Why is Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink so named?

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

"What's the story behind Dutch striker Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink's unusually area-specific name?" asks David Atkinson.

According to our research, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink was thus named because, way back in the 17th century, two farming families in the Enschede area of Holland intermarried. Both the Vennegoor and Hesselink names carried equal social weight, and so - rather than choose between them - they chose to use both.

'Of' in Dutch actually translates to 'or', which would mean that a strict translation of his name would read Jan Vennegoor or Hesselink.

OH BROTHER (PART II)

Last week, Ed Hoskin asked who football's most-capped brothers were. With thought the Dutch de Boers led the way on 179 (Frank 112, Ronald 67). But, seven days on, they don't even make it into the top three.

Daniel Huledai points out the Ravelli brothers: Thomas, the wild-eyed goalkeeper who barked his way through 143 matches for Sweden, and the defender Andreas, who won 41 caps. A whopping 184 in all, then, but that's only enough for the bronze medal.

"What about the Laudrup brothers?" asks Ben Dawson. "Brian has 104 caps and Michael collected 82." Aren't they are the most capped brothers?" Not quite...

"Not even close," says Josh Mandel. "The most-capped brothers - twins, no less - by some stretch are Hossam and Ibrahim Hassan of Egypt." Hossam, a livewire forward who burst onto the world scene by playing Jerry to Ronald Koeman's Tom during Italia 90, made a mighty 163 appearances, while Ibrahim managed just the 125 caps. That's 288 all told, and 287 more than Rod, Ray and Danny Wallace.

FOUR DIVISIONS IN ONE SEASON

"I remember, in 1986-87, that Tranmere keeper Eric Nixon became the first player to play in all four divisions in the same season," remembers Nick Davies. "Has anyone matched this since?"

It has indeed been done since - by Tony Cottee, who played for Leicester (Premiership), Norwich (First Division), Millwall (Second Division) and Barnet as Player/Manager (Third Division) in 2000-01, before giving it all up to become a fast-talking pundit.

CHEAP AT THE PRICE (PART II)

Monty Reeve asked who was the cheapest player in the modern age of football, with Tony 'Shellsuit' Cascarino leading the way. But Iain Christie has more.

"Nicky Tanner, who moved to Liverpool from Bristol Rovers for £20,000, was transferred earlier in his career for a floodlight bulb," he says. "I can't remember whether this was from Mangotsfield to Bristol Rovers or from an unknown club to Mangotsfield, but I remember the story doing the rounds when he was at Liverpool.

"Having watched him play for Liverpool 60 times in the dark years of Graeme Souness I can only hope that the floodlight bulb was more dazzling. It was certainly brighter." Ba-boom!

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"I recall that Argentina fielded outfield players in two World Cups with the No1 jersey (Alonso in '78 and Ardiles in '82), since they chose to use alphabetical order for assignment of numbers," said Eduardo Villanueva Mansilla, way back when. "Obviously there are no rules against it, but assigning the No1 shirt to an outfield player seems very unusual. Are there any more top-level occurrences?"

There are indeed. In a gloriously pompous declaration of their total football ethos, the great Dutch side of 1974 was also numbered alphabetically. "Hence, Ruud Geels, a striker, had a squad number of one while goalkeeper Jan Jongbloed wore No8," explains John Murray.

"The only exception was, of course, Johan Cruyff - who was allowed to wear his trademark number 14 shirt instead of No1, which he would have worn under the system."

If you want an English example, look no further than Charlton Athletic. As Trevor Pearce and Tristan Browning point out, in the early 90s, shortly after the advent of squad numbers, the Addicks went all alphabetical - with Scottish defender Stuart Balmer wearing the No1 shirt.

For more classic knowledge, click here

GUVNOR'S TRAVELS

"Do you know of a player that has played in a Manchester derby, a Meryseyside derby and a Milan derby," asks Matthew Wakely.

Simple: Paul Ince. Anyone know of anyone else?

Can you help?

"Between August 1966 and June 1979, German goalkeeper Sepp Maier played 442 consecutive Bundesliga games for Bayern Munich," says Oliver Alexander. "Is this a record?"

"Why are some transfer fees 'undisclosed' and others not?" asks Matthew Shinkman. "Why would a team want to disclose the information if not required to?"

Send your questions and answers to knowledge@theguardian.com

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