In an era when Central and Eastern European sides played between Continental D's, Slovan Bratislava borrowed from Feyenoord and installed cosmopolitan L-supports.
Most veterans of the European Cup era would remember Steaua as 1986 Champions, and may just recall the 1986 final. After an infamous 120 minutes of football, Barcelona famously failed to score any of their penalties in the resultant shoot out.
Goal nets fans may choose to remember Steaua for the gorgeous sloping stanchions at their old Stadionul Steaua.
In 1961 Benfica broke Real Madrid's monopoly on the Big Cup, beating Barcelona 3-2 at the Wankdorf Stadium in Berne, Switzerland.
Again, the method deployed to suspend the goal nets makes the Wankdorf instantly recognisable. But what to make of those ground supports? The picture below, from the 1954 World Cup final, shows the ground supports are solid and fixed to the posts and that the stanchions are effectively screwed in.
There may not be an archive of clips of FC Basel but their old stadium - the St Jakob - was a regular venue for UEFA Cup Winners Cup finals and even hosted matches during the 1954 World Cup.
1984 - Juventus beat Porto 2-1 in the Cup Winners Cup final. The St Jakob goal nets were hung as skinny Continental D's complete with ground supports (check out York City for similar).
1979 - Barcelona edge out Fortuna Dusseldorf by the odd goal in 7, all scored into a rather more traditional set of Continental D's.
1975 - Dynamo Kyiv rattle three past Ferencvaros into St Jakob's sturdy A-frames.
1969 - the sides are Slovan Bratislava and Barcelona, but the A-frames are the same.
FC Basel hosted 6 matches during the 1954 World Cup. They've got sloping A-frames like Tottenham Hotspur. One of the 6 games is a group game that foreshadowed the eventual final - though not that final's result - Hungary beat West Germany 8-3.
Bonus feature - want to see the nets at the 1954 World Cup final? Check out those ground supports!
A member of our goal nets community advised we take a look at the Minstermen, who even today defy the trend towards the homogenous box net with their Continental D's (though those D's do share the box net's ground supports, which transform the net into a pinball machine).
Though the goals our friend advised we look at were the A-frames which stood at either end of Bootham Crescent through the late 70's and 1980's.
If you think the goals look like a mix between an A-frame and a Continental D, you'd be right.
Here's a photo of those A-frames from about that time.
Further back, the Minstermen were early adopters of the Continental D.
Those who've seen the movie, The Damned United, will be aware the Rams lost to Juventus in the semi-final of the 1972-73 European Cup.
Not many may know Derby hammered Benfica - Eusebio et al - earlier in that competition, firing three goals into the marvellous A-frames at the old Baseball ground.
This season's Champions League participants' History of Goalnets.
First up - SL Benfica.
Benfica are the most successful side in Portuguese history, and in their "Golden Era" they were early adopters of the boxnet at Estadio da Luz (though note the nets are not free-hanging, and are in fact attached to the stanchions and would probably be deemed unsafe today).
In their later "Silver Era" they installed wonderfully distinctive stanchions.
In the mid 1970's ADO Den Haag were FC Den Haag and they played West Ham off the park in the old European Cup Winners Cup, scoring four into the skinny Dutch A-frames at Zuiderpark.
20 years later the club renamed to ADO Den Haag, changed the on-field architecture but kept the faith with the A-frame.
Check out the classic A-frames at Gander Green Lane, as non-League Sutton dismisses Coventry City, the last time a non-league outfit defeated a team from the English top-flight in the FA Cup.
Do these look a little like the mid-70's A-frames at Barcelona?
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.
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
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.
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.
