Golden gloves
Goalkeeper gloves are a relatively modern introduction to the world of football and are now an essential part of any keeper’s armoury. It was not always the case though, and plenty of former players have the broken fingers and aching bones from a time whe
A history of the previously-shunned goalkeeper gloves
Eugene Kleynhans says continuing to play a little bit of piano is what has probably saved his trio of broken fingers from going arthritic. William Shongwe has a pinkie that is permanently bent. Both are a legacy from the days before goalkeepers wore gloves, when keepers were under permanent threat of injuries, and hands stung and hurt from saving soccer balls. “You journalists were quick to slaughter us for a bad performances, but we had NO gloves in our days,” laughs former Highlands Park legend Kleynhans. “I think if I had what the keepers of today have in terms of equipment, I’d be winning World Cups!” Goalkeeping gloves are more than a century old, but it is really only since the 1980s that they have become a commonplace garment on the footballing field, like a shinpad or slip-on boot. It’s easy to forget that just over 30 years ago they were still a rarity.
“I didn’t really like them,” remembers Orlando Pirates legend Patson “Sparks” Banda. “But I use them now if I’m coaching ’keepers. It’s one of prerequisites for today’s goalies, so you have to use them. “The only pair I ever had was what w were called wet weather gloves. I got th them from Bob Wilson, the Arsenal a and Scotland goalkeeper. I was a fo follower of English football and McD Donald Skosana and I used to read all th the magazines, like Shoot!. We wrote to those players and they sent us the g gloves back.” Shongwe got his first pair from another world-class goalkeeper, English international Ray Clemence, after Liverpool played an exhibition game against Swaziland at the Somhlolo Stadium in the early 1980s. “He gave me his pair after the g game, the first I ever had. By the time IcI came to Chiefs [in 1985] I had a few p pairs and I brought them with me. It w was only after Chiefs had a kit deal th that we started getting pairs from the c club.” Kleynhans, whose career was coming to an end when Shongwe first emerged, bought his own gloves. “They were gloves for the wet. G Green cotton ones and you could only g get them at Bryan Orritt’s sports shop. B But the wetter they got, the looser th they were and the more important it b became to hold the ball. But it was still b better than being bare handed. “There was no sales rep in those d days saying, ‘Hi, here’s five free pairs’. I n never asked the club to pay for them, IdI didn’t think about that. I just went a and bought them. Later there were sp spongy gloves, but after you’d saved a about four or five hard shots, the sp sponge started coming loose. Then y you’d have to go and replace them.” Deshi Bhaktawer remembers the green cotton gloves from his days as a budding colts player with Arcadia’s juniors. “I think Andy Donnelly of Cape Town City was the first to start wearing them,” he says. In the 1800s, heavy leather, fingerbusting soccer balls and different rules made goalkeeping the most dangerous and difficult job on the field. An athletic gear manufacturer named William Sykes patented several improvements to “gloves or gauntlets used in football playing” in 1885, but it took a century thereafter for them to become commonplace. Italian goalkeeper Carlo Ceresoli was one of the first to experiment with gloves in the 1930s, but it never took off. Neither a generation later when Argentina’s Amadeo Carrizo, known for being on the cutting edge of goalkeeping, also tried. Thin and narrow, they looked more like motor racing gloves, but offered some degree of protection and control. It took a mountain and ski gear manufacturer named Gebhard Reusch to design the first pair of oversized, rubber-palmed, reinforced modern gloves in 1973. He worked with West Germany’s legendary goalkeeper Sepp Maier to develop them. By 1974, Maier would wear Reusch gloves in the final of the World Cup. Within years, they were a standard piece of equipment, ushering in a new era of goalkeeping. In the 1980s, manufacturers such as Reusch and Uhlsport experimented with materials to improve grip. According to the German patent office, prototypes came in with everything from terry cloth to studded pingpong paddle rubber on the palms. Where the designs converged was on large wrist supports – usually attached with Velcro – and wide padded fingers to reduce the sting of impact and improve grip. This largely remains the formula although technological advances allow a continual refinement of the equipment. “It’s unbelievable what is available these days,” says Shongwe. Banda adds: “If we had the opportunity to wear them, it would have helped improve our individual game a lot. But it came just after our generation.” But the advancements have not prevented the odd eccentric from turning back the clock. In a penalty shootout against England at the 2004 European Championships, Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo removed his gloves and saved a penalty with his naked palms, prompting a Portuguese newspaper to declare the next day: “Knockout without Gloves”.