Goalkeeping headgear

[Mikhail Chigorin]

For some unfathomable reason, which now absolutely escapes me, the other day I was thinking about goalkeepers from yesteryear.

In doing so, I was reminded of the times when, confronted by winter sunlight with a low trajectory, they resorted to some form of headgear and I recall goalkeepers such as Gil Merrick, Sam Bartram, Bert Williams, Ron Springett etc, from the fifties and sixties, all still wearing flat caps to combat such conditions (flat caps were, albeit, par for the course in earlier decades).

Without recourse to using duct-tape, I've no idea how they managed to keep them on their heads whilst diving around and being buffeted by oversized and thuggish centre-forwards.

However, more recently I seem to recall David James wearing a baseball cap but I was wondering if, with the configuration and design of modern grounds, as well as the nature of the game today and the type of balls used, goalkeeping headgear is now a thing of the past.....and I haven't even considered the dictates of fashion.

I don't know if anyone laments the passing of goalkeepers with flat caps but, if ever there was a future need for such headware, I wonder what scientific form it would take......would it be like Petr Cech's helmet but with a visor of some description ??

Answers and thoughts please on the back of a woodbine packet.

[Ted Hughes]

One day, keepers will wear rubber headgear which looks like, for instance, a household appliance, for sponsorship.

Blackburn's keeper will have a rubber chicken.

[nottsblue]

Cechs headgear looks stupid and surely impedes his vision. Maybe Joe has an invisible one

[mr_nool]

It's just a question of time before some hipster keeper brings back the flat cap. My money is on Tim Howard.

[Ted Hughes]

Liverpool's keeper could wear a pointed white hood.

[mr_nool]

Liverpool's keeper could wear a pointed white hood.

A Kkk hood for Bruce, and a dunce cap for Mignolet.