The great escapes: football’s best late-season runs to avoid relegation

“My team, Cambridge United, won five of their last nine matches to escape relegation by a single point,” tweets Simon Gleave. “What is the most wins in the last nine matches by teams occupying relegation places? And did they survive?”

Having started the bidding at five, Simon immediately ups the ante: “Bournemouth won six of their last nine in 1995 to relegate Cambridge from the third tier.” Mark Mitchener also nominates the Cherries for a failed escape in 2008. “Bournemouth won six of their last seven (and seven out of nine) in League One after being deducted 10 points for entering administration. They were relegated by two points.”

Staying in the third tier, Wayne Ziants suggests AFC Wimbledon in 2018-19. “We were 10 points from safety until a win at Walsall in game 32 started a run of seven wins, five draws and two defeats. That lifted us out of the relegation zone, with a final-day 0-0 at Bradford keeping us up on goal difference.” Those last nine games: three wins, five draws and one defeat.

“In 1957-58, Lincoln won their last six Division Two matches to survive by one point – they had only won five matches up to then, and lost their previous nine,” notes Scotty Walden. In fact, the Imps didn’t win a game between early December and Easter Tuesday, a run of 18 winless matches. They won at Barnsley to kickstart their run, ending with a 3-1 victory over Cardiff in a rearranged fixture.

Let’s look over some memorable recent top-flight examples, starting with Fulham in 2007-08. “Under Roy Hodgson, the team won five and drew one of the last nine games,” writes Richard Hirst. “Fulham stayed up on the last day of the season thanks to Danny Murphy’s header at Portsmouth. The next season we finished seventh, qualified for the Europa League and the rest is history.”

Other honourable Premier League mentions include Oldham in 1992-93 – who matched Fulham’s five wins and one draw in their last nine games – and Bradford in 1999-00 with three wins and a draw in their last five games. Perennial escapees Sunderland are also in the mix for 2013-14 (four wins and a draw, all in their last six games) and 2015-16 (three wins, five draws in their last nine).

West Ham’s controversial escape in 2006-07 takes us to a new height of seven wins in their last nine, with two defeats coming against Chelsea and, er, Sheffield United. Dean Whearty can offer two examples that edge out the Hammers by a point, starting with Wigan in 2011-12: “Seven wins and one draw in their last nine, including huge wins against Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal, lifting them to 15th.”

Another Premier League team can match that record. “In 2014-15, Leicester went into their final nine games rooted to the bottom of the table with 19 points, seven from safety,” adds Dean. “Their run-in produced seven wins, one draw and one defeat, propelling them from 20th to 14th. They didn’t do too bad in the season after that, either.”

Finally, some examples of great escapes from around Europe:

• Crotone, 2016-17 Serie A: six wins, two draws in last nine games

• Tondela, 2015-16 Primeira Liga: five wins, two draws in last nine

• Eintracht Frankfurt, 1998-99 Bundesliga: four wins, two draws

• Werder Bremen, 2019-20 Bundesliga: four wins, one draw (via playoff)

• Cagliari, 1990-91 Serie A: three wins, five draws in last nine

Points make … percentages

“Dundee won the Scottish Championship with 63 points: 58% of the total points available,” notes Stefan Arnott. “What is the lowest percentage of points won for a team to win the league?”

Chris Roe kindly steps up to do the hard work for us again. “Dundee amassed their points total from 36 games this season,” he begins. “The maximum they could have scored was 108, so the total points percentage was 58.33%.

“In the top four English divisions there has only been one instance where a team winning the division has had lower than this, namely Burnley in the 1981-82 season in the third tier, where they collected 80 points from their 46 games. The maximum they could have scored would have been 138, so their points were 57.97% of those available.

“However, over time the number of points for a win has changed from two to three, so if we had standardised points scored at always being three for a win, then Everton in 1914-15 would have scored 65 points from 38 games (57.02%); one of the nine seasons in which Dundee’s figure would have been beaten.

“At the other end of the spectrum, Manchester City’s 100-point season in 2017 took 87.72% of the available points, which has only been bettered by Preston North End in the inaugural Football League season in 1888-89 (90.91%).” Preston won 18 of their 22 games, claiming 40 points from 44 available (90%) – adjusted to three points for a win, it’s still a City-shading 87.88%.

Keeping it clean

“In Sunderland’s last game of the season at Preston, the team committed one foul (compared to 18 by Preston),” mails Paul Oakley. “Has a team ever recorded zero fouls and what are the fewest number of fouls recorded in any game?”

Stephan Wijnen can help here. “In the Netherlands, since the data on this subject has been kept (from 2010-11 onwards), it has happened twice in the Eredivisie, both in the current season,” he writes. “As recently as 23 April, Feyenoord didn’t commit a single foul in their 3-1 win over FC Utrecht (who made seven), while on 3 September last year, FC Volendam didn’t give away any fouls against Sparta Rotterdam. For them this wasn’t a good thing though, given they lost 4-0. Sparta made four fouls, which means there were only four in that entire match.”

But there are more. “Arsenal hosted Dundalk in the Europa League in October 2020, with the Irish side recorded as not committing a foul,” mails Brian Walsh. “Here are the official stats.” Jamie Fitzgerald was another to flag Dundalk’s “achievement” but he has two more examples: Chelsea going without a foul during their 1-0 home defeat by West Ham in November 2019. Even more impressive was Derby v Grimsby in the 2016-17 League Cup (this suggests the Mariners gave away the solitary match foul).

Knowledge archive

“Can someone please tell me why the Atlético Madrid club crest contains what looks like a bear trying to get jiggy with a cherry tree?” wondered Steve Guy in 2007.

Steve had obviously never been to the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, because he would have seen the 20-tonne statue known as El Oso y el Madroño, a life-size model of a bear doing nothing more than sniffing a Madroño tree.

The story goes that the word Madroño sounds like Madrid, so the tree was adopted as a symbol of the city. Bears used to be common around Madrid, so the two items were thrown together and have since appeared on the city’s taxis, buildings and man-hole covers. Atlético added the bear and tree to their badge at some point between 1903 and 1919, and the seven stars on the club crest represent the autonomous region of Madrid (or Big Bear constellation).

Can you help?

“Paul Mullin scored 38 goals for Wrexham in the National League this season, but was beaten to the top-scorer award by Notts County’s Macaulay Langstaff, who hit 42,” notes Niall McVeigh. “Are there any higher-scoring non-top-scorers?”

“Aalesunds in Norway’s top league have not scored a single goal in their first seven matches, a goal difference of 0-13 with six losses and one draw,” writes Yves Corlet. “Which (professional) team has gone the most games in a row without scoring?”

“With the Premier League season finishing later this year, will a night-time fixture finish with no floodlights?” muses Roger Kirkby. “And has a game starting after 7.30pm finished without turning them on?”

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