The 22 weirdest things that ever happened in football – according to FourFourTwo readers

Football - bloody hell. It's a funny old sport, isn't it?

We've all had our fair share of surreal moments on the terraces, watching Sky Sports from home and even having a kickabout ourselves. But beyond seeing an outfield player go in goal, we wanted to ask you about the oddest things that you've ever seen at your club - the pinch yourself moments that you can still see the outline of the bruises from. 

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Once we sifted through the tweets just saying, "Well where do we begin", discounted the "Insert X player who wasn't very good" and scrolled past the photos of Edgar Davids in Crystal Palace shirts, you'll never guess some of the stories you told us.

The obvious standouts

One of Darren Bent's most famous assists. Later asked as a question on ITV's The Chase where one contestant answered that Bent had his shot deflected in off an ice cream van. Iconic.

There's nothing weird about the now-legendary Boiler Man. What were Ideal Boilers supposed to have as a mascot, exactly?

Justice for Gunnersaurus.

Think that's where the weirdness ends? Owner Mohamed Al-Fayed blamed the removal of the statue for Fulham's relegation from the Premier League after 13 years, as the 7ft 5in replica of Michael Jackson was then moved to the National Football Museum in Manchester in May 2014. 

It has now been removed.

We can hear this picture.

What on Earth are they doing there?

So much to unpack about this. How did someone get a chicken into Ewood Park? Why a chicken? Why was there a man dressed as the Sugar Puffs Honey Monster in the Darwen End? And why did Yakubu look so calm when he picked the chicken up? We'll perhaps never know the full story.

An odd choice of captain from the Saints but someone needed to replace Hojbjerg.

Now this is what we're talking about. This is the only diving in the area that we want to see.

Well, this is a blast from the past. What were West Bromwich Albion even doing in Barcelona anyway? It's not as if they had a game there.

File with: Harry Kane on corners for England and David James coming on as a striker for Manchester City.

We've seen weirder stuff but not much can beat this for funniness. 

Managers and owners

Similar of course to the preseason match in which Harry Redknapp brought on a mouthy fan to see if he could do any better than his players (and he could).

Ahh yes, Eddie Mitchell taking a leaf out of the John Carver school of football ownership. It's not very Abramovich but we're here for it. 

Such a dastardly loophole. Exactly the kind of person who would get made redundant and use their notice to get up to nonsense around the office. 

Billed as "The Argentine Sir Alex Ferguson", Ramon Diaz arrived at Oxford United from River Plate in 2004, two of his players in tow, amidst rumours that he was managing the side for free. Unsurprisingly, he didn't last long at the Kassam Stadium.

Hardy decided to focus on other ventures besides football after the offending image was tweeted. We're not sure what but guesses are welcome. 

McNamara is now a "consultant" at previous club Dunfermline Athletic. Goodness knows what doors that will open for him. 

The unclassifiably odd

The strangeness of this particular episode was compounded by the fact that Burnley had only just scored their own penalty, which they thought would secure them a draw. A very odd era in the Gunners' history all in all. 

Who'd have thought that you'd ever read something on FourFourTwo with two separate references to Michael Jackson, eh?

Remember the Twitter feuds between fans of Little Mix and Rangers as to who was going to get Christmas no. 1? Good times. 

We shouldn't laugh. We really shouldn't. 

Leicester City won a league title at odds of 5000-1. Any time one of their fans cites something else that was weird in their history, you know it's going to be a belter. 

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