In the latest of his statistical surgeries, Chelsea's official statistician Paul Dutton answers more queries emailed in by supporters in recent weeks.


I'll start this time with a straightforward question that has a twist in the answer. It was sent by Phil Denty who asks is it true two players have scored the same goal and if so, who were the scorers and what was the year and the opponents.

This unusual fact is true, the opponents were Leicester and the scorers were Leicester's Jack Froggatt and Stan Milburn - although the goal was for Chelsea!

At Stamford Bridge on 18 December 1954, Frogatt and Milburn recorded a shared own-goal. It is the only official joint own-goal in English professional football.

There is another question relating to 1950s football from W Stafford who wanted a list of 1952 captains. In the league that year, Bobby Campbell captained in 29 games, Roy Bentley 10 and John Harris 3.

**********

Next up is correspondence from one of Chelsea's overseas fans.

Jack Korsgaard from Denmark enquires whether I am able to add to his list of four Danes who have played in Chelsea's first team.

His list is Jes Hogh, Bjarne Goldbaek, Brian Laudrup and Jesper Gronkjaer.

I am able to add a couple of names. Nils Middelboe was our first overseas player. He was with the club between 1913-22, making just 46 appearances in that time although the First World War did intervene.

Jacob Kjeldbjerg was signed by Glenn Hoddle in 1993 and played 66 games before retiring due to injury in 1997

**********

Roy Forey sends in an interesting question on which other readers may be able to shed more light.

Roy has a programme for Chelsea v Liverpool played on 24th December 1938, the last full season before World War Two. He has noted that the record books list the attendance as 6,801 and suggests this has to be the lowest attendance for a Chelsea top division game ever.

Indeed the crowd that Christmas Eve was the lowest for a top flight game at the Bridge. The smallest post-war crowd was against Southampton in February 1992 when 7,148 turned up.

Both Roy and I are curious to know if there were any special circumstances back in 1938 that led to such a low figure as it does look out of place. The next home game on 27 December against Leeds drew 33,000 and even home games on Christmas Day that decade had crowds of 50,000.

Any one with a long memory out there?

*********

Speaking of long memories, I am indebted to Joe Cotter who has highlighted an inaccuracy in my records concerning penalty takers. In an answer to a previous question, I stated that Terry Venables' 10 penalties represent a 100 per cent success rate from the spot for Chelsea.

Joe has correctly uncovered a penalty Venables (pictured) missed in an FA Cup win over Spurs in 1964, the attempt saved by Johnny Hollowbread.

The game was also notable for John Dunn playing a second game in run of nine in goal for Chelsea as Peter Bonetti was out with a broken finger.

Unsuccessful penalties can be hard to track down so I'm grateful for anyone who can email in corrections on this or any other subject.

**********

We have a second question all the way from Denmark - this one from Kristoffer Killerup Kaae who would like to know which Chelsea player has played the most in the current record run of unbeaten league games at Stamford Bridge.

The answer is, and I am sure this will surprise no-one, Frank Lampard with 71 starts and 1 sub appearance out of the 81 games. JT is second in the list with 68 and Petr Cech has played 55.

**********

Fadipe Adeyinka from Nigeria, has asked another Lampard-related queston - why Frank's goal in the pre-season friendly against Feyernoord was not included in the rundown of his recent 100 Chelsea goals?

The reason is simply that such friendlies are never counted by statisticians towards official stats as they are not competitive games. Fadipe also wanted confirmation of the birth dates of the club.

The Times newspaper announced the new club had been formed on 11 March 1905 with a meeting that named it Chelsea Football Club on 14 March. Fadipe also asks about commemoration of those dates in the match programme. There was a double-page spread in the West Brom prog in March '05.

**********

There have been a couple of enquiries relating to set-pieces, one from Ian Scott who is worried our corners this season have been so poor that only one has been converted into a goal.

I'm happy to inform Ian that our record is a lot better than that with six going in so far:

They are:
Drogba v Everton home
Kalou v Fulham away
Pizarro v Birmingham away
Kalou v Olympiacos home
Terry v Sunderland away
Lampard v Fenebahçe home

Incidentally, six goals have been scored directly from free-kicks (penalties not included).

Ahmet Güneç from Turkey asks how many of the goals Chelsea have conceded this season are from either free-kicks or corners?

Nine have come from free-kicks and five from corners.

The free-kicks:
Forssell for Birmingham at home
Bikey for Reading away
Koppinen for Rosenborg at home
McAuley and Cort for Leicester at home
Laursen for Villa at home
Yakubu for Everton at home in the Carling Cup.
Woodgate for Spurs at Wembley
Woodgate for Spurs away

Corners:
Knight for Villa away
Tevez for Man U away
Gallas for Arsenal away
Huddlestone for Spurs away
Sagna for Arsenal away


Steve Laurie is equally concerned about Chelsea's record from penalty shoot-outs down the years and would like reassurance over how many we have won.

Overall we have taken part in 12 official ones (not including Makita pre-season tournaments and the like) and have won half of them - but I refer Steve to the Pre-Match Briefing before Wednesday's game when I listed the full details.


**********

Paul Spenceley from Kent asks which goalkeeper for Chelsea has the greatest percentage of clean sheets. He asks if Petr Cech is the answer and he is correct.

Of those who have played more than 50 games, our current number one has a 55 per cent clean sheet record.

Carlo Cudicini is next up at 46 per cent with Ed de Goey on 40. Our highest appearance-making keeper, Peter Bonetti, is on 29 per cent.

**********

Finally this time I'll deal with a suggestion from David Jenkins that there maybe a 'Matthew Harding Effect' with Chelsea scoring more goals when shooting towards that end of the ground.

The last game was a case in point with all three against Liverpool coming at that end and of the 58 goals at home this year, 36 have been at the Matthew Harding which is 62 per cent.

As David points out, there may be a second-half factor in this. Wednesday night was rare indeed in seeing Chelsea shooting towards that end in the first half.


Apologies for questions sent in and not yet answered. There are plenty I don't have space to deal with this time but will be featured soon.

If you have any queries about Chelsea stats or want to debate any of the above, please email statman@chelseafc.com