When Extra Time Had No End: How One Match Lasted 3Hrs and 23Mins

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When Extra Time Had No End: How One Match Lasted 3Hrs and 23Mins

During the second world war competitive football continued in an irregular, somewhat confused manner, organization being considerably more difficult when every able-bodied man of fighting – and therefore playing – age was in the armed forces or, at the very least, full-time employment. All unnecessary complications were avoided; tournaments were played regionally and quickly.

In 1940, West Ham won the Football League War Cup, a tournament of some 137 games played in the space of only nine weeks. But replays, officials decided, had complicated matters unnecessarily. The following year drawn ties were awarded to the team with the superior league record, but this too caused unhappiness.

Meanwhile, the Lancashire Cup experimented with a new method of settling contests: simply not stopping them until somebody scored. The first time this was tried Burnley beat Everton without an enormous amount of additional time or effort, and the experiment was considered a success. In 1942, the Play to a Finish rule was adopted by the War Cup, and over the following few years it was also taken up – though not often actually used – by a variety of knockout competitions in England and Scotland. Occasionally, wacky variations were proposed: in the 1942-43 League South Cup, after 20 minutes’ extra time the match would be won by the first team to either score a goal or win a corner.

There was, however, a problem inherent in the system. “There was always a danger,” the Liverpool Echo reported in April 1944, “that two sides some time would find that the finish wouldn’t come, not even by the time the cows came home.”

Another Lancashire Cup match, between Liverpool and Everton this time, had gone to not-so-sudden death. “The longer it went on the less likely did a decision appear to be,” the Echo wrote. “After 130 minutes we had the remarkable sight of directors and managers of both sides confabbing with the players and referee on the sideline in search of a solution. Liverpool suggested tossing, but the Everton players, who seemed slightly less exhausted by the ordeal, voted for carrying on. To keep things within reasonable bounds, however, Mr. Walter Cartwright representing the Lancashire FA instructed the referee to abandon the game if there was no further score in the next five minutes. There wasn’t, and the players trooped wearily off.”

This was complete lawlessness, a game played to a soundtrack of discussions on the sidelines between people attempting to improvise a way of finishing it and which ended only when a local FA official took it upon himself to change the rules of the competition to make them less inconvenient.

“We’ve got to remember that all the players are either in the forces or working. There’s no ‘laying in’ until midday. Lots of the civilian players put in a good morning’s work before the match, while service men frequently have to do morning duty before leaving camp,” the Echo complained. “I know many instances where service players have done heavy cross-country exercises with full pack on Saturday mornings, stood up most of the way by train or bus to the match, often with nothing to eat, and have then been criticized by those who didn’t know for being ‘out of condition’. They’re not out of condition. On the contrary, they must be in tip-top trim to stand what they do, but there are limits to everything.”

Players continued to strain them. In the following season’s War Cup, a match between Cardiff City and Bristol City continued for – excluding intervals – three hours and 20 minutes before Bill Rees capitalized on a goalkeeping error to head in a winner. “Pandemonium broke out,” reported the Western Mail. “The big crowd of more than 20,000, the excitement and tension over, invaded the field and carried shoulder-high those young City players eager hands could grasp.

“As the marathon unfolded itself both sides suffered. Would it never end, we thought as each side became more exhausted, and yet like super-humans contrived to put as much energy into their football as the human body would permit. I am certain that after this experience administrators will be wary about perpetuating a rule which makes such a physical and mental strain on players and public. I know the ‘play to a finish’ rule is only a war-time measure, but in the interests of the game it should be scrapped immediately.”

Perhaps it was the conviction that this would indeed happen that encouraged the Western Mail’s reporter to insist that this game was “an endurance test which will for ever hold a place in the records”. In fact, its place was taken within 12 months.

On March 30, 1946, Stockport County hosted Doncaster Rovers in the second leg of a League III North Cup match. The first game had finished 2-2, as did the second. So they played out extra time and, with no further goals having been scored, continued. And continued.

After a little under three hours Les Cocker, the Stockport striker, turned the ball into the net. The crowd spilled on to the pitch and headed for the delirious scorer – and then they heard the whistle. The referee, a Mr. Baker from Crewe, had spotted a handball, disallowed the goal and waved play on. “In the final minutes the players were collapsing with exhaustion and the crowd was calling upon the referee to stop the game,” wrote the Yorkshire Post. Eventually the sunlight, like everybody’s enthusiasm, faded.

“Finally in the dusk and with a haze of smoke from the railway settling over the ground, Mr Baker decided that light was too bad to continue, and 22 weary players and three tired officials hobbled off the field,” wrote the Post. At 203 minutes, excluding intervals, the match had pipped the Cardiff game by three minutes. The teams were instructed to toss a coin for the right to host a replay; Doncaster won, and four days later they met again. After nearly 400 minutes the sides were finally – and emphatically – separated. Ralph Maddison scored a hat-trick as Doncaster romped to a 4-0 win, and amid widespread criticism – “Nothing,” the Guardian concluded in their report of the game, “could be more absurd” – the Play to a Finish rule lasted only a few months longer.

The Guardian Sport



Bayern Munich Advances in Club World Cup with 2-1 Win over Boca Juniors

Football - FIFA Club World Cup - Group C - Bayern Munich v Boca Juniors - Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, US - June 20, 2025 Bayern Munich's Harry Kane celebrates scoring their first goal. (Reuters)
Football - FIFA Club World Cup - Group C - Bayern Munich v Boca Juniors - Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, US - June 20, 2025 Bayern Munich's Harry Kane celebrates scoring their first goal. (Reuters)
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Bayern Munich Advances in Club World Cup with 2-1 Win over Boca Juniors

Football - FIFA Club World Cup - Group C - Bayern Munich v Boca Juniors - Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, US - June 20, 2025 Bayern Munich's Harry Kane celebrates scoring their first goal. (Reuters)
Football - FIFA Club World Cup - Group C - Bayern Munich v Boca Juniors - Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, US - June 20, 2025 Bayern Munich's Harry Kane celebrates scoring their first goal. (Reuters)

Michael Olise fired Bayern Munich into the knockout stages of the Club World Cup, scoring in the 84th minute for a 2-1 win over Boca Juniors on Friday night.

German champion Bayern made it two wins in Group C and advanced to the round of 16 with a game to spare.

Olise secured the victory at Hard Rock Stadium after Miguel Merentiel had put Boca in position for a draw with a brilliant solo goal in the 66th.

Bayern, which tops the group, took the lead on Harry Kane's clinical finish in the 18th and went on to miss of a slew of chances before Merentiel's equalizer.

South American teams had been unbeaten in their first nine games of this expanded Club World Cup.

Bayern looked like it would be held until Olise's cool finish. Collecting Kane's layoff inside the box, the forward curled a powerful first-time effort low into the bottom corner.

Bayern has the luxury of resting players for its final group game against second-place Benfica on Tuesday, which could be bad news for Boca. Argentine giant Boca, which plays Auckland City, needs Bayern to beat Benfica to have any chance of advancing to the next round.

“We knew it wasn't going to be easy, we knew we were coming into a hostile environment, hot weather, it was tough. It's a massive tournament. We are playing against the best teams in the world. We just have to compete to our highest level and we should be able to beat most teams,” said Kane.

“We have to find a way (to advance). A draw would’ve been great but it’s up to us to compete and do our best and I would not be surprised if that happened,” said Boca Juniors coach Miguel Angel Russo.