"As a Scotsman now living in the United States I am sick of the Yanks prattling on about how baseball is the ultimate sport," says Neil McIntosh. "In particular, my boss claims that the total number of people who attend Major League Baseball games (regular season) in a year is greater than the total number of people who attend all regular season games in each top league in Europe and South America combined. Can you resolve this argument?"
"Neil McIntosh can rest easy - he's won his bet," says a confident-sounding Dr Tim Burgis. And here's the proof.
"According to the Guinness book of records the all-time season record for baseball attendances (both American League and National League) is 70,618,731," says Tim, along with hundreds of others.
The figure might sound impressive, but it's trounced by all the professional leagues in Europe, as Tim explains.
"Taking a close look at: the European Football Statistics website for the 2001-2002 season (2001 season for the really cold places!), the total attendance at European top flight games was 83,569,426 (this figure doesn't include Turkey as they didn't have full info for that league)," he says. "Clearly no need to include the South American leagues to outstrip the baseball total."
"Having said all that, the comparison is unfair - the total population of Europe dwarfs that of the USA so let's compare Europe's best supported league (the Premiership) with baseball - taking into account the populations of the two countries," he adds.
"The CIA world casebook gives the US population as 290,342,554 (2003 estimate), the 2001 UK census gives the population of England as 49,138,831. The total Premiership attendance for 2001-2002 was 13,090,228 which would scale to 77,345,149 for a US-sized population - again more than the US's figure."
Furthermore, as Paul McDevitt points out, a lot of US attendance figures are inaccurate.
"US attendances include corporate support and season-ticket holders - even though lots of them don't show up" he says. "A recent Toronto Blue Jay game was a case in point. The crowd was less than 10,000 - the place looked empty - yet they announced an attendance of some 20,000 which would be just under half the stadium."
WAS RATTIN'S SENDING OFF V ENGLAND IN 1966 JUSTIFIED?
"Being too young to remember, I'd like to know the truth about Antonio Rattin's sending off in the England v Argentina World Cup quarter final in 1966," writes Mike Lockwood. "Was he really a 'dirty Argie', or was the ref being biased towards the home nation? Did he really deserve the early bath? I feel that those of us who were too young to know at the time are now old enough to be told the truth. Did England deserve to go through to the semis in 1966? Or was Maradona's 1986 hand of God just retaliation for poor and biased refereeing in 1966. Were England really better than Argentina?"
Surprisingly, most of the emails we received on this subject were sympathetic towards Anotonio Rattin, who took almost 10 minutes to leave the field after being sent off in this bad-tempered encounter for harrassing the referee. Over to you Daniel Freeman: "My father is fond of recounting his memories of the 1966 World Cup, the quarter-final against Argentina being prominent amongst them," he says. "He distinctly remembers that Rattin didn't deserve to be sent off, but the referee couldn't understand him and ended up dismissing him as the Argentines lost their cool. This handed the advantage to England and established the precedent of ill-feeling between the two nations, subsequently compounded by the Falklands war and the infamous Hand of God."
The view that Rattin was unfairly dismissed appears to be confirmed by John Rattagan, who heard the story straight from the horse's mouth. "Four years ago I was on Argentine radio with Rattin," he name-drops shamelessly with a very loud clang. "In Argentina, that famous game of 1966 is remembered with a lot of bitterness, since the referee seems to have been unashamedly biased towards England. The way Rattin explained it was that until 1966 most of the income from a World Cup was generated by ticket sales. Because of this, Fifa 'guaranteed' the host nation a place in the final, otherwise the tournament would have been a financial disaster."
John backs up this claim by reminding us that between 1930 and 1966, every host nation, with the exception of Switzerland, reached the World Cup final, a statistic that appears to lend more than a little credence to Rattin's conspiracy theory.
IS IT BERNA-BOW OR BERNA-BAY-OO?
"Please help me settle a long running argument with a German know-it-all," pleads Mike Seymour. "Is Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium pronounced 'berna-bow' or 'berna-bay-oo' or something entirely different?"
"Essentially, it's the second one," says Guardian Unlimited's Spanish correspondent Sid Lowe.
"The thing about Spanish is that every vowel gets pronounced (except in certain combinations where they can sound like they are are running together - 'ua' can sound like 'wa', especially after a 'g', for exmple).
"So, the E and the U at the end there are both heard. And the vowel sounds are pretty much as they are in English, just shorter (a = ah, e = eh (NOT ee), i =ee, o = oh, u = oo)."
"The other thing is that the E has an accent on it which doesn't change the sound but makes it the letter that is stressed. So it's BernabEu.
To put that in a pronounciation - Bernabayoo is basically right, but as the vowel sounds are a bit shorter, I'd prefer: Berna-bEh-oo (without that oooh being elongated)."
So now you know.
LONGEST RUN OF MATCHES WITHOUT A DRAW?
"What's the longest run of League games without a draw?" asks Peter Walsh. "Sunderland's magnificent run of 22 came to an end recently. Also, the statistic about the number of red cards Arsenal have received under Wenger is always quoted to show how ill-disciplined they are, but I wondered how many players from opposing teams have been sent off in the same games?"
Although impressive for nothing if not its downright unimpressiveness, Sunderland's run of 22 consecutive League games without a draw (17 defeats and five wins) doesn't hold a candle to the efforts of the Swindon Town team that swept (nearly) all before them during their Fourth Division campaign of 1985/86. Under the stewardship of Lou Macari, the Robins played 29 consecutive matches without a draw, notching up 23 wins and six defeats in the process. However, until somebody with coke-bottle specs and a warm anorak tells us otherwise, we're declaring Birmingham City to be the unofficial holders of this title. A trip through the annals of time revealed that between December 1892 and September 1894, the Blues played 43 consecutive League games without sharing the points once. Astonishing.
As for the second part of your question, Peter, we're still working on it. Well, we plan to start any day soon. However, if any of you stat-obsessed anoraks out there would like to do our work for us, we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email your answers to knowledge@theguardian.com.
Can you help?
"If we define a home thrashing as losing by three or more goals, then I believe the last time Liverpool FC lost at home, by three or more goals in a competitive fixture, was a 1-4 reverse to (you guessed it) Manchester Utd in December 1969," says Fergal O'Shea. "Can any other club beat or come close to this record?"
"I was recently looking through a very old Shoot! annual when I came across an interview with German striking legend Gerd Muller," says Pete Tomlin. "In the article he stated how proud he was because he had won World Cup, European Championship, European Cup, European Cup Winners Cup, Domestic League and Domestic Cup medals. Obviously this is an extremely impressive haul but I wondered if anyone could better that? Has anyone won all the above plus the Uefa Cup? Maybe someone also has a League Cup winners medal to show off as well?"
"Recently I went to see a Danish Division 1 football game between Brønshøj and Vejle (the latter club is the one that have given us both Allan Simonsen and Thomas Gravesen)," says Thomas Robson. "In the first half, Vejle managed to score three goals in just three minutes (in the 31st, 32nd and 33rd minute). Is this a record for most number of goals scored in a shortest amount of time?"
"Could you please tell me which club has had the most penalties awarded to them since the Premiership started," asks Diane Griffiths. "It's not Manchester United, is it?
Send your questions and answers to: knowledge@guardianunlimited.co.uk