Leave The Goalie Alone!

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31500, 14 October 1967, Page 11

Leave The Goalie Alone!

'THE New Zealand Football •' Association's decision to Introduce the four- ' step rule for goal-keepers next season should be ' accompanied by a ruling . that goal-keepers in future must be left alone while making their clearances. The need for the introduction of the four-step ruling has been more prevalent in overseas countries than in New. Zealand, solely because the goal-keepers have been protected by unofficial arrangement. Under the old ruling by which a goal-keeper had to bounce the ball every four steps, a player wanting to waste time when his side was winning could, and did, jog around his penalty area for anything up to half a minute. No opposing player would attempt to harrass him, because this part of the game had gone out of fashion in these countries,

whero almost all legal bodily contact has been stamped out of the game. In New Zealand soccer, however, it is still usual for goal-keepers to meet harrassment from opposing forwards. If the trend continued under the new fourstep rule, goal-keepers will be forced into over-stepping the limit and be penalised. The answer is simple: let New Zealand add a supplementary to the four-step rule that when the goalkeeper has the ball safely in his hands he should be protected from marauding opponents. The game will be kept moving, goal-keepers will not be unfairly penalised under the new rule, considerable ill-feeling engendered by the many fierce attacks goal-keepers have been forced to endure will disappear and the referees’ task of interpreting the new rule will be made easier.