I know it's out of fashion, and a trifle uncool.
But I can't help it, I'm a romantic fool.
From nine till five I have to spend my time at work. From nine till five I watch football on Youtube.
My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk. It's very boring, all I see is box goalnets.
The only thing that helps me pass the time away.
Is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach some day. Is knowing there must be a blue-blooded member of the football Royal family who haven't installed box goalnets across the board.
Continental D's were so-named because the 'triangle' was deemed to form a D with the posts and bar, and because in the 1970's countries in mid and eastern Europe - the Continent - made an art form out of this design of goal.
Yugoslavia 1976
The Euro 1976 tournament was so influential in goalnet design, that Subbuteo named their sleek new goals Tournament Goals. And while Panenka's penalty has ensured the immortality of these goals in Belgrade -
the goals in Zagreb are less known (though they're similar to those at Sheffield Wednesday)
If you do a post called Big Ones, it's only be a matter of time before you do a post called Little Ones, isn't it? As before, since the height and width of the goal is fixed, the X-factor in little-ness is the (lack of) depth of the nets; the distance they're extended behind the goal-line.
If the Big Ones post proposed that the impact of ball on the big nets, and the aftershock on ball and net is what makes for a memorable goal, what about Little Ones?
Stadio Olimpico, Rome - 1980
The first goal of the 1980 European Championships. Or is it a goal in training?
San Siro, Milan - 2010
San Siro is famous for being designed like an "English stadium,' and, though the stands did hug the touchline, the Milan clubs were never as shorn of space behind the goals as, say, QPR, West Ham and Southampton (all notorious Little Ones), so should manage bigger, more dramatic nets than those currently hanging at San Siro.
Maicon's goal qualified Inter for their first European Cup final in nearly forty years, but it had all the aesthetics of kicking the ball against a fence in the parking lot.
Stamford Bridge - 2005
Of all the dark arts Jose Mourinho brought to Chelsea, the tight, almost invisible black nets were among the most sinister.
After watching Ronaldinho's genius trundle past him, Petr Cech really should have been made to pick the ball out of the net, not have it rebound back to him.
Can a definitive lack of net kill the drama in even the most dramatic of goals?
In 'Fever Pitch,' Nick Hornby writes that, in the late-70's, Cambridge had "a tiny ramshackle little ground, the Abbey Stadium. Their equivalent of (Arsenal's) Clock End was the Allotments End and occasionally, naughty visiting fans would nip round the back and hurl pensioners cabbages over the wall."
You can't post Feyenoord's goalnets without showing these curvy beauties from the 1970's.
The distortion of perspective in this clip, or one very similar, shown on On the Ball in the mid-70's convinced these writers (then 6 or 7) that 'Continental' goals were square, and not rectangular, like at home.
Might this explain our rusted-on belief that goalnets everywhere can be different?
Two clips from Rotterdam in the 1980's illustrate perfectly what this blog's all about.
Chasing a Feyenoord thread through Youtube, we discovered the favoured on-field architecture of the early 90's were Latin American L-supports:
We followed the thread all the way back to a Holland v Belgium game in 1985. We didn't know where the game was played, and there's nothing about the venue in the description. But as soon as you see the goalnets, you know the game's being played in Rotterdam.
While Nicolas Anelka's 'pass' past the Spartak Moscow keeper nestles nicely in the corner of the net -
the trampolines at the Nou Camp are now sprung so tight that even a simple 'pass' into the corner, like Iniesta's last weekend, is rebounding back out again.
When I started this blog, I began by writing about what a stadium's goalnets said about the character of that stadium or its home club (eg Arsenal) or what part the goalnets played in the club's history (eg Manchester United). I also ran a series on the World Cups, demonstrating how the evolution of goalnet fashion and technology has been every bit as interesting as tactics, or rules (or strips).
More recently I've simply celebrated great goalnets, by which I hope to remind readers that goal design doesn't happen by accident. Somebody somewhere - either within the club or, if the posts, stanchions and nets are bought 'off the shelf,' at the manufacturers - designed the architecture. Did a drawing. Turned the drawing into reality. Ensured reality entered history.
Such great designs didn't just follow what went before, nor were they obviously fashionable at the time. But in the second decade of the new century, when everybody's got box goalnets and everything looks the same, I'd like readers to remember that football can look different to how it looks today, and difference can be beauty in itself.
A friend messaged to advise us to look at some of the goalnets in the Championship. There, free from the fascism of the free-hanging boxnet, we were assured we could find some diamonds of diversity.
And it's true. Spy the shape of the Continental D's The Iron have installed at Glanford Park -
Compare Koeman's dink into the stanchions versus England -
with Juan Roman Riquelme's chip-shot versus Bolivia, where the goalnets at Monumental are stretched so taut, JRR might've been shooting into goals painted on a wall.
The goalnets at the modern-day Stamford Bridge have some of the poorest ball-retaining properties in football. Boxes made of trampoline, stretched taut by a bottom net support which runs a mere metre behind the goal line, make for goals with poor aesthetics and even worse ball retention. Consider these examples:
Johnny Metgod's rocket hits the bar and goes in
While Alex's rocket goes in - but rebounds out like it's hit the bar
Do you remember the original premise of this blog? Goalnets were once so diverse and different from ground to ground, that you could catch a glimpse of a game on TV and know instantly where the game was being played - because of the goalnets.
As such, you could turn on your telly in the 70's and know these curvy, Latin stanchions are Real Madrid
And these unconventional, Northern stanchions are Barcelona
In the late 70's, Greenock Morton were a force to be reckoned with in the Scottish Premier League. With Andy Ritchie - the original idle idol - they were briefly table-toppers, late in 1978.
The glamour's all there in this clip - the South American bendy free-kick; the World Cup adidas Tango football; the Scottish goalkeeper, Alan Rough, wearing what looks like an International shirt he swapped for at the end of a Scotland game (and getting beaten by a free-kick at the same post, just like Peru's 3rd goal at the World Cup, and 'reacting' just like Peru's 2nd goal!)
Only the sad, creaking stanchions suggest where Morton came from, and to where they'd soon return.
Freed from the shackles of their old Manor Ground - where admittedly they had fantastic square stanchions, (then rather ordinary Continental D's ) - at Kassam Stadium in season 09/10, Oxford installed a masterclass set of Continental D's;
Might they remind you of a couple of Scotland games at the World Cup? First, versus Holland in Mendoza, Argentina
And versus Brazil in Seville, Spain
(they're not Continental D supports, but they look just as marvellous)
At The Dell, Southampton used to have the littlest of Little Ones.
Little Ones may not be your cup of tea, but you could look at this goal and know immediately it was Southampton.
Now at St Mary's, the goalnets are boxes made of trampoline like everybody else's.
But spy the fancy red and white tubing, and the obvious decision to let the nets hang loose, and, in their own way, the St Mary's nets might be thought as distinctive as the old ones at The Dell. A goal scored into them is certainly more aesthetically pleasing.
A friend of ours on Facebook messaged us to say he liked big nets. (He also likes these peculiarities at Ipswich Town circa 1995, but that's for another post.) In goalnets, since the height and width of the goal is fixed, the X-factor in big-ness is the depth of the nets; how far they're extended behind the goal-line. We thought we'd compile a by-no-means-exhaustive top-5 of big nets.
#5 - Mexico '86
If you were to consider that the impact of ball on net, and the aftershock on ball and net, is what makes for a truly memorable goal, you easily reach the conclusion that the recent World Cup was so drab because the goalnets were made of trampoline and the theatre of ball hitting net was akin to kicking a ball against a brick wall. Not so, Mexico '86...
#4 - New Wembley
Where the old goalnets were classic and sublime, these are ridiculous and crass and seem to scream, "Look where the billion pounds went."
#3 - FC Porto
You got a big stadium? Get yourself some big nets.
#2 - Old Hampden
The Godzilla of goalnets.
#1 - Barcelona, late 80's
Long before tiki-taka, Barcelona's claim to fame was having the world's biggest goalnets.
South Africa beat Colombia at Soccer City and we got first look at what the World Cup goalnets will look like -
World Cups used to be about innovation, in tactics, strips and goalnets. Even the free-hanging boxnet was an innovation in its day. But that was 36 years ago. One can only mourn South Africa's spurning the opportunity to set a new trend in on-field architecture, such a shame.
Both are taken in the same stadium - at the same end of that stadium - though you wouldn't know that to look at the videos.
Both go low to the goalkeeper's right but the lighting, the grass, the ball, the goalkeeper's dive, the goalposts and the goalnets themselves are all different.
Everything's different. In the 13 years separating these two penatlies, everything had changed.
But in the simple aesthetic of the ball hitting the net, the two penalties are the same.
Anyone who might think goalnets are a random afterthought in football should peel their eyes away from Lionel Messi for a moment and take a peek at the goalnets at La Romareda.
Stuck with the free-hanging design, the Zaragoza groundsman has constructed a support system which cleverly alters the square box shape of the net into a more traditional sloping A-shape. This shape helped retain the ball at the goal.
Clearly the Zaragoza groundsman has put as much work into his craft as Lionel Messi has.
Nets used to be pegged into the ground. When a ball hit the net, the net would pull on the peg. In even the tautest of nets, there would be a little 'give' in the net, helping the net retain the ball.
However the bottom net support - basically a thin tube of steel that is fitted along the bottom of the back of the net -means the net is an entity entirely of itself. The only 'give' there could possibly be has to be within the net and support structure. As we have seen, the nets are often stretched as tightly as possible.
The bottom net support is practical. According to the manufacturer of the goals at Wembley, the bottom net support folds to enable ground maintenance so the net can be raised for cutting the grass, as in the photo to the left.
But the bottom net support is helping to kill the aesthetics of the ball hitting the back of the net.
The History of Goalnets says bring back the pegs. It's a small price to pay for beauty.
Back in the day, a ball once scored used to nestle beautifully in the net -
I reviewed every goal in the Champions League R16 and studied the goals from last weekend's EPL and despaired that not one ball scored into the goalnet stayed in the net.
Stanchions were outlawed and free-hanging box-nets were introduced to put an end to things like this -
But the square box-net design - which has no slope in the back of the net to trap the ball - means the ball nearly always rebounds off the back of the net after a goal's been scored. This doesn't mean there is likely to ever be a Goal That Never Was from a rebound, but it does fly contrary to the manufacturer's assurance that free-hanging net supports are
The rebounds also affect the simple but glorious aesthetics of scoring a goal.
A goal may have many pleasing aesthetic qualities: the ball off the boot; the ball swerving in the air; the goalkeeper's despairing dive; but none is more important than the effect the ball has on the back of the net.
At the new Wembley the cavernous nets are stretched taut.
Goals scored in this once legendary stadium are sadly transformed into the aesthetic equals of goals scored into nets chalked on a wall in the schoolyard.
Uniform goalnets are producing uniform goal scoring aesthetics.
You wouldn't know it to look at Johan Neesken's first minute penalty in 1974 -
but goal designs such as Loftus Road, where the odds on the net retaining the ball were about as long as retaining a full bladder after ten pints of lager, were a key driver behind the move to free-hanging box goalnets.
For the next few posts The History of Goalnets will consider the goalnets of today and their ball retention qualities.
Sexy only if skinny and spindly float your boat though surprisingly popular, with similar stanchions at West Ham and Southampton. Nil points for ball retention.
Long before FIFA branded the ball itself, World Cup goalnets were once the signature of the tournament. You could see a World Cup clip on TV, spy the goalnets and identify exactly the tournament you were watching
But you look at France 1998...
Or Japan / South Korea in 2002...
Or Germany 2006, where box goalnets were first introduced, 32 years earlier...
and you see the goalnets, the goals, the clips... they all look the same
The 1994 World Cup finals were the first to be played in a country with little or no football history. And though the sun shone, Brazil won, the neutrals went home happy and the tournament was declared a success, you didn't need to compare the pale, goalless final to its glorious 1970 counterpart to feel football had somehow misplaced its History at USA '94.
Sure, there were great goals and great, historical controversies
But there was Diana Ross, somehow setting the tone
And little spoke more of the lack of national football character than the billowing, characterless, portable box-nets installed at each of the venues.
Boasting an architectural heritage that stretched back millennia and saw groovy new stadia built for the 1990 World Cup in Bari and Turin - and stadia especially renovated in Cagliari, Florence, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Rome and Verona - Italy let its violent and disappointing World Cup play out between disappointing, random sets of box-nets.
And not even a fat man singing Puccini could hide Italy's missed opportunity to make its mark in the history of on-field architecture.
A dirty backroom deal awarded Mexico its second tournament in only sixteen years and gave FIFA a TV on which to broadcast to the world that at the end of the 20th century they wanted football to be like McDonalds - anywhere you went in the world, it'd all be the same.
The enormous free-hanging box-nets installed at each stadium were not only a re-statement that the goals first seen in the 1974 tournament, were the first-class, on-field architecture of choice for the future. They also marked the beginning of the era of football as a brand on global TV. Previously you could sight the goalnets on TV and identify which stadium the game was being played in. After Mexico '86, it was possible only to glance up and say, "It's football."
