Which footballers have played for both teams in the same game? | The Knowledge
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“Last month, the Boston Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen played for both sides during a match against the Toronto Blue Jays. Has something like this ever happened in football?” tweets Dylan Hoekzema.
Jansen was playing for Toronto when their game against Boston was suspended in June. Boston then acquired him in July, with the match resuming in August, so he was an active participant for both sides in the same game.
The defender featured for Port Vale at The Valley on Boxing Day in 1932 in a game that was abandoned due to fog, and subsequently joined the Addicks, lining up for Charlton in their 2-1 triumph in the rearranged fixture in April 1933.
In February 1925, Clapton Orient travelled to a match against a Manchester United side that had just sold its star striker, Bill Henderson, to Preston North End. United manager John Chapman had telephoned the Orient manager Peter Proudfoot before they left London, and the two clubs agreed a fee of £1,070 for Pape. They met up at Manchester Piccadilly station just after noon, and Pape – who was a friend of the United captain Frank Barson, and had relatives in nearby Bolton – quickly agreed terms.
The details were wired to The Football Association and the Football League at around 1.30pm, and although Pape had been named in Orient’s starting line-up for the match, he was confirmed as a Manchester United player with about an hour left before kick-off. Pape was not only allowed to start the match in the colours of Manchester United, but he also scored the team’s third goal in a 4–2 win over his previous employers, as well as hitting the post with a header late in the game.
