“Sitting down to watch Lithuania v England (with little else to do) I noticed that Gareth Southgate has handed starts to three Harrys – Winks, Maguire and Kane,” wrote Alex Chance. “When was the last time three players with the same forename lined up for England?”
It turns out this isn’t as rare as you might think. “Daniels Rose, Drinkwater and Sturridge all started against Holland in a friendly on 29 March 2016,” writes Steven Hyde. “There would probably have been a more recent example if more than one of Rose, Welbeck and Sturridge could stay fit for more than a couple of months at a time. And if you’re looking for competitive fixtures, you have to go all the way back to the last century – Davids Seaman, Batty and Beckham played alongside each other on a number of occasions, most recently in 1999 under Kevin Keegan. Also worth noting is the first match of Terry Venables’ reign, against Denmark in 1994. England played the first 67 minutes with three Pauls on the pitch (Parker, Ince and Gascoigne), and the remainder with three Davids, as Batty replaced Gazza from the substitutes bench to join Platt and Seaman.”
We did some of our own digging and discovered that Gary Lineker, Gary A Stevens and Gary M Stevens were on the pitch together for 33 minutes at the Azteca Stadium for England’s 3-0 win over Paraguay in the last 16 of the 1986 World Cup. On three occasions in the 1970s Ray Wilkins, Ray Clemence and Ray Kennedy trotted around on the same piece of turf in an England shirt. And if we trawl back over 100 years ago to 15 February, 1913 an England team containing three Georges (Wall, Elliott and Utley) lost 2-1 to an Ireland side with four Billies (McConnell, Gillespie, Andrews, Scott) at Windsor Park.
“Bobbys Moore, Charlton and Smith played together eight times,” writes Graeme Gaff. “On two occasions a fourth Bobby (Tambling or Thomson) joined in. Harry was also a popular name for 1880s footballers. Messrs Cursham, Goodhart, Swepstone and Moore all played against Ireland in February 1883. And on 2 December 1948 John Aston, John Haines, John Hancocks, John (‘Jack’) Rowley and John (‘Jackie’) Milburn were all in the starting XI against Switzerland.”
Scotland can match England for Johns. At Hampden Park on 13 March 1880, when the wonderfully monikered Segar Bastard made his one and only international appearance for England, the Scots had five Johns in their lineup (McPherson, Smith, McGregor, Baird and Kay). Two of them scored in the 5-4 win.
Other current international teams who regularly field three players with the same first names are Egypt, for whom Mohamed Salah, Mohamed Elneny and Mohamed Abdul Shafy are regular starters and Oman fielded three Alis (Ali Al Habsi, Ali Al Busaidi and Ali Al Jabri) in an Asian Cup qualifier on 10 October against Maldives, who had three Ahmeds playing for them as well as two Mohameds and one Mohammad
And Stephen Pollard broadens the question out to include club teams. “In Arsenal’s match against Brighton a front three all named Alex was fielded: Alexander Iwobi, Alexandre Lacazette and Alexis Sánchez.”
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