Brad and Charlie Hart are season-ticket holders at Spurs. Father and son, they at all times sit close to the tunnel on the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and at full time, after each recreation, 10-year-old Charlie will rush to attempt to get the eye of the gamers as they stroll off the pitch.
However earlier this month, after Tottenham had overwhelmed West Ham United 4-1, Charlie realised he had forgotten his trusted marker pen for these autographs he covets a lot. Little did he know that he would depart the stadium that Saturday afternoon not with just a few squiggles of ink on his shirt or a programme however with a real collector’s merchandise.
In the course of the match, Spurs’ goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario had placed on a baseball cap to maintain the lunchtime solar from his eyes, a second celebrated by nostalgic soccer purists as a welcome return of a once-prominent piece of goalkeeper equipment. “Old style vibes,” stated one fan on social media.
These have been the times: a ’keeper in a cap or possibly jogging pants, placing consolation earlier than trend, wanting extra suitably dressed to scrub the automobile or take the canine for a Sunday morning stroll than play on this planet’s prime home soccer league. Whereas it was commonplace within the Nineties and early 2000s to see a goalkeeper in a cap — Oliver Kahn for Germany and Bayern Munich springs to thoughts — it’s a extra uncommon sight now. Lengthy gone are the times of goalkeepers carrying flat caps, like the nice Lev Yashin.
“Vicario got here out with the goalkeeper coach (Rob Burch), who was holding the cap,” Charlie, from Harpenden, a commuter city north of London, tells The Athletic. “He (Burch) simply appeared in my eyes and stated, ‘Catch’, after which he threw the cap. I caught it in a single hand as a result of my dad’s telephone was within the different, though I’d have fortunately dropped my dad’s telephone to safe the catch.”
Guglielmo Vicario took followers down reminiscence lane when he wore a cap towards West Ham (Zac Goodwin/PA Photographs through Getty Photographs)
In contrast to his father, who remembers goalkeepers in caps as a extra acquainted sight, it was the primary time exterior YouTube movies that Charlie had seen a ’keeper carrying one in a recreation.
In recent times, England internationals Dean Henderson and Jordan Pickford have worn caps for his or her golf equipment, Crystal Palace and Everton, however they’re within the minority.
So why has the hat-wearing goalkeeper turn into so uncommon?
Worldwide Soccer Affiliation Board (IFAB) guidelines for the 2024-25 season state that caps for goalkeepers are permitted, as are “sports activities spectacles” and tracksuit bottoms. There are additionally particular guidelines on head covers for gamers, together with the necessity for them to be black or the identical essential color because the shirt, however the identical directives don’t apply to baseball-style caps worn by goalkeepers. If the principles haven’t modified, what has?
Former Liverpool goalkeeper Chris Kirkland grew to become synonymous with cap-wearing throughout his professional profession, which started within the late Nineties. When individuals meet him now, the 43-year-old says it’s nonetheless one thing he’s remembered for.
Kirkland, who gained one cap for England, began carrying a cap in coaching when he was a younger participant at Coventry Metropolis’s academy after seeing the senior crew’s first-choice goalkeeper, Steve Ogrizovic, use one. Kirkland discovered it useful for enhancing focus ranges, as a lot as for protecting the solar’s glare out of his eyes.
Lev Yashin carrying a flat cap when taking part in for the Soviet Union towards England through the 1958 World Cup (Pressens Bild / AFP)
“I at all times used to put on one in coaching as a result of I’m not nice within the solar,” Kirkland, who joined Liverpool in 2001 aged 20 in a deal that made him the most costly goalkeeper in Britain, tells The Athletic.
“I burn, so I used to put on caps to maintain the solar off my face. However I received used to it and it helped give me higher imaginative and prescient. It used to dam different issues out and I discovered myself having the ability to focus extra as a result of it blocked out distractions. I used to put on it generally even when it wasn’t sunny, which I used to get just a few unusual seems for.
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“A cap can block the solar out at sure angles, which I used to seek out useful. I’m shocked ‘keepers don’t put on them anymore since you see them (when going through the solar). They put their arm up and their hand over their eyes, which is clearly a distraction itself.”
Followers have come to the rescue of squinting goalkeepers loads of occasions. When Leeds United goalkeeper Felix Wiedwald was combating the sunshine away at Barnsley in 2017, a supporter emerged from the away finish to heroically surrender his cap. A 12 months later, a West Ham fan threw one onto the pitch for England’s No 1 Joe Hart to put on throughout an FA Cup third-round tie towards Shrewsbury City.
Kirkland performed for Coventry, Liverpool and Wigan Athletic amongst others (David Davies/PA Photographs through Getty Photographs)
“I caught with the identical cap for years,” Kirkland provides. “It was a navy blue Nike one, and the Nike tick ultimately fell off as a result of I wore it that a lot. I did properly within the first recreation and caught with it. The one time I’d put on one other is that if I had taken it out of my equipment bag to scrub it. It was rotten by the tip, however I saved it for years till the missus made me get rid. She was like, ‘That’s completely honking and has received to go!’.”
Richard Lee is a former Watford and Brentford goalkeeper recognized for his caps — however not as a result of he used to put on one.
“I’ve received a bit extra of an affiliation with caps as a result of I went on Dragons’ Den (a British business-based recreation present) again within the day and it was for a cap firm, however I by no means wore one in a recreation,” Lee, now a soccer agent with an extended checklist of goalkeeper purchasers, tells The Athletic.
“Carrying a cap was good when the solar is out of your eyes, however the second a cross is available in, or a ball is performed excessive, and also you get that sudden glare, you search for and the solar hits you. So, I’d virtually desire to have the solar there the entire time and also you knew the place it was.”
Fashion may very well be another excuse for goalkeepers opting out of carrying caps. It may merely be a trend selection.
“You have a look at the goalkeepers now they usually realise they’ve received a sure model and look, and that does play a component,” Lee provides. “While you exit (onto the pitch) you wish to really feel a sure method and current your self a sure method, whether or not that’s to the followers, the scouts or your team-mates.”
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Elite goalkeepers selecting to not put on caps influences the subsequent technology, too. “The youthful ones will copy what the present Premier League goalkeepers are doing,” Lee says. “You’re seeing it much less and fewer at youthful age teams too.”
In direction of the tip of her profession, former Everton and England goalkeeper Rachel Brown-Finnis discovered “a greater various” to carrying a cap.
“For some time, Nike produced sunglasses-like gentle contact lenses. They have been vivid orange and once you put them in they appeared a bit ‘Halloween’,” Brown-Finnis tells The Athletic. “They have been by far the best factor. I hated carrying caps as a result of they have been fantastic if the ball was on the bottom, however as quickly because the ball got here up within the air, you needed to tilt your angle and imaginative and prescient — you have been wanting into the solar.”
Brown-Finnis stated sunshine is an issue for goalkeepers and will increase the significance of the pre-game coin toss for a day recreation. A goalkeeper, she stated, would need their counterpart to be going through the solar within the first half within the hope the power of the solar’s rays died down within the second.
“Clearly that being seen as a bonus in your crew to not be within the solar within the first half, it does have an effect on the goalkeeper and gamers. It’s attention-grabbing that there’s not an ordinary intervention for that,” she stated.
Jacob Widell Zetterstrom of Derby County, within the second-tier Championship, is likely one of the few goalkeepers throughout the skilled recreation in England who wears headgear. The Sweden worldwide wears a protecting scrum cap, one thing The Athletic’s goalkeeping analyst Matt Pyzdrowski is accustomed to.
Zetterstrom of Derby throughout a match in August (Nathan Stirk/Getty Photographs)
In the course of the ultimate seven years of his profession, spent taking part in in Sweden, the place he nonetheless resides as head of academy for his former membership Angelholms, Pyzdrowski wore a protecting head guard, much like the one popularised by former Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech, who returned to the game carrying the rugby-style cap in January 2007, three months after a collision with Studying’s Stephen Hunt fractured his cranium.
“It was too many concussions in a brief interval,” Pyzdrowski says. “I keep in mind the specialist I met advised me, ‘Matt, you’ve got to watch out, as a result of we don’t know the way a lot that is going to impression you. If you wish to have life sooner or later, you might want to begin excited about the danger versus reward of 1) taking part in and a pair of) defending your self’.
“While you put that into perspective, I used to be like, ‘I’ve to put on a helmet’. For the remainder of my profession, I had a rugby helmet on. Each single coaching session, each single match, it grew to become a part of my outfit.
“It took a while to get used to heading the ball, in addition to studying the best way to management it, however the huge profit was the way it made me really feel safe. While you come again from a head damage, you turn into timid, even if you happen to have been an aggressive goalkeeper earlier than that. It took me some time to really feel secure once more, even once I had the helmet.”
Charlie Hart acquired a memorable memento at Spurs’ residence match towards West Ham this month (Brad Hart)
Pyzdrowski stated protecting headgear is turning into extra prevalent in Sweden, with just a few top-flight goalkeepers carrying them. “As a goalkeeper, you’re very susceptible. It’s a must to be courageous and put your self in very troublesome and unsafe conditions. After I give it some thought, and concerning the security of goalkeepers, it actually ought to turn into a precedence,” he says.
As for Charlie, after taking Vicario’s cap to highschool to indicate his classmates, he’s hoping to get it signed by the participant himself at certainly one of Tottenham’s upcoming residence video games. It would then be put in a show case — a reminder of the particular household day that sparked a nostalgic outpouring inside the soccer world.
(Prime images: Getty Photographs; design: Eamonn Dalton)
