Interesting article on how football has changed since its inception in 1863! It's amazing how relatively recent some of the changes are! Also interesting is the description of the two types of "goal-line technology" being trialled! http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11096/7869475/Football-innovations?
It's quite surprising how few changes there have been since that historic meeting CD. Changing the subject slightly, I was lucky enough to play on the hallowed turf a couple of years ago and only then realised how much 'grass' technology has changed. Although it looks and feels like grass, it's almost like playing on a synthetic surface, being extremely firm with hardly any 'give'. I've also been on the newly re-laid pitch and it looks better than ever!
Interesting article, thanks for sharing that! I was gobsmacked to learn that red and yellow cards were only introduced in 1970, being such an integral part of the game I assumed they had been around since it's inception!
Then it will also surprise you to know that red and yellow cards were abolished in England around 1980 and were not re-introduced until 1989, I think ?
Huh? I never knew that?? And I'm not entirely sure I believe it - was Kevin Moran not shown a red card in the 1985 FA Cup Final?
spot on! but that was the fa cup, not the football league. likewise, ray wilkins got sent off in mexico 86 whilst playing for england didn't he, but again, not under football league jurisdiction so i'm none the wiser!
So players were still booked and sent off, but the ref didn't actually brandish a card - is that right? Mark Dennis from Southampton was a prolific collector of cautions and dismissals and the 80's was his era so there is absolutely no way that players weren't getting sent off back then, even in the Football League.
Dennis must have been close to being the most sendings off ever. I'm sure it was double figures. But was it for foul play or fighting or lip? It doesn't seem like there were as many sendings off then and I don't remember many City players marching. Keelan used to flatten strikers for fun in those days.
still, amazing that i'd not heard about this and it seems others too! great find kickitoff. do you recall that period well - did it improve the game?
David Elleray said after watching the 1970 Cup Final replay between Chelsea and Leeds he would have sent off 12 and booked 26. Whereas nobody was booked or sent off. I think a lot of the time in those days, the referee had a chance to think about it before he booked anyone whereas now its easy to pull a card out.
None of this is about the changes that really matter, i.e. not changes to the rules but the evolution of formations, tactics, strategy, skill, etc., all the changes that account for our current low (non-FIFA-ranking) status in world football. (depressed-emoticon)
Yeah I read that on honeymoon a couple of years back, great read I'm still not having it that people weren't booked or sent off in the 80's, all this must mean is that the showing of cards didn't happen as there is no way that nobody wasn't dismissed or cautioned in that time.
i seem to remember paul davis (?) being jailed for punching someone on the field. was he sent off? that would have been in the late 80s, just as i started going to football.
