Phil Tooley, encyclopaedia on legs, tells me that John McGinn became the third sibling of a former Spireite to score in the World Cup finals earlier today. The others are Harry Maguire, brother of Laurence, and Kieran Trippier, half-brother of Kelvin Lomax.

Since it is World Cup time and we all like a list, here's a certainly incomplete list of international players who had some playing involvement with CFC without playing first team, competitive football for us. Three of them went on to the World Cup!

Ground improvements. Electric lighting was installed in The Recreation Ground for the first time in the summer of 1926. £18.10/- was spent on lighting up the dressing rooms, referee’s room and board room and stand. Additionally, a hot water supply and bath was fitted in the referee’s room. #CFC100

You had a ban on going out until the early hours of the morning, Rob. How did that work out for you? www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricke...

Some nice play from England, but we've yet to see what I'm sure we all want to see, which is the pandemonium that ensues when the ball is lashed into what appears to be a café in the corner.

The line-up grid for the 2025-6 season has been audited and added to the website's "line-ups" section. Go here, and scroll down. sites.google.com/view/cfchist...

Sam Vokes played twice for Gillingham against us in 2025-6. These were his second and third games against us; his first was for AFC Bournemouth on February 3rd, 2007. There were 18 years and 187 days between his first and second games against us. 1/2

Because very, very few people - football fans or football administrators - care about your background, or how you made your money, when you've come along to "save" a club. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Remembering former CFC reserve player Glan Letheren who passed away OTD in 2024. He is buried in Llanelli Cemetery. buff.ly/b6HAPD4

Of course FIFA bans vuvuzelas. Block up the thin end, and you can use it to drink water out of.

Standing by to see visa-less Iran punished for failing to fulfil a fixture.

I start a new file for neutral games on The Rec, and am immediately sidetracked by this. 1869. Come to The Rec to see the latest in crapper technology, for only a shilling. So favourable was the response that the toilets remained in use until the ground's closure in 2010.

Last season Joe Quigley became the third ex-Spireite to play against us for six different clubs in his career. Joe played for Dagenham, Havant, Maidstone and Yeovil against us, as well as Oldham and Bristol Rovers. He joins former Spireites Kyel Reid and John Vaughan in sharing this distinction.

509 opponents played against us in league football last season. Of those, only 128 started both home and away games.

Died on this day in 1884: George Whomersley, post office clerk and Chesterfield’s first goalscoring hero. From his debut in 1870 he played regularly and scored freely until breaking an arm in 1875-6, making sporadic appearances thereafter while serving on the club's committee. 1/2

John Henry Unwin was found fatally wounded at his house in Clay Cross on this day in 1907. He was the Clerk to the Clay Cross schools and had gone up to his bedroom to change a collar before returning to work after lunch. His wife heard a bang and rushed upstairs to find him bleeding 1/4

Ah, BBC. I would say the clue is in the picture, wouldn't you?

EXCLUSIVE: Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate, Rob Kenyon, had a SECOND deleted social media account, and the archived posts are damning. hopenothate.org.uk/2026/05/21/r...

For pleasure, I watch Scottish football, where they like the game to flow. Celtic/Rangers, and had it been refereed by an EFL ref, his yellow card would have been out so often that it would by now have been bleached white in the sunshine.

Born on this day in 1890: George Sandlin. In an East London workhouse aged 9, he started with teams in the area before coming up to Nottingham and joining Notts County, from whom he came to us in 1911. With pace and a keen eye for goal he netted 17 times in 37 Midland League games (1/2)

Spireites fans. Chesterfield legend Jamie Hewitt is running the Chesterfield 10k and is doing it for Ashgate Hospice. Please donate here. #Spireites #ChesterfieldFC www.justgiving.com/page/jamie-h...

On this day in 1949, Italian football was in mourning following the Superga Tragedy. The disaster left Torino with just one senior player. For the final four league matches of the season, Torino fielded their youth team. Torino won them all to confirm their fifth consecutive Italian title.

The US electorate has a lot to answer for.

The numbers: among the 575 players who opposed us in 2025-6 were nine who played for two clubs and twenty ex-Spireites. Two ex-Spireites played for two clubs: Joe Quigley, for Oldham and Bristol Rovers, and Kabongo Tshimanga, for Crawley and Barnet.

Play while reading for the full Alan Freeman chart countdown effect. Up 10 places to 20th in our all-time appearance-makers list is Liam Mandeville! Jamie Grimes is up two tp 66th, while Armando Dobra moves up a whacking forty-two places to number 85 in the charts!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVGz...

Chesterfield failed to score in just five out of 46 games this season. This is the sixth time we've scored in all but five games; our best is four scoreless games, achieved in 1956-7 (46 games) and 1929-30 (42 games.)

Spireites travelling yesterday numbered 1,936. That was the 12-highest figure for travelling support for us in the EFL since 2006. Only local aways in South Yorkshire, along with Notts this season and Scunny & Burton in 2014 have been higher.

Since joining the 3rd North in 1921 there have been 21 seasons in which we've gone into the last game needing a result to achieve something - a title win, play-off place and so on. We've got the result in 15 of those matches. Today's positive result was our tenth on the trot in these games.

When was the last time we needed a result out of the last game of the season to achieve something, and *didn't* get it? 88-9 vs Reading? (We had to win and hope others lost to stay up, and we lost.)

Four first-half goals from Jimmy Cookson set Chesterfield on their way to a 6-1 win in their last league match of the 1925-6 season, at home to Ashington. Sam Hopkinson got the fifth, and Moore the sixth; Moore’s goal was the 100th that Chesterfield scored in the league this season. 1/4 #CFC100

There is clearly a link, and that doesn't disappear just because there is 'ongoing' research. There is 'ongoing' research about smoking and lung cancer... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

If you wanted a manager to get you promoted to the Premier League, then surely this is your man? By all means sack him when he's got you up again, but he's got a proven track record! www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Starting to collate opponents' appearances against us this season, because it's either that, or do the garden. I notice that no fewer than nine Bromley players started both games against us, whereas only two Crawley players can say the same. Hence, perhaps, their respective positions.

The largest away following that we've taken more than 100 miles for a Football League game since the move to our new ground was the 1368 we took to Oxford on 23/4/2011. The most we've taken to Swindon was the 525 who went last season.

Born on this day in 1903: Willis Edwards. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

At various times in our history we've had two brothers named Derbyshire who were born in Lancashire on our books, and two brothers called Lancashire who were born in Derbyshire.

Ryan Boot's stats for this season so far: 7 appearances, 4 clean sheets, 3 conceded. Less than half a goal a game! Career, for us: 35 league appearances, 13 clean sheets, 33 conceded. Career, all clubs: 57 FL appearances, 21 clean sheets, 56 conceded. 1/2

Forty-six days before the World Cup is due to start, political officials aligned with the fascist governing party are threatening the security of matches unless municipalities cooperate with their gestapo's efforts to terrorise non-white residents.

The Edinburgh Derby never fails to entertain.

This season, Malik Olowabi-Belewu became the 14th Chesterfield player to make his debut in a home game against Colchester United. He was only the second, after Jamal Campbell-Ryce, to finish on the winning side.

Every April 25th game (all three of them!) at the new ground has attracted an attendance of at least 9,500.

Today's win means that we will go through an entire season without losing two consecutive regular Football League games. We last did that in the 2010-11 season, which finished in promotion for us!

We chose the right time to win our first April 24th game since 1959. We'd gone 11 games - 8 at home - without winning, since beating Reading 1-0 with a Keith Havenhand goal.

The Spireites beat Gateshead 8-1 on this day in 1931 to win the 3rd North championship, and promotion to the Second Division. It was the first of 6 straight April 25th wins that ended in 1959 with a win against Reading. Post length restrictions prevent me from commenting on our 11-game record since.

Went to visit the grave of Herbert Munday in Eckington Cemetery. He rests in an unmarked grave, entirely unbefitting of the greatest player in our history, in my opinion. I wonder how much a headstone costs? Too much for my pension, I'm sure.

Five years to the day since Danny Webb first walked through the door as a CFC man.

Chesterfield presented lowly Wigan Borough with only their sixth home win of the season today, losing to two first-half goals from forward Bert Humpish, who had scored just once in 23 previous games. Wigan’s players were motivated by their club’s financial crisis – 1/4 #CFC100

Chesterfield FC's 1921 Finance Committee minute book. May 1921 transcribed; let's turn the page and start on June 192.... Ah.