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?