Has any team ever won promotion after more draws than wins?

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If Scunthorpe draw this weekend they will have gained promotion by drawing more games than they have won," writes Steve Pye. "I was wondering, has this ever happened before?"

It has happened before in English football, Steve, but not for 45 years. The last English sides promoted despite drawing more often than winning are Rochdale and Bradford City. In 1968-69 both sides gained promotion from the fourth division, with both sides winning 18 and drawing 20. Scunthorpe would be the first side to do it since the introduction of three points for a win.

Now the Knowledge isn't the sort of trivial column to pander to lazy stereotypes, but when it comes to drawtastic campaigns for some reason Italy springs to mind. And indeed the statistical quirk has been a fairly common occurrence in Serie B over the years, so common in fact that it's only really worth noting a few more extreme examples.

In 1981-82 Pisa stormed into Serie A on the back of 12 wins and 23 draws in their 38 Serie B games. And in 1979-80 Pistoeise did likewise on the back of 12 wins and 22 draws.

In 1988-89 all four promoted teams from Serie B drew more often than they won, with Udinese's 19 draws to 13 wins the most notable ratio, while Cremonese (making a bid for the title of Dullest Promoted Side Ever) went up from Serie B in 1990-91 after 19 draws, 12 wins and only 28 goals in their 38 matches.

In 1991-92 Brescia topped Serie B after 21 draws and 14 wins, and in the final season before three points for a win was introduced, Padova in 1993-94 won 11, drew 21 to ensure promotion.

That might have been that, but two years later Bologna took the Serie B title after 17 draws and 16 wins, Bari were promoted in 1997-98 after 18 draws and 15 wins, Lecce went up in 2002-03 (15 wins, 18 draws) and so did Atalanta in 2003-04 (19 wins, 20 draws).

EATING ON THE PITCH

"Dani Alves's excellent response to a racist idiot at Villarreal got me wondering," begins Dave Browne. "It's not the main talking point to come out of the incident, obviously, but it has to be fairly rare to see a player eating mid-match. Have there been any others?"

Alves is not the first player to have eaten something thrown in his direction during a game. After admitting his fondness for Mars bars, Paul Gascoigne was on more than one occasion pelted with nougat and caramel wrapped in chocolate. In a Rome derby while at Lazio, he picked one of the offending items up and, as John Foot records in Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer, "slowly unwrapped it and gobbled it down".

But not all mid-match munching is a result of terrace idiocy or bigotry. Rio Ferdinand was spotted munching down a couple of Jaffa Cakes mid-match against Charlton Athletic in 2006, but Columbus Crew striker Dominic Oduro went a level or two further by incorporating a pizza as part of his goal celebration:

Any more for any more? Send them to the usual address: knowledge@theguardian.com

WHICH TEAM HAS HAD THE DIRTIEST EVER SEASON? (2)

Last week we looked at the teams to have had the most red cards in a single season.

Here's Sean DeLoughry with another entry into the canon: "In 2009, under manager Sean Connor, Dundalk set a new European record with 20 red cards in the League of Ireland Premier Division, in just 33 games. (It's often reported as 19 as one of Simon Kelly's three red cards that season came after the full time whistle.) We played 25 minutes against Sligo with just eight men (and drew 2-2) and had two players sent off in another three games, but we did sneak into Europe. Dundalk picked up one more red card in an ill-temepered FAI Cup replay against Bohemians which saw nine Dundalk players carded in a game that could easily have ended seven a side."

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"Fifa rules apparently state that teams must name three goalkeepers in their squad for the World Cup," wrote Joe Diaz back in 2010. "Has anyone ever used all three, or is it just a complete waste of a squad number?"

Article 26.3 of Fifa's World Cup Regulations (a thrilling read if you have the time) indeed states: "Each association will be required to provide Fifa with a final [squad] list of no more than 23 players (three of whom shall be goalkeepers)." The convention of naming three keepers in a squad goes back to 1934 (the United States had named only one in their squad in 1930). Several teams changed goalkeepers mid-tournament in the early years but you have go all the way to 1974 to find the first substitute goalkeeper, when Mwamba Kazadi of Zaire conceded three goals in the first 20 minutes and was replaced by Tubilandu Dimbi (who went on to concede another six).

The need to use several goalkeepers is rare – in 1990 the 24 teams used a total of 27 keepers, while as recently as 1998 the 32 sides in France used a combined 36. In all, only four teams have ever used three goalkeepers in a single World Cup tournament. That's out of 371 teams to have qualified for the finals – surely time for Fifa to change the rules.

First to use a trio of keepers were France in 1978. The No1 was Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes who played in Les Bleus' opening game against Italy. In the second group game against Argentina, Bertrand-Demanes smashed either his back or head (it varies between reports) on a post after pulling off a save and had to be replaced by Dominique Baratelli, a 31-year-old who had made sporadic appearances since 1969. He conceded the winning goal against Argentina and was replaced for France's final group game by Dominique Dropsy. The game against Hungary was Dropsy's debut and he would go on to win another 16 caps. Neither Baratelli nor Bertrand-Demanes would ever play for the national side again.

Belgium went into the 1982 tournament with the eccentric (he served a three-month ban in 1980 after elbowing a linesman in a Belgian Cup match) but hugely talented Jean-Marie Pfaff as their first choice. Pfaff had been welcomed, somewhat apprehensively, back to the fold after missing the 1978 European Championships because of his practical joking, but he couldn't keep his inner comedian under wraps. He was dropped following the first group stage after apparently pretending to drown in the swimming pool at the team hotel. His replacement in Belgium's opening game in the second group stage was Theo Custers, whose performance against Poland was so abject it was his last ("Custers's last stand," notes the World Cup historian Cris Freddi). For the Belgian's final game Jacky Munaron took the gloves.

Also in 1982, Czechoslovakia used three keepers. Zdenek Hruska played from start to finish against Kuwait, but Stanislav Seman was preferred for the Czech's game against England. A calamitous performance – it would be his last for the national side – lasted 75 minutes before he broke a finger and was replaced by third-choice Karel Stromsik, who kept the No1 spot for the final group game.

The most recent team to use three goalkeepers in a single tournament were the hapless Greece side of 1994. The Greeks had gone undefeated through qualifying and named the experienced Antonis Minou, who had conceded only twice in five qualifiers, as No1 for the opening game against Argentina. A 4-0 defeat saw 25-year-old AEK keeper Elias Atmatsidis in goal against Bulgaria. Another 4-0 defeat followed and he was replaced by 24-year-old Christos Karkamanis for the final group game. That brought a slight improvement in fortunes – a 2-0 defeat to Nigeria.

For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive.

Can you help?

"The Watford coaching staff of 2008-09 have enjoyed a remarkable season in 2013-14," writes Ed Bagnall. "Back then at Vicarage Road, Brendan Rodgers was manager, Sean Dyche a coach and Mark Warbuton youth team boss. This season Rodgers could win the Premier League, Dyche has managed Burnley to promotion and Warburton has got Brentford out of League One. Has any group of club staff ever gone on to have a more impressive season in different jobs?"

"Has a player ever played the minimum amount of games to be awarded a league winners medal (should the team win) then been loaned out later in the season to another league and played the minimum games to be awarded a winners medal with the new club, and then at the end of the season received a winners medal from both leagues?" wonders Aaron J

"Before Bayern Munich played Real Madrid on Wednesday, they had played five consecutive European matches against English teams," writes Katlong Jonah Dakun. "This got me wondering, what is the longest run of matches a team from one country has had to play against teams from another country in any continental competition?"

"After Benfica beating Porto in the League Cup semi finals, I noticed that, incredibly, both Portuguese domestic cups had the exact same pairs in the semis, as well as the same winners (if one of Benfica and Rio Ave go on to win both cups, that would be even more remarkable)," begins André Vale. "My question is: has this ever happened before in another country?"

"With the FA Youth Cup final this week, how many winners of it have gone on to win the senior FA Cup?" wonders Daniel Kemp via Twitter.

"46,000 turned up on Sunday to see the bottom two teams in the Premier League," notes John Briggs via Twitter. "What's the record attendance for a bottom of the league game?"

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