Famous victories/defeats

Lop-sided victory in the pouring rain last night for the Toronto Eagles Under-9s, who beat West Toronto 16-0, moving them firmly into 4th place in the YDSL first division. A quiet night, then, for keeper/captain Ben Deller-Usher, whose high-point for the evening was re-enacting the German national squad's bowling-pin celebration.

West Toronto battled bravely though (even if their coach left their beleaguered keeper in for far too long), and I thought I should honour their effort by taking a quick look through history at some of history's most lopsided victories/defeats, just to show that last night might have been sad, but it can get far,far worse.

At an international level, the most lop-sided ever win came during World Cup 2002 qualifying, when Australia beat American Samoa 31-0. The result was a little harsh on Samoa. Their squad was hastily assembled only a week before the match after it turned out that most of the country's senior squad were actually resident in neighbouring Western Samoa. As a result, the team that faced the Aussies contained at least two members of the country's under-15 squad. Australia's Archie Thompson (who dat?) scored a world record 13 goals in the game.

The world's largest-ever legitimate score in a major competition came way back in 1885 in the Scottish Cup, when Abroath defeated Bon Accord 36-0. Bon Accord was in fact an Aberdeen Cricket Club, who received an invitation to play in the cup by mistake and allegedly turned up to the match without any boots. Unbelievably, on the same day, Dundee Harp beat Aberdeen Rovers by a 35-0 score.

But the all-time worst scoreline occurred in Madagascar, when AS Adema beat reigning champions Stade Olympique L'Emyrne by an astounding 149-0....without even touching the ball. This was not the result of some supreme act of juju, but rather a protest by SOE against what they saw as corrupt officiating by the league which they felt had handed the title to Adema with a match to spare. Straight from the kick-off of the season's final (but meaningless) game, SOE began blasting in the own-goals. 149 of them. One every 40 seconds for 90 minutes straight.

SOE's coach was subsequently banned for three years and three of its players were banned for a year. Antonio G is offering a prize to anyone who can discover how in the hell the other eight got off without punishment.