| Greetings to all soccer lovers,
from your old friend Robinson Heath stateside. My
latest subject under examination is something
that no self-respecting soccerist would be
without. In fact, here in downtown Illinois,
people come up to me at the University of Soccer
to ask how your players can go into a match with
so little of it compared to American footballers.
Well, I'd just advise them to read on. Among
the items of technosoccer equipment utilised by
the modern day practitioner of the beautiful game
are those two which protect the very raison
d'etre of the footballer. Their importance was
first made clear to me by that famous English
soccer boss, Tommy Manager on his lecture tour of
the US of A following his departure as part time
assistant coach at Byfleet Rovers. A poor placing
in the Kit-E-Kat/Caesar League Junior Division 5
meant that the governing committee reluctantly
had to release him from his contract by tearing
up the bus ticket that it was written on the back
of. As Tommy reminisced, it struck home that the
"young boys, coats for goalposts, rolled up
newspapers for shinpads", were the very
building blocks of the game of soccer. One can
only assume that in the early days, the players
used the equivalent of tabloids. A copy of the
New York Times shoved down your stockings could
lead to you taking a stationary position while
the action whizzed around you. (Akin to being in
David Platt's boots I would guess). However, should you, by same strange happenstance,
manage to connect with the ball, it would have
all the force of a Babe Ruth slug and would carry
the goaltender who got in the way from Iowa to
Indiana.
The original shinpads were made from buckskin
and spare ribs (collected from the first wave of
local ethnic eating places) which were very
effective with a tensile factor of 0.84. There
was one drawback and that was the fact that when
in receipt of a heavy tackle, the ribs broke
producing a fearful crack. This, on more than one
occasion, masked the sound of the player's tibia
snapping into two, leaving them to complete the
period of play by hobbling around considering the
cost of a new shinpad, oblivious to the fact that
their career was hanging in the balance.
Things progressed to the inclusion of steel
reinforcing rods to provide greater tensile
resistance. Much usage of these rods made them
subject to failure due to wet shinpads causing
rusting of the steel. A stainless steel version
was developed and tested by players of Sheffields
Wed. and Uted (sic), but was discontinued after
playing Coventry, when the rods were robbed from
the pads and melted down to form a 48 piece
cutlery set.
Whalebone has always been a popular material
as it has good strength (factor 0.79) and
flexibility (0.87). The product had became scarce
in the 80 's due to extensive campaigning by
environmental groups against the practice of
whaling. However, in 1994, FIFA decreed that all
players must wear shinpads during matches. This
seemed to have been instigated by the evil South
American Soccer Dictator "Baron" Joe
Havealozenge, who, for some completely
unconnected reason, seems very keen to stage the
2002 World Cup finals in Japan and also is
alleged to head a shinpad manufacturing company
in upstate Nagoya. A case for the X-Files
maybe?????
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| Initial tests with carbon-fibre proved
unreliable and during matches, the BBC World
Service could often be heard emanating from the
players hosiery. Representations were made to the
PFA by the more hip and swinging players, to
campaign for Radio 1FM, but this proved to be
beyond the boffins in "Techno-Production" and so the project faltered. The
light-weight nature of the pads and the inherent
resistance to any force implied made them
favourites among the soccer family, but another
innovation doomed to fail alongside this was soon
to raise it's head. The rubber-coated shinpad
was designed to reflect the energy involved in
the challenge, but what resulted was a large
number of ligament and tendon injuries to the
parties inflicting their tackles on the wearer.
Unfortunately, the 'Biter Bit' pads were
consigned to the soccer trashcan.
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| Other variants included
lead-lined pads (ideal for protecting Superman
from Kryptonite, but you would have needed to be
him to run in them), Teflon coated shinpads
(designed to have the blow slide harmlessly off,
but disadvantageously also meant that defenders
socks would not stay up and strikers sped past
the unfortunate backman trying to return their
hose to their proper position) and Velcro-coated
pads (which saw the return of the bucket of water
to the trainer's armoury as he threw it over
players who had become entangled after a
challenge to try and separate them); perhaps it
was just as well that none of these developed
beyond their early trials and tribulations. The
modern example of this soccer accessory has been
developed in the high-tech laboratories of the
Dexter Corporation. Exhaustive tests on the
one-piece plastic and foam creations produce
results which are now measured an the Jones scale
as seen at the foot of the page.
These new improvements to the legwear have
been seen as a market opportunity for
manufacturers and efforts have been made to
inform the players of how bodacious they are.
Here in the U S of States, one producer paid
thousands of US Dollars to the ad men in Madison
Avenue to come up with a winning name for their
pads. They were quite shocked to find out that
although it reflected their fantastic properties,
when English buyers arrived they were reduced to
tears when they heard that they were called
"Brillo". Happily, this matter was soon
cleaned up. Further to the award of the 1994
World Cup Series to the USA, one company tried to
market protective wear for the exclusive use of
the Republic of Ireland. But this venture came to
nought when the product name of
"Shinpaddys" had Jack Charlton's Green
and White Army up in arms.
As the game heads toward the 21st Century,
here at the Technosoccer facility, we are
constantly striving to come up with the blend of
strength and lightness that is the prime
requirement by the multitudinous participants of
the beautiful game. It is hoped that with the new
material of Kellytonium (having the density of
two short planks without the width of view) and
our recently discovered Millichip technology, it
may soon be possible to produce a shinpad that
players don't even realise they are wearing.
However, they will come with a warning that
forgetting to put them on could affect their
health.
So, until next time, keep on
soccering !!
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