What is the earliest in a season that a football team has been relegated? | The Knowledge

What is the earliest in a season that a football team has been and bottom being first and last alphabetically, oldest players to outscore their age and cornerless matches Mail us with your questions and answers “With Sheffield Wednesday on the brink of relegation in February [update: they’re now down ], what is the earliest a team has been demoted to another division?” asks Kevin Bartholomew. The earliest confirmed relegation in a season we can find is Peterborough United , in 1967-68, who were relegated from the third tier with a whopping 27 games remaining. After the club were found guilty of breaking league rules relating to match-fee incentives and signing-on bonuses, a Football League management committee confirmed in mid-November of 1968 that Posh would be relegated, whatever their final league placing or points tally. Despite finishing ninth with 50 points, Peterborough were docked 19 of them, rendering them bottom. The club were relegated having scored 79 goals that season, which made them more prolific than all but one of the other teams in Division Three, including champions Oxford United. There is no other example in English football that can beat Sheffield Wednesday’s February relegation with 13 matches to go, but if we remove points deductions and only include seasons where three teams are relegated, Cambridge United are the next best/worst example, relegated from the third tier in 1984-85 with eight games to spare. This was all the more remarkable given they had only just been relegated from the second tier the previous year (with six games to spare). Doncaster Rovers match Cambridge, falling out of the Football League for the first time in their history after relegation from the old Third Division in 1997-98, also with eight games to spare. To say Doncaster were a bin fire of a club that season was an understatement, particularly because just a few weeks after their relegation was confirmed, chairman Ken Richardson was found guilty of hiring a former ...