Which forgetful footballers have failed to turn up for a match?

“In light of Jack Grealish’s recent celebrations possibly putting his England call-up to the back of his mind, has any player failed to show up for a match because he simply forgot it was happening?” tweets Andy Brook.

Footballers have been going awol since Moses wore short pants – here are some examples – but it’s rare for somebody to forget they were supposed to be playing in a game. We’d imagine at least one of these stories is apocryphal but, well, who cares.

First up: Robin Friday, star of a popular 1996 Super Furry Animals song. “On one occasion in 1972, Hayes started a match a player short because Friday had not turned up,” writes Paul Haynes, quoting Wikipedia. “When he finally arrived, 80 minutes after kick-off, his intoxication was obvious, but he was sent on to the pitch with the match still goalless. The opposition paid him little attention and Friday scored a late winning goal.”

Rob Davies suggests Ishmel Demontagnac, who “stayed in bed for Walsall’s trip to Bristol City on 2 January 2006, instead of getting the team bus. Apparently he thought there was no game that day and it was his day off. Walsall lost 3-0.”

Nobody would have described the mighty Kevin Beattie as a maverick, but he almost had a costly brain fade at the end of his career. “The late Ipswich Town legend had a brief spell with Barnet after his pro career ended,” tweets John Chubb. “He said in his autobiography that he forgot to turn up for one game and claimed he later found out the club owner, Stan Flashman, threatened to have his legs blown off with a shotgun.”

Finally, a couple of tangential answers: Rio Ferdinand forgot to take a drug test in 2003, which led to him missing eight months of football the following year. And Sheffield Wednesday f