BEACHCOMBER

103 YEARS OLD AND STILL GUIDED BY SCIENCE...

HAVING not seen my academic adviser Professor Norvus Breakdown in recent months, I rang him for a quick catch-up. “Are you busily locked down?” I asked. “I’ve been Flurting,” he said. Sensing my shock from my silence and explained: “That’s Flurt with a capital F and a u. The Football League Upcoming Resumption Talks. I’m advising the government.”

“I didn’t realise you knew about football,” I said. “How can football be played under social isolation? How can one player tackle another at two metres distance?”

“That’s the crux of the matter,” he replied. “I may not know much about football but I understand mechanics and kinetics and they are the key. When a player wishes to tackle another, our computers are programmed with their top speeds and evasion techniques, so we may calculate the probability that one will catch the other.

“The intended tackler announces his intention by pressing the ‘tackle’ button on a handheld device and the computer, in alliance with GPS satellite data, will calculate whether the tackle will be successful, or lead to a foul, or result in a goal. The usual running, sliding, barging and diving becomes unnecessary. What if the computer thinks a foul in the penalty area is likely?” I asked.

“The penalty-taker decides where he is going to kick the ball and the goalkeeper elects to lurch to one side or the other. Each player adopts a strategy based on the known past behaviour of the other and we may calculate the probability that a goal is scored. And that’s where the game will be vastly improved.”

“You mean that you will assign...”

“Exactly!” he agreed before I could end the sentence. “Scoring will no longer be a goal or no goal, but a precise probabilistic calculation. For example, 0.7 for a likely goal, or 0.2 for a probable save, or 0.95 for an almost certain score when the goalkeeper presses the wrong way button on his device. It’s the same with tackles. The computer allots fractions of a goal according to its calculations.”

“What do the Government and Football League think of the proposal?” I said. “Will it be enough to bring the game back?”

“I see no reason for them to disregard the advice of science,” the Professor said, and we left it at that.