No man born in 1976 played for England – and what else birth years tell us about football

“One of the charming aspects of following foreign football is realising that certain concepts are expressed in different ways to how it’s done in your own country. And one of these, for those of us accustomed to British conventions but who follow the game in continental Europe, is the simple passage of time. So whereas you’re generally more likely to find the 24-hour clock on the continent — a kick-off time might be listed at “19h” — it is somehow also more common for their television scoreboards to display a clock counting up from 00:00 at the start of the second half, rather than the 45:00 we’d be accustomed to in Britain. Similarly, if you read — for example — La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, you won’t read goals recorded as being scored in the 65th minute in its pages, but instead in the 20th minute of the second half. …”
NY Times/The Athletic – Michael Cox

‘Action’ from an 1878 game between England and Scotland