The players are away from home but Chelsea's official statistician Paul Dutton remains behind to deal with more queries from supporters in the latest of his statistical surgeries.

I shall commence this month with a question in honour of our new manager. A countryman of Felipe Scolari, João Xavier, has emailed in from Rio de Janeiro to ask if Chelsea have ever played against a Brazilian team.

João is almost certain there was a game against Flamengo, his team in Brazil, and he is correct - but there have been a few other matches besides, including appearances from some of football's most famous names.

In 1957 Chelsea entertained Esporte Club Bahai and won 3-1 at Stamford Bridge and a year later in 1958, the year of Brazil's first World Cup win, we also beat Canto do Rio at home 3-2.

In 1970, another landmark year in Brazilian football, Chelsea took on another of their club sides, Santos with the game played in Caracas, Venezuela. We lost 4-1.

In February 1971, there was re-match against Santos in Kingston, Jamaica. It was a good Chelsea side back in those days but in a game played in 80 degree heat and with a certain Pelé (pictured above, watching a game at the Bridge in 2006) in opposition, we lost 1-0.

August 1998 was the meeting with Flamengo, in a pre-season match in Holland. In the Gelderland tournament, Chelsea won 5-0 against a weakened Flamengo who were still able to include another Brazil legend, Romario.

Perhaps our most famous, and certainly earliest encounters with the boys from Brazil came during a 1929 summer tour to South America. It took three-and-a-half weeks to get there by sea and once ashore, among games played in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, were four against Brazilian clubs.

A combined Rio 11 was taken on in the first Chelsea game under floodlights. The result was a 1-1 draw.

We played another Rio select side and lost 2-1 and played Corinthians and drew 4-4. Against Sao Paulo we lost 3-1. Anyone wanting to read about the tour in more detail should turn to Chelsea - The Official Biography, written by my colleague Rick Glanvill who devotes a whole chapter to the South American adventure.

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Anyone who has been reading Ask Statman regularly will know I like to ask for help in answering or confirming my responses to some questions - and I will do so with the next one, especially as two supporters have asked related questions.

José Mourinho going to Inter Milan has reminded Ian Scott of a time Chelsea wore a blue and black striped shirt in a FA Cup semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday. He asks why Chelsea made this change and was it ever repeated.

Kristoffer Killerup Kaae would like to know which Chelsea shirt has been worn the fewest times in competitive games.

Chelsea did indeed wear the blue and black against Sheffield Wednesday in the 1966 FA Cup semi and to my knowledge it was the kit's one outing. We also wore Coventry's away shirt once in a league match away to Coventry in 1997. It was caused by a clash between their home kit and the one we had taken to the Midlands.

If anyone can recall of any other one-offs, or why or any another time the blue and black stripes were worn, please mail in.

On a similar shirt subject, if you'll excuse the tongue-twister, Jason Fenton wants to know why, on a video of great Chelsea goals he has seen, Bill Garner (pictured with some team mates above far right) scores at home against Ipswich wearing red shirts and white shorts.

The kit of red shirts, white shorts and green socks, based on Hungary's famous colours, was the away strip that season. The game was in February 1973 and was a home FA Cup fourth round tie in which Garner got both in a 2-0 win.

However the rule at the time in the FA Cup was that in the event of first choice colours clashing, both teams had to change kits. It was one of those regulations that comes and quickly goes.

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Bill Garner is a man in demand this month as John Millest asks in which game he scored his debut goal and how many goals he contributed to the club during that season.

Garner's Chelsea debut was on 9 September 1972 at home to West Ham. He came on for Alan Hudson but could not prevent this side losing 3-1 to a Hammers team that included Frank Lampard senior, Bobby Moore and a young Trevor Brooking.

He scored his debut goal in his first start against Coventry when it was our turn to win 3-1 away. In the 1972/73 season he netted 10 times in 23+2 games in all competitions. His Chelsea career spanned 1972-78 with 36 goals in 119 appearances.

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Steve McKelvie is determined to work me hard this month with three separate questions in one email.

Dealing with them one-by-one, he asks which Chelsea player has scored the most own-goals in his CFC career and suggests Graham Wilkins may be the answer.

If we take the last 50 years as a starting point so working with accurate records, the older of the Wilkins brothers can lay claim to the dubious honour.

Wilkins, Ron Harris and Frank Sinclair have all scored four own-goals against Chelsea, although one of Sinclair's was in a friendly against Reading. And perhaps he should have another chalked-off his total as he also scored an own-goal in Chelsea's favour after he had transferred to Leicester (pictured below).

Steve then asks which player has played the least amount of minutes for the first team.

Another uncoveted record, this time it goes to striker Joe Sheerin who in April 1997, came on as a substitute for Gianfranco Zola for the last minute against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park. He didn't touch the ball and didn't play for Chelsea again. Nine others have played only once as a sub. They are, in alphabetical order:

Jimmy Clare, Anthony Grant, Steven Hampshire, Sam Hutchinson, Leon Knight, Steve Livingstone, Gerry Peyton, Jimmy Smith and Roger Wosahlo.

Of course Sam Hutchinson and Jimmy Smith are still with the club so have potential for long Chelsea careers ahead.

The third question - who has been timed as the fastest Chelsea player ever? - falls outside any comprehensive records I know about, but one thing I can say is the answer is not Willie 'Fatty' Foulke.

Arthur Sales, who played seven games for the club in the mid-1920s, was also an athlete who ran 100 yards in 10.5 seconds.

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Before the new season commences is good time to answer a request from Turkey, sent by Ahmet Güneç who asked how many of the goals conceded last season were from set-pieces.

Our opponents scored from nine free-kicks and six corners in 2007/08.

The full roll call is:

Free-kicks
Birmingham at home (Forssell)
Reading away (Bikey)
Rosenborg at home (Koppinen)
Leicester at home (McAuley and Cort)
Villa at home (Laursen)
Everton in the Carling Cup at home (Yakubu)
Spurs in the Carling Cup Final (Woodgate)
Spurs away in the 4-4 draw (Woodgate)

Corners
Villa away (Knight)
Man United away (Tevez)
Arsenal away (Gallas)
Spurs away (Huddlestone)
Arsenal home (Sagna)
Bolton home (Taylor)

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Andy North has mailed in about a vague memory of going away to Ipswich in the late 1970s around Christmas time and it snowing. He would like some details.

I'm pleased to say Andy's memory is not playing tricks because it was a white December 30^th in 1978 when, playing in a snow storm, Chelsea lost 5-1 to Ipswich.

Tommy Langley scored for us to make it 4-1 but the damage was done by some famous Ipswich names - Russell Osman, Arnold Mühren who scored two, John Wark and Paul Mariner. We finished bottom that season with 20 points.

Andy also asks why I didn't mention Juan Sebastián Verón in my round-up last month of transfers between Chelsea and Man United. The reason was the list was purely players moving from Stamford Bridge to Old Trafford but it does lead nicely into an email from Roz Jamal Ameen, a fan from Kurdistan Region/Iraq who asks for a list of names who have moved in the other direction.

The list is:

Tommy Meehan who joined Chelsea from Man United in 1920
Stan Crowther (1958)
Mike Pinner (1962)
Mal Donaghy (1992)
Mark Hughes (1995)
Mark Bosnich (2001)
Verón (2003)

So in total, two players more fall into this category than the five leaving Chelsea for the north.

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On the subject of Chelsea and Manchester United, Andrew Harnett has been searching without success for some basic details of a game between the clubs played on the date of his birth, Wednesday 2 October 1963.

He knows the score was 1-1 and to that I can add the scorers who were Dennis Brown for Chelsea, his only league goal for the club, and Maurice Setters for Man U. A crowd of 45,351 watched on and Tommy Docherty and Matt Busby were the managers.

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I want to finish off with a couple of follow-up emails to the last Ask Statman.

One from Alan Barrett questions my description of prolific 1950s youth team player Barry Sluman as originating from County Durham, due to the fact that Alan remembers Barry representing South London Schoolboys.

I've checked the Official Chelsea Handbook 56-57 which states Sluman was born in Co. Durham and came to London as a child, which explains it all I suggest.

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Finally, Nigel Kingsley refers to my claim last time that a crowd of 6801 in 1938 was the lowest attendance for a top flight game at Stamford Bridge.

Nigel raises a game in the winter of 1973 which, he recalls, in a time of power cuts might have been played on a Wednesday afternoon with a 2pm kick-off. He asks for confirmation the attendance that day wasn't less than the aforementioned figure.

That I can do.

Due to a government floodlight ban at the time (this being the era of the three-day week) on Wednesday 13 March 1974, Chelsea kicked-off at 3pm against Burnley and won 3-0. Steve Kember, Peter Houseman and Ian Hutchinson were our scorers and the crowd was 8,171. It was at that point our smallest league crowd since World War Two.

And that draws Ask Statman to a close this time. Such has been the volume of questions (and thank you very much for it) that a backlog has built-up. Therefore I aim to be back in a couple of weeks rather than a month with the next set of answers.

Please keep the questions and any follow-ups to this article coming to statman@chelseafc.com