101 Great Goals - Derek Johnstone

Our History of Goal Nets community has generally despaired at the ball retention properties of the nets of today, perhaps expecting little else from structures boxed, made of trampoline and stretched taut.

But stretched taut in itself need be no barrier to some decent ball retention. No nets were stretched tighter than those at old Hampden, yet they often transformed a simple goal into one that's memorable.

If scored into nets of today, Derek Johnstone's header in the 1978 Scottish Cup Final would likely rebound to the 18 yard line.

Yet the way the old Hampden nets stop it dead has always fascinated me.

UEFA Champions League Final Special - Hampden Park

Hampden Park has hosted two of the superlative moments of Champions League - or European Cup - history.

In 1960 Real Madrid won their fifth title, scoring seven into the Iron Man stanchions and destroying Eintracht Frankfurt.




42 years later Madrid were back in Glasgow for their ninth title. The old stanchions had gone but Hampden laid on 1960-style black nets, in tribute. Zidane did the rest.

UEFA Europa League - SS Lazio

SS Lazio and Rome's Stadio Olimpico have a colourful History of Goal Nets.

At the time of the King of the Bidoni and "This is Rome, right, but where's Lazio," it was all about box nets that billowed like tents.




A generation earlier, huge Iron Man stanchions somehow fixed to the pink of the running track framed nets that never strayed off the edge of the field.




A decade earlier, Olimpico was home to skinny A-frames that wouldn't have looked out of place in the Total Goalnets era of the Eredivisie.



You can get a better look at these A-frames in this Roma clip from the mid-sixties.

Cagliari Calcio

Did Manchester United only start winning the league again when they replaced the Old Trafford A-frames with Continental D's?

For years Cagliari laboured between a pair of A-frames that wouldn't have looked out of place in the Eredivisie.




Then, with the peerless Gigi Riva in transcendent form, the Rossoblu's ditched the Dutch goals for a pair of Iron Man Specials and won their first and only Scudetto.

UEFA European Championships - Italy 1968

England qualified for the 1968 Finals after beating Scotland 1-0 at Hampden Park. The Scots had their revenge though, seemingly flying in the famous Hampden goals for Yugoslavia to score a late winner.



Yugoslavia went on to play hosts Italy, who won in a replay at Rome's Stadio Olimpico, where the goals look like they've been flown in from England's Wembley Stadium!

Big Ones

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.



Which are your favourite Big Ones?

Hampden Park - Iron Man

Through the Scottish glory days of the late 1960's and 1970's the iconic and instantly recognisable Hampden nets were hooked up to a couple of 4 x 4's and stretched tiiight over wrought iron girders to form goal structures at once imposing and forbidding but somewha stylish and confident in their own way. What the Scots call gallus.

Then, as the team's performances dipped in the 1980's, so did the goalnets. They sagged as if struggling under the weight of expectation until the old square 4 x 4's and stanchions were retired in 1988 and replaced by a set of Continental D supports so random and out-of-place in the vast bowl of a stadium that they must have fallen off the back of a lorry.

The D's were in turn replaced by the inevitable box nets of today in time for this -

The best goal ever scored at Hampden?