Bring back the old time boots

You see it all the time in football matches nowadays. A player runs down the wing with the ball but, before they have a chance to cross it into the corridor of uncertainty or slip it inside to a team mate, a tackle goes in from an opposing defender and the winger goes down 'in agony' while clutching their boot. An action replay of the incident reveals that the defender has unfortunately stepped on the opposing player's toe. Sometimes a scream bellows out as the player goes down, the referee whistles for a free kick and may sometimes produce a yellow card for the offender.

Of course, it is not always a deliberate ploy by a defender to stamp on anyone's feet, yet in the modern game such incidents have escalated over the past few years. Maybe some of the wounded players writhe around on the turf in the hope of swaying the referee's judgment in showing the opposing player a yellow card, thus potentially weakening that player's stance, lest they receive a second caution later on in the game and leading to a sending off. Some players have been guilty of such gamesmanship as, purportedly, player advantage is increased when the opposing team is numerically reduced.

But, why has there been an escalation of such injuries on a meteoric scale? There are several incidents of this type of injury in most matches, yet players still insist on wearing lightweight boots in all colours of the rainbow, some now slip-ins like bedroom slippers to boot (pun intended). They are ostensibly made of thinner materials than boots of the past and are often shaped very differently to boots our ancestors wore when they played the game. And therein lies the flaw.

Another more potentially serious and even career-ending injury is that of the achilles tendon that is situated at the back of the ankle and usually just above the upper line of modern-day football boots. It can be an easy but not always intentional injury to pick up; maybe an over-zealous opponent mistimes their tackle and their boot or studs connect with that area of the foot. The injured player goes down and, in certain instances, needs quite extensive treatment on the field and almost definitely afterwards if they are carried off because of such an injury. It is a nasty injury to sustain and, although I was lucky enough not to be on the receiving end of an achilles injury during my playing days, I did pick one up a few years ago in our garden (of all places) when a tree stump I was digging up decided to fight back when my back was turned and ran itself down the back of my lower leg. I was 'out of action' for quite a long while after that. Yes, it did hurt at the time; yes, it continued to hurt while I sought medical assistance; yes, it continued to hurt during my recovery time and yes, I still get a twinge from my achilles from time to time to remind me never to turn my back on a sulking tree stump ever again.

We have certain parts of our body that are more susceptible to pain and injury than others. Just bumping into a chair or other inanimate object that suddenly appears when you're not looking where you are going may be enough to damage your shin. Those fibula and tibia bones are not the strongest known to man. Just as equally, the big (or little) toe can be subjected to pain and injury and, likewise the achilles is another known injury hot spot. Yet, those last two can maybe protected a bit more by wearing more sensibly designed boots during a game of football. Knees, of course, are a separate issue and, apart from the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) and cartilage-related injuries, one of the worst injuries for immediate pain must be that of the knee-against-knee collisions; I thought I'd really stuffed my knee up when that happened to me in a match I was playing in. But that's another matter for another day.

So, what is the answer to keeping the toes and achilles better protected during a football match? You may laugh and you may scoff but, players of yore had the right idea. Okay, their boots are considered much more cumbersome compared to today's boots, but then the players of old didn't go crying to the referee every five minutes because somebody had stepped on their favourite little toenail nor were they subjected to injuries caused by studs running down their achilles. Their feet were much better protected by boots that didn't change style as fashion dictated. 

While I can see the argument for not going back to those olden days of greatness on the football pitch by reintroducing the heavy leather boots that mimicked hobnail boots favoured by the armed forces, I do think that boot manufacturers could look into the design more favourably and maybe reintroduce thicker materials to protect the feet more. Fewer injuries would mean fewer players on the treatment table and fewer players missing from each team's line-up in the pursuing weeks or months. It's not rocket science, even if a newer styled boot could or maybe would look as ugly as sin. Players would soon get used to them... or continue to get injured. I know what I'd prefer.

I have deliberately kept away from the topic of metal bladed studs on football boots in this post. For one reason, they are not appropriate in this article and for another reason, they are now effectively obsolete due to safety concerns and limitations of their use on synthetic pitch surfaces.

Trevor Mulligan