Off the stanchions at Wembley - Fabian de Freitas

Fabian de Freitas' late leveller in the 1995 Division 1 Play-off final is not so much off the stanchions as stuck to the stanchions at Wembley.

UEFA Champions League - RSC Anderlecht

When Anderlecht played in only their second European Cup tournament, they hosted their quarter final opponents with stanchions that looked like Wembley's:



By the time Anderlecht were perennial Cup Winners Cup finalists in the late-70's, the stanchions had undergone a Feyenoord-like reshaping:




Remarkably the Purple and Whites shrugged off the box-net fashion through the 1980's and kept their distinctive curvy stanchions till the 1987-88 season.

FC Dinamo Bucharest

Wanted to do a Hot Tub Time Machine on Romania's UCL representative CFR Cluj but your local pub team's probably uploaded more of their vintage footage to youtube than most sides in the old Romania Divizia A.

There's plenty of Dinamo Bucharest, however. About the same time as Nadia Comaneci was setting a new standard in shape as a form of human expression, the Red Dogs were cutting a groove in stanchions shape.



Not as curvy as Anderlecht or Real Madrid, but not as straight as any A-frames A-lister, would the closest match be the old Heysel Stadium?

A-list A-frames - Bradford City AFC

A football ground in one guise or another has stood on the Valley Parade site since 1886, a long history sadly distilled for many into the 10 minutes it took to burn down live on TV in 1985.

Ten years earlier in the old ground's history, Bradford were shooting into a classic set of no-nonsense A-frames.


Despite renovations to the stadium as late as 2001, the Bantams have resisted the homogenous urge for box nets and kept faith with a set of stylish Continental D's (that bear a resemblance to those once at Newcastle).

A-list A-frames - Blackburn Rovers FC

Labore

As late as 1995, when Blackburn, Kenny Dalglish and the SAS won the Premier League, Rovers hadn't yet embraced the standard box net and were instead shooting into a fairly standard pair of Continental D's.




Arte

Prior to the Continental D's, the regular on-field architecture at Ewood Park was a classic pair of A-frames.

UEFA Champions League - Valencia CF

Like so many other clubs wishing to increase revenue, Valencia are leaving the old Mestalla for the new Mestalla in 2013. There'll be 20,000 more seats and it'll clear the debt at the bank, but you doubt Nou Mestalla will have on-field architecture anywhere near as glamorous as the A-list A-frames which hosted Mario Kempes and the club as they emerged onto the major European stage in the late 70's and early 80's.




What do you think - a touch of the Manchester United?

FC Carl Zeiss Jena

Preparing a UCL post for Valencia and the Mestalla, we came across the once reasonably well known Carl Zeiss Jena.

A lot of bad things might have come out of the old East Germany. These ultra-cool Continental D's don't number among them.

UEFA Champions League - S.C. Braga

Continuing our series looking at this season's Champions League participants' History of Goalnets with Portugal's SC Braga.

Known as the Arsenalistas because of their Arsenal strips, in the mid-80's Braga's goal nets hung from A-frames that on first glance look not dissimilar from those at Highbury.





On closer inspection you'll notice the additional and unique L-support protruding from the middle of the cross bar.

A couple of years later Braga did away the legs of the A-frames and left three L-supports from which to suspend the nets.

UEFA Champions League - Juventus FC

Juventus are commonly known as La Vecchia Signora, the Old Lady.

Check out theses curves at the old Stadio Comunale.


Shouldn't  Juve be named la vecchia signora con le gambe curve?

UEFA Champions League - Galatasary SK

About the time of Manchester United and Welcome To Hell, the goal nets at Ali Sami Yen Stadi hung from a pretty nondescript pair of Continental D's like those below. Welcome to where?



But in the next season or so, Galatasary installed these wonderful square stanchions that left you in no doubt you were playing in Istanbul.