FootballFilter

I am in tres nostalgic mood at the moment, looking through my old pro set and my brothers old shoot magazines (which I will do a post about soon) and I started to think about the development of the football over the years.  David James did a similar blog on the guardian quite recently where he complained about the constant changing of the style of balls, mostly for commercial reasons.  Which got me thinking, has anyone really looked into the evolution of the football, like a picture posting or something?  A few sites are dedicated to soccer ball history but I thought I should at least do a brief blog on it on this fine Sunday afternoon, Chelsea just thrashed Portsmouth 4-0 and United are drawing with Newcastle so all is well…..

Mitre, Adidas, Nike and Puma are some of the bigger names in the world of the football.  According to the power that is Wikipedia, the first specifications were defined in 1863 by the Football Association and then adjusted in 1872 and have been the following ever since:

Take from the following link here are the laws of football

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/lawsofthegame.html:

The ball is:
• spherical
•  made of leather or other suitable material
•  of a circumference of not more than 70 cm (28 ins) and not less
than 68 cm (27 ins)
•  not more than 450 g (16 oz) and not less than 410 g
(14 oz) in weight at the start of the match
•  of a pressure equal to 0.6 – 1.1 atmosphere (600 – 1,100 g/cm2) at sea level (8.5 lbs/sq in – 15.6 lbs/sq in)

Not too many specifics have really been made by the looks of it which explains the dramatic technological evolution of the ball over the last 100 or so years.   You’ll notice in the following photos dramatic change even between the World Cup in 98 and the World Cup in 2002.  But lets start from the beginning:

old skool ball blud

Now I have skipped 30 odd years but take a look at this ball as a kind of example of the beginnings of football technology.   Taken from the site http://www.asdiansi.com/anball.htm this ball apparently is a 1930s World Cup ball.  Look at the string stitching?  As the ball developed in the 70s-80s the standard came for 32 panel football, also known as a truncated icosahedron football:

Classic ball from 1970 World Cup

Above picture was taken from: <!– @page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1970Telstar_2006-08-11.jpg

Not only was the shape of the ball developed over the years as you can see above but the use of leather was altered as time went on.  The idea was to make more water resistant footballs, preventing the ball from getting heavy during rainy games.  This 1970 ball is an absolute classic in my opinion but I think the following ‘Tango’ ball is even better:

Photo take from: http://www.adidas-group.com/en/bizmedia/WorldCup/ball_history/default.asp (great source, check it out).

Not a lot seems to be different between this ball used in the 1982 World Cup in Spain (called the Tango Mundial ball) by the likes of Rossi, Zico, Maradona, Platini and Bryan Robson.  And in fact this ball was the last time a pure leather ball was used in a World Cup.  Even though they had added rubberized seams it still suffered from bad water resistance and the balls often had to be changed a fair few times during games. So this is when the ball started to get shiny….

shiny leather innit

Now it appears that Adidas have had the rights to the World Cup ball since forever, but meanwhile back in the day to day footballing world of England and the newly formulated ‘Premiership’ Mitre were the Rupert Murdoch tycoons of the soccer ball world.  In 1992 clubs had to use their own match balls but it was then agreed for the next season (and then the following 7 years) that Mitre would be the official match ball providers.  I owned a Mitre ball at some point during the 90s as did everyone else and most local Footy Clubs to, remember these?  The Mitre Promax and the Mitre Ultimax:

Mitre Pro Max wup!

Ultimax - used for games in the snow, which never happens, so just a cash in basically.

These two pictures were taken from the following page:

http://images.sportsshoes.com/product/C/CAR20/CAR20_250_1.jpg

http://www.jorkasport.nl/catalog/images/Mitre%20Ultimax%20Fluo.gif

Next followed the Nike contract for the premiership while in the World Cup Adidas reign supreme, this however was when the amount of panels changed from the old school 32 of the beautiful 90s to the 14 (approx) panels of the +Temgeist by Adidas (also known as a truncated octahedron by nobody) and the Nike Geo Merlin (later the Total 90)

shiny ball built on steroetypical German efficiency perhaps

Image taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(ball)

nikenikenike

Image take from: http://www.soccer.com/Images/Catalog/ProductImages/300/243310.JPG

Take that World Cup ball  above for example and then look at the Tricolore ball used at the 1998 World Cup in France (Teamgeist was used at 206):

French Ball

Image taken from: http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=285661&rel_no=1

The difference is pretty dramatic really no?  The tricolore isnt very far from the balls of the 80s whereas the +Teamgeist is defintely suggesting what direction the scientists are taken the ball for the future.  More shiny and less panels seem to the be the mode de jour.  I imagine the final achievement would be a ball perfectly formed, no panels that still has the weight and control of the balls of old and not like one of those plastic balls you played with at school that moved left and right while in the air.

Personally I don’t know if this development is a good thing, in the last few years the way free kicks have been taken (particularly by the likes of Ronaldo and Juninho) could arguably be linked to the development in football technology.  Of course it has been always been relatively possible to score freekicks like the Ronaldos of today but the way the ball is beginning to move in the air over the last few years definitely appears to more common and I firmly believe this has alot to do with the structure of footballs now.  Of course progression is a good thing, but part of me definitely will miss the Mitres of the 90s with their chubby panels and squeaky shine will always be more appealing than the almost perfectly shapd +Teamgeist.

What are your thoughts and what balls of old do you remember?

Before the premiership existed, when football shirts were cool as shit (well they seem cool to me now in 2008-I predict a fashion wave!) and most players were alcoholics, a trading card called Pro Set pretty much consumed my little 6 year old existence.  But what has happened to them now?!  I can’t for the life of me track them down via the internet.  The only thing I found were a few sites selling the likes of Dion Dublin’s card (at Cambridge at the time) for a quid (which I have) or the entire Arsenal team for a fiver (which I also have – £6 for me boom ting).  There are also the American Football cards knocking around but no site or anything exists from what I can see – have they really gone bust?  Because if they have it is my mission to get the Pro Set card people together, sit them down and make them realise how much money they could be making these days – surely kids would love it, or at 24 am I already out of ‘touch with today’s youth’?

On the back of the folder I found an address which led me to this UEFA website page but unfortunately the number didn’t work – so what I am asking is, if anyone can help us get in contact with Pro Set and find out what happened please let us know by leaving a comment!  This is the address in case someone random reads this and either works there or lives near by:

Pro Set U.K Limited, 87 Wembley Hill Road, Wembley, Middlesex, HA9 8BU

Every month from now on I will post an update on my findings with a couple of players cards scanned for good measure, just like these beauties below:

Underrated Nigel, Poor old Gazza, Delia's Ruel, Alco Tony, Drity Dennis

What I love about these the most tho are the comments and stats on the back, pure nostalgia:

Take Gazza’s for example: “The new superstar of English football, “Gazza” won the hearts of the nation for his performances during the World Cup in Italy.  A player of prodigious talent, he played for Newcastle for three seasons and was the idol of Tyneside.  He signed for Spurs for £2 million in July 1988.  Fills the grounds wherever he plays.”  -pure poetry that is, full of cliched 90s joy, John Motson bread and butter chat if you will, but still quality.

I could quote all 6 of those bad boys but I won’t, however I do think Paul McGrath’s opening line is pure class:

“Regarded as possibly the best central defender in the First Division despite problems of the field” – was there any need to mention his ‘off field’ problems?  So he drank a little bleach now and then, he’s still the Don.

As I said I think these cards will be a regular feature, especially as my chances of getting in contact with Pro Set appears slim but for the time being here’s a few honorary mentions to keep you going til next time:

1. Nigel Spink – ‘reputed to be one of the safest goalkeepers in the game’

2. Cyrille Regis – ‘reared in London’

3. Paul Walsh – ‘A tenancious terrier of a player’ . In fact Paul’ back photo (his hair I mean) is so good he gets the final shot of the blog:

Full, luxuriant hair

SO please help me bring back Pro Set!

During the Spain v Italy game during the euros i noticed Luca Toni sporting a fetching, if a little gay, tasche.  At the time I thought it was the start of a new revolution, a hark back to the 70s, a time when facial hair was king – I was hoping the likes of Rooney would rock the old bender/handle bar tasche or Robbie Savage fashioning a neat little pencil line tasche, dyed blonde.  But no, the world of fooball has not adopted this new wave:

So I give you tashces of the past – footballing heros who have demonstrated the true power of the lip slug:

Mark Lawrenson:  Debatably the campest man in football, pundit, ex Liverpool legend, often heard referring to players “power”, “dedication” or something suspiciously fruity such as “he’ll do anything you ask of him, in any position”, Lawro was one of the true leaders in tasche fashion, behold below a slug of pure beauty that one wonders why he has gone to the dark side of late and chopped it off (please also note the suspicious hair cut!):

Bruce Grobbelaar: Another Liverpool legend (a common theme perhaps?), Bruce was a true 80s goalkeeping hero.  But he was also convicted of match fixing with Hans Segers (ha) and John Fashnu aka The Fash (ahwooga!).  Nevertheless Bruce is a reliable man of the tasche world, a brother, a strong believer who into his 50s still represents the Lip Hair allegiance with pride – jah bless Bruce, jah bless.

Word Up Bruce, stay true to the Tasche, fo sure!

David Seamen:  Arsenal through and through, probably one of the best English goalkeepers of my lifetime (I am 24 by the way) but also well known for getting horribly embarrassed by Ronaldhino’s ‘did he intend to do that’ freekick lob.  Poor lad that will remain with him forever – as will his fuck off tasche and criminal haircut.  Mr Seamen not only desrves recognition for his work in the lip depo but also for holding true to the gayest looking hairdo known to man – that man has invested a lot of Arsenal salary over the years on Timotei and Pantene Pro V I am sure…it’s just so shiny!

Disclaimer:  alas I forgot unfortunately Dave has seen sense of late and actually not longer sports either the tasche or long hair – its more of a L’Oreal curtains type affair – however he did appear of Dancing on Ice (or something like that) so he has transferred the fruitiness from one ‘realm’ to another.

Avec Bender tasche?

Frank Rijkaard and Rubi Voller:  these two gents rivals, yet brothers in arms of the hirsute world, Frank spat on Rudi, Rudi got pissed yet they still had one thing in common.  If I were Frank I would look back on that with pride yet concern, a quick cahnge into a policmans outfit and he would be a member of the Village People.  While Rudi’s tasche on the other hand is almost a stamp or an emblem if you will of terribe German 80s fashion – Deiner Schnubaart ist vorbei Rudi!

Flob in his hair, yet one thing in common - the tasche

And alas this is where my tribute ends – the list is endless and majestical at the same time.  All men of tasche deserve a mention but that would take me forever so here is my honarary mention list:

1.  Graeme Souness

2. Gary Neville – aka William Shakespeare

3. Rivelino

4. Jimmy Hill

5. Paul McGrath – god bless the bleach drinking man!

Who have I missed? Either comment here or email us at footballfilter@gmail.com

http://www.footballfilter.com