“While scanning the Champions League fixtures, I noticed that Pafos FC of Cyprus have a person’s face on their badge (Cypriot freedom fighter Evagoras Pallikarides),” writes Paul Savage. “Other than faces of legendary characters (Ajax), do any other badges have people on them?”
This was one of the more popular Knowledge questions of 2025. We received dozens of answers – thanks one and all – that referenced clubs all around the world. In no particular order, here they are.
Colo-Colo: “Since 1925, the former Mapuche chieftain has graced the shirts of his eponymous club,” says Tim Dockery. “Colo-Colo was part of the resistance to the Spanish colonisation of Chile in the 16th century.”
AFC Bournemouth: “I was surprised to discover that the face on Bournemouth’s badge is actually that of Dickie Dowsett, who played for the club between 1957 & 1962,” writes Pete Tomlin. “In his five seasons at Bournemouth he finished top scorer three times and apparently scored a brilliant diving header against Aston Villa which is the inspiration for the badge.”
RSC Anderlecht: “The crest features the coat of arms of Anderlecht municipality with Guy of Anderlecht on it,” notes Mykola Kozlenko.
AC ChievoVerona: A monument to the local ruler Cangrande della Scala.
Vitória de Guimarães: “Vitória’s crest features an image of Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, who established the independence of the country in 1139,” writes Vasco Wackrill.
Sevilla: “Ferdinand III of Castille sitting with St Isidor, archbishop of Seville and St Leander, Bishop of Seville (rather implausibly given Ferdinand was born around 600 years after the other two),” writes Mary Longden.
Nottingham Forest: “For about 10 years from 1946,” begins Dom Miller, “Nottingham Forest had a badge with Robin Hood. They currently have the still rather cool tree logo that was introduced in the 1970s.”
Olympiakos: “The current Greek champions started using the profile of a laurel-crowned Olympic medalist at the same time that they adopted the name Olympiakos in 1925,” offers Tim Dockery.
Sampdoria: The Italian side introduced their badge featuring a silhouette profile of a sailor with a pipe in 1971. The character is known as Baciccia in Genoese, which is a dialect name for Giovanni Battista (John the Baptist), the patron saint of the port city.
Sheikh Russell KC: “Bangladesh club Sheikh Russel KC have the face of Sheikh Russel on their badge,” writes Pete Tomlin. “He was the youngest son of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the former president of Bangladesh. Tragically Sheikh Russel (aged 10) and most of the family were assassinated in a military coup in 1975. The club was named in his memory.”
Samsunspor: “A number of badges are monuments to people,” writes Mykola Kozlenko, “Samsunspor’s pays tribute to Turkey’s first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.”
Columbus Crew: “The old Columbus Crew crest had three hard-working persons on their crest for the first 18 years of their existence,” says Ricardo Bortolon. “Pablo Maurer tracked the anonymous persons in an iconic piece.”
PAS Lamia 1964 and Asteras Tripolis: “The Greek Super League has two teams with figures from the Greek War of Independence,” writes Mary Longden. “PAS Lamia 1964 (Athanasios Diakos) and Asteras Tripolis (Theodoros Kolokotronis).
Papá Aucas: “The three-quarter profile of an indigenous Huaorani person appears on the badge of Papá Aucas,” writes Tim Dockery. “In its early days, all players for the club automatically became employees of Shell, which was searching for oil in that part of Ecuador (hence the red and yellow).”
Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC: “My favourite,” says Mykola Kozlenko. “It will be hard to beat this amazing depiction of Rob Roy MacGregor!”
Others include AEK Larnaca (Admiral Cimon), Aris Thessaloniki (Ares), KF Teuta (Queen Teuta of Illyria), AGF (St Paul and Pope Clement) and KVC Westerlo (St Martin of Tours).
And finally, thanks to Mary Longden for rounding up some of the more eye-catching badges lower down the football pyramid. “There are numerous more saints, especially in Northern Ireland and Scotland,” writes Mary. “The best are probably St Roland leaping a gorge in the Pyrenees (SD Huesca, Segunda División), and Szentlorinci SE in the Hungarian second division which replaces St Lawrence being martyred in a fire from the town’s crest with St Lawrence being martyred behind a large cartoon football.
“I looked at a lot of badges for this and an honourable mention has to go to the badge of SC Faetano in San Marino. It doesn’t have a real person but it does have the best googly-eyed cartoon tree playing football you’re likely to see.”
Players popping up randomly on TV
“I was watching a documentary series about the Franco era on PBS. They started interviewing this bloke who I thought looked familiar,” Peter Losty begins. “It turned out to be former West Germany full-back Paul Breitner who, of course, played for Real Madrid in the 1970s. Any other examples of random footballers showing up in non-football documentaries?”
As Martin Hewitt reminds us, former Liverpool goalkeeper Tommy Lawrence made a very random appearance on BBC North West Tonight in 2015. Strictly speaking it’s a news programme rather than a documentary, but his exchange with the voxpopping reporter is too good to ignore.
I’m just wondering whether you remember the derby match in 1967 at Goodison?
“Yeah, I do – I played in it.”
“I was watching the Steve Martin documentary on Apple and couldn’t believe they were using a picture of Jack Charlton (along with Malcolm Allison and Pat Crerand and maybe most randomly David Frost) in the Playboy Club” writes Conor Smith. “Steve Martin performed stand up in the US Playboy Club, so my guess is the doc director said, ‘Get me the most 1970s-looking picture you can from the archives’ and nobody cared it was from the UK club.”
Some years ago Kieron Dyer was voxpopped in Ipswich, with the reporter asking him if he was a supporter. “I’m a player!” Awkward.
And finally, Mick McMenemie reminds us that former Hereford goalkeeper turned conspiracy theorist David Icke has appeared in a few non-football docs. We won’t go into details because life’s too short. Or is it?
Triple doubles
“Othmane Maamma’s first start of the season for Watford on Saturday meant each member of their front three had double As in their name: Maamme, Kjerrumgaard, Baah. Are there other interesting examples of these ‘triple doubles’, as I’ll call them, across attack or defence that readers know of?” asks Aidan Watts-Fawkes. “Let’s set the bar high and exclude any Icelandic or Scandinavian ‘sson’ trios, of which I imagine there are many.”
Will Ransom kicks us off: “You can probably make a case for Gianluca Zambrotta, Francesco Totti, Gennaro Gattuso and Simone Perrotta in Italy’s 2006 midfield, but I’m saying Totti was up top and Zambrotta was in defence. So with that in mind, the best I can do is Manchester United v Barnsley on 25 October 1997. United started with Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Gary Pallister as a triple double, and subbed on Ronnie Wallwork after 63 minutes for … Pallister. Can’t blame the Glazers for that one.”
Norway’s recent 11-1 World Cup qualifying win over Moldova involved Rangers winger Thelo Aasgaard playing 28 minutes alongside Erling Haaland and Martin Ødegaard – what’s more, all three players scored for the relentless hosts, with Haaland netting five, Aasgaard four and Ødegaard just once. Moldova’s “consolation” was an own goal – scored by Leo Ostigaard, making for 15 double As on the scoreboaard.
And James Vortkamp-Tong chimes in: “I can beat it and give a player who contains three successive doubles. Myrthe Kemper-Moorrees has made her name playing in the Dutch and German women’s leagues and is currently at PSV for the second time.”
Knowledge archive
“I have a memory from an old childhood annual that Manchester United are the only team to have fielded three Ballon d’Or winners on the same pitch, back when Charlton, Law and Best were playing,” noted Dan Wardle in 2018. “Is this right? And which match featured the most winners at the same time?”
Dara O’Reilly kicks off with an excellent answer. “While Dan Wardle’s annual was probably correct at the time of going to press, I’m sure I won’t be the only person to point out that, when Michael Owen joined Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo at Real Madrid in 2004, that meant the club were able to, on numerous occasions over that season, field four players who had won football’s most prestigious individual prize.
“This means, I think, that the home leg of the Champions League last-16 tie against Juventus (played on 22 February 2005) where all four of Los Merengues’ prize winners played against a Juventus side fielding previous winner Pavel Nedved, has the most Ballon d’Or winners playing of any club game in history, with five. Future winner Fabio Cannavaro also played for Juventus in that game, so a bit of creative accounting could argue that six actually featured.”
Madrid trumped United’s trio but also the Milan side of 1992-93 with Fabio Capello having the luxury of fielding three of the four previous winners in Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Jean-Pierre Papin. The Rossoneri also repeated the feat in 2008-09 with Andriy Shevchenko, Ronaldinho and Kaká. Also worth noting that Milan enjoyed a monopoly in 1988 and 1989 as Gullit, Van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Franco Baresi occupied the top three places in voting.
Can you help?
“At the age of 44-45, goalkeeper Fábio played every single minute of Fluminense’s league season, and was in fact the only player in the 2025 Brasileirão to play all 3,420 minutes,” notes Ben. “Is he the oldest player ever to play every minute of a top-division league season (minimum 20 matches)? And who is the oldest outfield player to play every minute of a top-division league season?”
“It’s well known that Howard Wilkinson was the last English manager to win England’s top division with Leeds in 1992,” writes Vince Simonet. “Has any national league gone longer without being won by a homegrown manager?”
“Scotland have been drawn in a group with Brazil and Morocco, just as they were at their last World Cup appearance in 1998,” writes Dan Buchanan. “Has the same group ever been drawn at different World Cups? And which teams have been drawn together the most times in the group stage? Argentina and Nigeria spring to mind.”
Mail us with your questions and answers, and also any of a festive theme for our upcoming Christmas special
