This rule change had the effect of bringing a close to the ‘careers’ of several pub team goalkeepers, who couldn’t handle the new rules and the onus it placed on their clumsy footwork. It also didn't help Mark Bosnich.

One such keeper was a long time friend of mine. He was always somewhat bizarre – long before we’d heard of Chilavert or Higuita he was already losing the ball trying to take on attackers in suicidal situations. Many times I’d be loping around the pitch when I became aware of an overlapping slow moving blur – not a full back, but our crazy keeper. Many attacking free kicks were wasted as any dithering in their taking was viewed as an invitation for our keeper to ping the ball way, way over the bar and into some trees.

When the backpass rule came in we amused ourselves by attempting to engineer the arrival of the ball and an opposing forward almost instantaneously. This was helped by a fearsome first touch which guaranteed that the second touch of our keeper would be a tackle – at best.

Of course the new rules worked both ways. Without the safety net of being able to pass back our skills were tested in tight situations. On one occasion he caught a corner and immediately rolled it out to me no more than 4 yards out and surrounded by opponents. “Here you go, you cunt” he said. “Fucking do something with that.”

He died yesterday after complications following a supposedly routine operation. He’s already much missed.

On one occasion he caught a corner and immediately rolled it out to me no more than 4 yards out and surrounded by opponents. “Here you go, you cunt” he said. “Fucking do something with that.”

Magnificent - this is how football should be played at the amateur level. Sorry to hear he's gone, and I hope you'll be able to bring this anecdote up at his funeral or wake.

Has the back pass rule made any difference at all to the overall quality of football? Watching old Euro games the past few days, I doubt it. It was one of those rules that was welcomed at the time, and I suppose it's arguably curbed time-wasting, but then players just find several other ways to waste time instead, because refs rarely implement time-wasting punishments.

I think there should be a decent-sized triangle at each corner of the pitch, and any player who holds on to the ball in there for more than five seconds has his bollocks lopped off and tossed to the police dogs.

Mr Beast wrote:

This made me do an actual laugh out loud. You've won my sympathy purely for that, even if those last two sentences are a bit of an ambush. Definitely sounds like he was a paid-up member of the goalkeepers are different school.

As for the backpass rule, fuck knows. I was nine when they brought it in, so don't have much memory at all of it being legal. When I see it happen in clips of old games I find my brain instinctively shouting "what the fuck are you doing?!"

Definitely a rule change for the better.

Made me laugh as well.

I reckon that I must have been one of the first keepers to fuck it up. Played a few games as a ringer for a mate's team over in Hamilton.

Very early pre-season friendly and I managed to fluff the first one knocked back to me within a minute of kick off.

Was it from high blood pressure caused by too many tricky situations at football?

I can't believe that it is 20 years. I wonder how many free-kicks have actually been given in that time for it? More to the point, I wonder how many have been scored? They always seemed to close to the goal to actually make it past the wall

A big improvement at the time. Pass backs were way worse than going for the corner-flag is today. You could eat up ten or fifteen minutes with judiciously timed passes to the goalie, and then he'd could wander around with the ball at his leisure, provided he bounced it now and again. The "four-step" rule was clumsy but it served a purpose as well.

I can't remember the last time I saw a free kick given for a backpass... refs now often ignore the ball going from a defender to a keeper in a pressure situation. Yet when the rule was introduced twenty years ago refs were right on it, and would award frees for just a slight deflection off a defender going back to the keeper.

You might see them more often if indirect free-kicks were given for other infringements in the penalty area. There seems to be some unwritten understanding that they're not given anymore, it's either a penalty or nothing.

the backpass rule also had a negative impact on some teams including Forest and Leeds

Perhaps unsurprisingly it was in Italy that the back pass rule was first really abused, more surprisingly it happened later than you might think.

I believe it was Inter's World Club Cup matches with Independiente in 1965. Inter led 3-0 from the first leg in Italy and travelled to play in Avellaneda. They keenly wanted to avoid a third match and because of the odd format of the competition, any sort of Independiente win would have guaranteed this. They didn't have to match Inter on aggregate.

So Inter put on a highly defensive display which included long periods of passing the ball about among the defence before it went back to the keeper. The home crowd were furious and the world's media was pretty scathing at what it saw was a very new and very negative development for the game.

the backpass rule also had a negative impact on some teams including Forest and Leeds

I've heard howard wilkinson say as much, but forest? Forest had really good ball players, even at the back. Their problems were more clough related I'm afraid.

I'm pretty sure that it was the Ireland egypt game that made Fifa bring in the rule. I'd like to apologize to the world for that game, but at least it brought about change.

Sorry about your friend Mr Beast, that's a great story.

trimster wrote:


As we saw yesterday when Pepe quitely deliberately nudged the ball back to Rui Patricio late in extra-time, and none of the three officials near the incident recognised it for the offence it was.

In Nobody ever says thank you Brain Laws said that the change to the backpass law weakened Forest as they were only geared to play for 75 minutes owing to their lack of fitness and with the backpass rule change it meant they had to keep the ball in play for longer which meant they got tired and made mistakes

I think it improved things. I remember being bored watching Liverpool on telly. They were the masters of the pass back to the goalie.

I loved the story in the o/p.

Great story in the OP and sorry for your loss.

There are two things that I always remember when thinking about the introduction of the backpass rule in 1992. The first was during preseason training of that year talking to my manager who predicted that the introduction of the rule would lead to a lot of goalkeepers breaking their legs in collisions with onrushing attackers. It was a reasonable hypothesis but never came to fruition.

The second was the goal I saw as a consequence of the rule down at Twerton Park in a game between Bristol Rovers and Newcastle in September. Kevin Sheedy scored from an indirect free kick that must have been at most 8 yards from the goal. Seemingly all of the Bristol Rovers players were stationed on the goalline but he managed, after a layoff, to blast it over them into the roof of the net.

One of the strangest goals I've seen, it was just weird seeing a free kick taken practically in the bloody goalmouth!

Elano Tele Romeu Ramires wrote:


BUMP

I managed to track down the goal on youtube - starts at 7:50.

Christ it was almost 20 years ago to the day, September 5th 1992. The other thing I recall about that day was Paul Elliot's career being ended by Dean Saunders at Anfield.

Similarly, this Gabriel Batistuta goal is one my absolute favs, particularly for the way he celebrates it as though it is like any of the countless spectacular efforts he hit throughout his career.

Another classic here from the BBC's most erudite pundit. Interesting variation in the standard tee-up technique from Sheringham...

Just reading upthread about whether the rule caused any injuries; I'm sure Andy Dibble broke his leg after giving the ball to a striker and trying to tackle during the pre-season of 92/93.

Overall it's been a good thing but a negative effect was to make the game even faster in England when it needed to be slowed down. It made it harder for English clubs in Europe for a while.