The Big Match Week 14

If you have a weekend match-up at Vicarage Road between Watford and Tottenham Hotspur and a blog dedicated to the lost aesthetics of the game in the 1970's and 1980's, it requires only the alchemy of adding those two simple elements together to make gold.

Yes, your Big Match feature this week is The Glenn Hoddle Goal.


OK, it's 1983 and Watford have taken unique liberties with their oversized Continental D's but let's be honest - you only really see the goal nets once the ball has completed it's laser guided flight over the Watford goalie's head, don't you?

Match of the Day - Week 17

This week's Match of the Day features two Southampton v Tottenham Hotspur games and the history of goal nets at the Dell.

Our first game is on an 1989 gluepot of a pitch. It's a victory for Spurs played out between the much-loved and much-missed old stanchions at the Dell.


Our second game is from ten years later. Though the old stanchions have given way to Continental D's, the ground staff still have very little area in which to hang and pin the nets.

As an early Christmas present, look out for a Matt Le Tissier special to equalise for Saints about 4:00 in. Merry Christmas.

Match of the Day - Week 15

Lads, it's Tottenham...

And here's one of the best goals scored in the Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur fixture.

It's 1993 and United have their Continental D's holding up the goal nets at Old Trafford.

Denis Irwin's name went on the scoresheet, but what everyone remembers is Eric Cantona's pass.

Match of the Day - Week 11

This week's Match of the Day previews the north London derby - Arsenal v Tottenham.

As Arsenal are at home this Sunday, Match of the Day would usually highlight a game from an Arsenal home game - Highbury - and the wonderful history of goal nets there.

However a game from White Hart Lane - though painful for Spurs fans - offers different angles of focus, so this week's Match of the Day is the 0-5 from December 1978.


First, though TV coverage offers only a narrow, camera-eye view of the pitch, how do you know the game is at White Hart Lane? Easy - the sloping, square stanchions, totally distinctive for Tottenham.

Second, given his spectacular goals for 0-4 (and the Motson commentary) you probably always remembered this game as the Liam Brady game. Then poor Alan Sunderland, who scored a hat trick!

Lastly, in this era of Guardiola pressing and Klopp heavy metal football, check out Brady pressing the defender and stealing the ball for his goal. Plus ca change...

Match of the Day - Week 7

Match of the Day previews a fixture from the forthcoming weekend by showing a previous meeting between the chosen sides, and the History of Goal Nets on display in the clip.

This week - two clips of Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City, nearly 20 years apart.

The first clip is a 2-3 City victory from 1973 and there are two things to note.

First,  the regular, sturdy, totally unmistakeable White Hart Lane stanchions, then in white.





Secondly,  the nets-within-nets that were in vogue at the time. The photo below is of Colchester v Leeds at Layer Road in 1971 and clearly shows the net-within-nets phenomena in all its glory.

The second clip is from 1990. Spurs with Lineker and Gazza in their post-Italia 90 pomp, ran out 3-1 winners between White Hart Lane stanchions now painted blue.

A-list A-frames - Torquay United

Shame to read of the problems at Torquay United in the new WSC.

Four years after the club lost its their Football League status, it must be hard for Gulls fans to remember better days.

But who could forget the late-80's League Cup tussle versus Tottenham and the totally brilliant Plainmoor A-frames?



Or the Play-Off penalty shoot-out at Wembley in 1991?

Three things to note -

1 - Torquay's 2nd penalty (about 4:00) gets jammed behind the Wembley stanchion; fantastic!

2 - Blackpool's fifth penalty (about 7:30) is maybe the worst penalty you'll ever see.

3 - The old Wembley stanchions. Still beautiful after all these years...

The Big Match - Week 2

The Big Match for Week 2 is Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea in August 1978.


Tottenham's recent World Cup winning Argentine imports Osvaldo Ardiles and Ricardo Villa attracted most of the attention at the time.

Connoisseurs of the goal nets will instead revel in the instantly recognisable White Hart Lane hardware and marvel at the software's ball retention properties.

Gerry Armstrong's rocket shot for 2-1 would rebound to the halfway line today, while Kenny Swain's header for 2-2 would pinball round box nets pulled taut and made of trampoline.

Check out the behind the goals replay for that equaliser, you just don't see nets this good any more.

UEFA Europa League - FC Basel

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!

Off the stanchions at Wembley - Keith Houchen

The best diving header from one of the best cup finals at Wembley?

You'll see from the replay it goes in off the post... but rebounds out, off the stanchion

Off the stanchions at Wembley - Paul Gascoigne

We're back - with a bang!

We're back with Paul Gascoigne's rocket in the 1991 FA Cup semi against Arsenal.

Cue Barry Davies - "Is Gascoigne going to have a crack? He is you know..."

The Conference - Cambridge Utd

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."

He could also have written their goalnets were hung on these Latin American L-supports.

Square-o's: Tottenham Hotspur

Who's squarer than Glenda, and the old goalnets at White Hart Lane?

Highbury - Dame Judi Dench

Framed by stanchions as English as Dame Judi Dench and as sturdy and reliable as Dixon-Bould-Adams-Winterburn.

So Arsenal.


Though the nets were changed to a free-hanging hybrid after the 1990 World Cup -


the stolid stanchions remained till the 1996-97 season when, in the aftermath of the Euro '96 tournament, they were lost forever.

Whats your favourite scored in the old Highbury goals?