Three Match Ban: football quizzes. Football nostalgia, as we knew it.

A guide to Three Match Ban

Three Match Ban is a football nostalgia blog for supporters who still know the squad numbers of a team that was relegated decades ago. Everything here comes back to the same idea: football is remembered through small things. A sticker swapped in the playground, a kit seen once on television, a goal described on Ceefax before anyone saw the replay. Each section takes one of those small things and goes deeper, and the about page tells how the site began in 2009.

Quizzes: stickers, shirts and transfer trails

There are 20 football quizzes, and they all work the same way. Each item is a picture or a written clue, and the answer goes in the box underneath. A correct answer turns the box green and the score climbs, with no sign-up, no timer and nothing sent anywhere, because every answer is checked in the browser. The manager sticker quiz, a classic football sticker quiz with 33 faces, is the gentlest start. The transfer history quiz is the one regulars argue about, and the shirt quizzes, from Europe's giants to Champions League sides and UEFA Cup finalists, reward anyone who spent the 1990s studying kit adverts. The sticker quizzes travel too, from stars of English football to Premier League imports and Copa América heroes.

Cult heroes and the players behind the stickers

The player profiles are not a list of the most decorated footballers. They are about the players supporters took to heart: Steve Ogrizovic, the goalkeeper who scored at Hillsborough and played hundreds of games for Coventry City, Julian Dicks and his famous left foot, Brian Kilcline lifting the FA Cup in 1987, and imports such as Jan Molby and Aleksandr Mostovoi. Each profile starts with a sticker-style card and the facts that can be checked, then tells the story behind them. Lesser names get the same care, from Peter Beagrie and his backflips to Abe van den Ban's moustache.

Club badges, crest by crest

The club badge histories follow 24 crests through every redesign. Some symbols are older than most fans realise: Aston Villa's lion rampant first appeared in 1878, and Tottenham's cockerel on a ball goes back to 1909. The best-known crests have the longest stories, from the Arsenal cannon and the Liverpool liver bird to Chelsea's lion and Manchester City's 2016 roundel. Two long reads follow the Premier League badges from Arsenal to Manchester United and from Newcastle United to Wolves. Every badge page has a timeline of each change and the story of why it happened, from heraldic town arms to the modern simplified roundel.

Long reads, headlines and classic clips

The articles range from the mill town where professional football began, in the story of Darwen FC, to guides to every side at the 2011 Copa América, a farewell to Ceefax and Steve Bull playing for England from the third tier. The Week in headlines pages collect the back-page puns of the early 2010s, and the video section explains the retro football of old adverts and television, from Hugo Sánchez selling toothpaste to Saint and Greavsie on a Saturday lunchtime.

Away days

The away fans pub guides cover the pubs that welcome visiting supporters near Fulham, Arsenal and Tottenham, the nearest stations and where the away end is, plus a look at what following a team around the country really costs.