THE portable goalposts often used by youth football teams have injured more than 300 children in Britain since 1989 and killed 9. In the US, 24 have been killed in similar accidents since 1980. But many of the accidents could be prevented with a simple redesign of the posts, according to a study by sports engineers.
鈥淪ome of the designs are just inherently unstable and dangerous,鈥� says Owain Pedgley at the Sports SET Network at the University of Sheffield. The researchers are now calling for the recommended safe design standards for the goalposts to be revised.
Portable or free-standing goalposts can weigh as much as 60 kilograms. But instead of being driven into the ground, they have permanent sidebars which protrude back along the ground behind the goal. These sidebars are fitted to the bottom of each post to add stability.
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But the posts are prone to toppling over, says Pedgley. 鈥淢ostly it鈥檚 people messing about, hanging off the crossbar. But they can also topple over if a ball hits the crossbar hard, or they can just be blown over by wind.鈥�
To see how their stability could be improved, Pedgley and his colleague Steve Haake took measurements from standard designs of goalposts and worked out their typical centre of mass. Next, they calculated how far goalposts could be tipped forward before they would topple over.
By experimenting with different designs, Pedgley and Haake were able to work out what changes would make goalposts safer. The British Standard for portable goalposts says the stabilising sidebars should be at least 1 metre long, and most manufacturers follow this. But Pedgley found that extending the sidebars by just 50 centimetres made the goalposts 60 per cent more stable.
Manufacturers should also include simple anchoring mechanisms that could secure portable goalposts during games. Suction pads, Velcro strips and even strong magnetic clamps could be developed for indoor use, the researchers say.
Pedgley has sent his findings to the British Standards Institute in London in the hope that they will update the relevant standard to meet his recommendations. 鈥淚 think they need to make their tests more appropriate and be more stringent,鈥� he says.
Getting the standard updated is the best route to safer goalposts, says David Jenkins of the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. 鈥淢anufacturers won鈥檛 do anything unless they are forced to, and why should they?鈥� he says. 鈥淚t takes a long time to change standards, but doing that is the best avenue to bring pressure on manufacturers.鈥�