Did anybody question the validity of the early Man United goal ? Unless the rules have changed in the last 20 years there was in my mind a questionable situation? I may be wrong !
I wanted to see if anyone else spotted it before I described the situation. I just talked to a German mate of mine who thought exactly the same as me that a rule was broken. I'll give it a few minutes ('til half time) before I describe said situation. He's trying to contact a mutual friend of ours who is a credited official ref.
You're on the right track Chazz, so I'll clarify. Always thought with a free kick the ball had to roll at least one full circumferance distance from the free kick taker to one of his teammates before the ball is officially in active play. In the rerun of the kick it struck my mate & I that the ball didn't travel that distance. I hadn't seen the event, but went and replayed it without him telling me anything - but we both recall the same rule. Do you know if it once existed and was changed sometime in the past?
Seem to recall it was that, a full circumference, but I’m really not up to date with all the rule changes these days
I think this perhaps used to be the case but no longer is. All I could find was this v dubious link to a US book on “soccer”! So hardly authoritative: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...l a "full circumference" at free kick&f=false