time in succession, the unofficial title was not available at the official championships.

The title was brought back to Europe by Georgia on 15 November 2006. They lost the title to the highest ranked team in the UWFC of all time, Scotland, on 24 March 2007, nearly forty years since Scotland had last gained the title, in the game against England at Wembley that had inspired the concept of the UFWC. Just four days later, Scotland conceded the title to FIFA World Cup holders Italy, and the title passed through the hands of Hungary twice, Turkey, Greece and Sweden before being claimed by the Netherlands, who lost the title to Spain in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final after a run that saw more successful defences than any other reign.

* The Netherlands have twice entered a World Cup as Unofficial Champions, went undefeated until the final, and lost the title in the final (1974 and 2010).

* Chile (1950), Mexico (1962), and Colombia (1994) have all failed to make it out of the WC group stage despite leaving with the title.

There's another title which only counts qualifying and finals matches in the continental championships and the Confederations and World Cups. Colombia currently hold that title.

There's also the pound-for-pound title, which starts with the World Cup era and crowns each World Cup winner after the cup, regardless of who held the title before the Cup.

[BOF]

Nah, extra time me arse. Plus it was the link to Nasazzi that made me find it in the first place. I've read them all before and I prefer the one I posted.

[rjw63]

All Austrian football fans keep their daughters tied up in the basement and rape them, in deference to the Lord Fritzl

[legov]

Looked through the first few pages of this thread and have to add this:

In Japan, the number four is considered to be unlucky because the Japanese word for four sounds very similar to the word death.

This is the case as well for most Chinese languages/dialects.

[leviramsey]

The average American adult spends one full day per year having sex, the same amount of time spent filling out tax forms.

Source

[Chindie]

The scientific term for a fart is a flatus.

[claret75]

There are no words in the English dictionary that rhyme with purple, orange, silver or month.

[WalmleyVilla]

The average American adult spends one full day per year having sex, the same amount of time spent filling out tax forms.

Source

Does that include the times they are choking the chicken?

[Chindie]

There are no words in the English dictionary that rhyme with purple, orange, silver or month.

Not true. They don't have rhymes in common usage but the full English dictionary (which is enormous) has ones that rhyme with them. For example purple rhymes with curple (effectively a word for a horses arse) and silver rhymes with chilver, a word for a female lamb.

I think orange and month only have half rhymes, again obscure, but still, a rhyme.

[claret75]

There are no words in the English dictionary that rhyme with purple, orange, silver or month.

Not true. They don't have rhymes in common usage but the full English dictionary (which is enormous) has ones that rhyme with them. For example purple rhymes with curple (effectively a word for a horses arse) and silver rhymes with chilver, a word for a female lamb.

I think orange and month only have half rhymes, again obscure, but still, a rhyme.

Didn't research that one very well did I. Made a bit of a curple of it really.

[Chindie]

Haha, no it's just one those random facts that 'everyone knows' is right but when you look into it, isn't quite.