Premiership 2008-09 Opening Weekend Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The Premiership season began in London where Arsenal kicked off against newly promoted side West Bromwich Albion. The home side came away with a 1-0 victory courtesy of which new summer signing?

Answer: Samir Nasri

The goal came in the fourth minute of a highly entertaining fixture (I was a spectator at this game). Arsenal came out of the blocks at a high tempo and the newly promoted Champions West Bromwich Albion failed to deal with some surging runs on their right hand side of the field. Samir Nasri scored on his debut to cap a fine start to his Arsenal career. Nasri was signed for an undisclosed fee from French side Marseille during the summer, Carlos Vela was an unused sub who had been out on loan the previous season. Mark Randall had come through the Arsenal youth system and also was an unused sub, whilst finally young Welsh international Ramsey (bought in July 2008 from Cardiff City) was the third unused sub.

2. Along with West Bromwich Albion, both Stoke City and Hull City began their top flight status on the opening Saturday, but it was Hull that took the honours with a brilliant start to their first ever season in the Premiership. Who did they beat to earn the tag "The only club to win every single one of their Premier League fixtures"?

Answer: Fulham

Hull City gained promotion to the Premiership through the Play Off system the previous season. They had been the biggest European City to have never played in their county's top flight. However, after falling behind to a goal from Fulham Korean star Ki-Hyeon (8th minute) they fought back impressively with goals from both Geovanni (22) and Folan (81) to cap the start they had so long dreamt of.

3. There were two fixtures over the opening weekend that ended in 1-0 score lines. The first was at Arsenal, and the other was between Sunderland and Liverpool. Who was this person?

Answer: Fernando Torres (Liverpool)

Fernando Torres, a summer champion with Spain during Euro 2008, was yet again the match winner when he fired home a sublime strike with just seven minutes remaining. It was deemed as quite harsh on a hard working Sunderland side, but with chances far and few between many saw this as a fine opening victory for Liverpool.

4. The fastest hat trick recorded in Premiership history prior to this particular season was the one scored by Liverpool's Robbie Fowler in little over four minutes. That record was unlikely to be broken on this weekend, but a seven minute hat trick was recorded by which Aston Villa winger in his side's 4-2 beating of Manchester City?

Answer: Gabriel Agbonlahor

During the 1994-95 season, Fowler scored a hat-trick in four minutes and 33 seconds against Arsenal, a Premiership record that still stood at the start of the 2008-09 season. "Aggy" hit his in seven minutes 12 seconds after which Manchester City manager Mark Hughes said "But then we had 10 minutes of madness. We made some bad decisions at the back and stopped defending set-plays - and you cannot afford to do that against Villa." ~Source BBC Sport.

John Carew had scored the opener two minutes into the second half only to see a somewhat dubious penalty decision converted by City forward Elano in the 64th minute. By the 76th minute Agbonlahor had done his piece before a late second for City from Corluka gave the result a semblance of respectability.

5. Middlesbrough faced the much vaunted Tottenham Hotspur at the Riverside. Much to my joy the home side recorded a fine 2-1 victory over their London rivals (being an Arsenal fan it is always a joy to see Spurs lose). Which player was the only person to score an own goal during the opening weekend of the season?

Answer: Robert Huth (Middlesbrough)

Tottenham manager Juande Ramos had totally transformed his side during the summer selling a dozen players and bringing in players that were deemed to be the sort to bring success to White Hart Lane. Middlesbrough also had bought well and saw a dominant second half display capped by some enterprising attacking football which culminated in goals from David Wheater in the 71st minute and former Tottenham striker Mido four minutes from time. Huth scored the later consolation with a header into his own goal.

6. Prior to the season kicking off, a new scheme was brought together for all clubs to show respect to the match officials. For the first time in Premiership history there was no opening day red card shown, but the cautions were still dished out. The Everton vs. Blackburn Rovers match had the most yellow cards, with how many?

Answer: 4

A sensational 3-2 win for Blackburn Rovers at Goodison Park overshadowed a tough game between the Premiership's most physical sides. Four bookings in total were made with Yobo and Yakubu of Everton being joined by Rovers pair Warnock and Ooijer. David Dunn had fired Rovers into the lead only to see Everton turn it round to lead 2-1 with goals from Arteta and Yakubu. Rovers battled away and equalised through Santa Cruz, before Ooijer stole the three points in stoppage time (and collect his caution for his celebration).

The Premiership as a whole saw 23 cautions with both Manchester United and Hull City being the bad boys with three each. Only one fixture saw no cards shown, that being Arsenal vs. West Bromwich Albion.

The show respect campaign had kicked off during the week before the season began. It was hoped that referees were able to carry on with their duties without being surrounded by players and have intimidating scenes that had plagued the league the previous season. All twenty clubs signed a treaty stating their support to showing respect to match officials. Other decisions to come from the treaty was the removal of TV screens from dug outs and for only the captain of both sides to be allowed to speak with the referee after contentious decisions.

7. The Champions, Manchester United, began their defence of their title with a slow start on the Sunday against Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United. As with the previous season opener (United drew 0-0 with Reading) the game ended in a draw. Who was the United player that equalised just moments after Newcastle United had scored their shock goal?

Answer: Darren Fletcher

Manchester United were slow off the mark in the previous season when they drew 0-0 with later to be relegated Reading. They went on to win both the Champions League and the Premiership crown. For Newcastle the outcome of this result was exceptional thanks to a goal after just twenty two minutes from Obafemi Martins, but Fletcher drew the equaliser moments later.

Despite a concerted effort from the home side, the visitors earned a precious point.

8. The new Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari saw his charges sail to a crushing 4-0 win at Stamford Bridge over the 2008 FA Cup winners Portsmouth. Which summer signing finished off the fine result with arguably the goal of the weekend?

Answer: Deco

A quiet transfer market for Chelsea saw them spend over twenty million pounds on defender Jose Bosingwa and midfield veteran Deco. Scolari who had been Portuguese national coach from 2003 till 2008 took on a Chelsea side reeling from winning no silverware the previous season despite reaching two cup finals and missing out on the Premiership by two points.

Portsmouth, the FA Cup holders, had nothing to show against a very determined London team and the score line did not flatter the winners. Goals from Joe Cole (12), Nicolas Anelka (26) a penalty from Frank Lampard (46) and the mercurial Deco (89) with a stinging 30 yarder sealed the most convincing victory of the weekend.

9. Which one of the ten fixtures was won by a side scoring a goal in the deepest minutes of stoppage time?

Answer: 2-3 Everton vs. Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn Rovers left it late scoring in an official time of 92 minutes through Andre Ooijer's dramatic goal. Stoke City's Ricardo Fuller and Middlesbrough defender Robert Huth also scored goals in stoppage time, but neither was a game winning goal.

10. Quotas had been a major issue during the close season and the lack of English talent coming through much criticised. There were 32 goals scored in the ten opening fixtures; how many of the goals were scored by English born players?

Answer: 11

Eleven English born goalscorers gave the highest ratio of goals for an opening weekend for six seasons. Scorers were as follows, Agbonlahor (3, Aston Villa), Joe Cole, Lampard (both Chelsea), Davies (Bolton Wanderers), Dunn (Blackburn Rovers), Folan (Hull City), Wheater (Middlesbrough), and Ashton (2, West Ham United).

Earlie rin 2008 FIFA had proposed a quota system that would force teams to start matches with a minimum of six home-grown players. The scheme had the personal backing of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, and an overwhelming majority of delegates at FIFA's last annual conference voted in favour of the idea. However, any quota system would have been be illegal under EU law, which guarantees citizens the right to work in any member state.

Source: Author doomed

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

The 2008-09 English Premiership began on August 16th at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, but what can you recall about the season's opening weekend?

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>