DOWN MEMORY LANE

Two very interesting items caught my attention during the summer.

The first was a new satellite TV channel, ESPN, which is showing repeats of sports events mainly from the 70s and 80s. Many of these are old Match of the Day programmes and watching these made me realise how much things have changed in top flight football in that relatively short time.

From a spectator’s viewpoint, the earlier matches were noticeable for the absence of players’ names on the back, or sponsors’ names on the front, of their shirts. There were generally bigger crowds, many sadly behind fences and nobody wearing replica club shirts. There was a greater percentage of actual action as opposed to studio discussion in the programmes and much less questioning by commentators of the referee’s decisions. As far as the officials themselves are concerned, it is the actions of the linesmen (as they were correctly called then) which appear to have changed more over time than the referees.

The second is about the smallest book in my collection but probably one of the most fascinating: ‘The Rules of Association Football 1863’. All 13 brief Laws, as there were then, are re-produced and there is no mention of offside. The strangest entry I found was under Law 13, the equivalent of the present Law 4 – Players Equipment; which states that ‘no player shall wear gutta percha (among other things) on his boots.’ The dictionary shows gutta percha to be ‘rubber-like substance from the juice of some Malaysian trees’!

The introduction to the book is much bigger than the actual content but it is nonetheless interesting to see what the referees of nearly 150 years ago had to contend with. At least there was far less for the commentators and pundits to learn!

I will probably refer back to this book as the season progresses.

THE PENALTY TO DECIDE

I read recently that FIFA President Sepp Blatter believes that World Cup finals should not be decided by penalties, describing such a solution as “a tragedy”.

The suggested alternatives were a replay or ‘gradually deducting players in extra time’. I am not sure how he expects the latter idea to work, it sounds totally inappropriate to me and likely to create a situation where teams would become more defensive during extra-time. The result would still have to be decided in some other way.

It is only in recent years that the taking of kicks from the penalty mark (to use the correct terminology in Law) has been used to decide the winners of a cup competition or who goes through to the next round. The golden and silver goal were tried and dropped and other ideas such as counting corners have been talked about. It should be noted that whatever method is used to decide, the official result of such a match is still a draw.

Penalty deciders have been a particular benefit in local cup competitions, where having to replay a match the following weekend causes many administrative difficulties. It is not just the teams involved in the drawn game who are affected, but the teams they are scheduled to play in league matches the following week and also the referees whose fixtures will change.

As far as I know, it is only the FA national competitions – Vase upwards – where replays still take place and these can be arranged more easily as the teams involved all have floodlights.

The football public is now accustomed to cup matches being decided by kicks from the penalty mark and generally enjoy the drama associated with them, although perhaps not the late night finishes. I do, however, feel sorry for a team that misses out on wining a cup by a penalty miss or save. With most cup finals taking place at the end of the season, it ought to be possible to fit a replay in and certainly for the most prestigious competition in the world. However, one replay should be the limit. Maybe then sharing the cup may be better than nothing.