The Big Match - Week 1

New season, new series...

Each week I'll post highlights of a game from the corresponding week of fixtures from a previous season, and openly marvel at the goalnets on display.

This week, starting with perhaps the most famous opening day fixture ever, QPR v Liverpool in 1975/76, featuring Gerry Francis' goal of the season. 

The goal of the season award was totally justified as the goal is totally awesome.

So too, is the Loftus Road hardware. OK, not the best for ball retention but compared to the high tech but homogenous square boxnets on display today, they feel like an old pair of Puma trainers you once chucked away, but would dearly love back. 

Or maybe that's just me...

Grand Designs

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.