It helps when footballers use their heads

It helps when footballers use their heads

When Peter Crouch rose above the Hull defence to head home the winner for Stoke at the Britannia Stadium a couple of weeks ago, he was also heading himself into the record books.

It was the lanky centre forward’s 46th headed goal in the Premier League, matching the previous record held by Alan Shearer.

No one would say that Crouch was the best header of the ball in the Premier League. In fact he is far from it. But he certainly uses his height to optimum advantage. Crouch is by no means a one-trick pony however, having scored a total of 95 goals in the Premier League.

There is an inbuilt feeling that if a footballer is exceptionally tall, although he may be good in the air, the odds are that he will be pretty useless on the ground. Crouch can look awkward at times, but he is generally quite skilful with his feet. Hence he has  made the “good feet for a big man” cliché his very own.

Crouch is the only one of the players in the top ten list of headed goals still actively playing in the top flight. In third place is Dion Dublin with 45, followed by Les Ferdinand (40), and Dwight Yorke (38). Then comes Duncan Ferguson and Teddy Sheringham who both scored 36 headed goals in the Premier League.

Making up the top 10 is Australian Tim Cahill, currently in the Chinese league, with 31 successful headers, followed by Robbie Fowler (28) and Andrew Cole (27).

A player who is growing increasingly effective with his heading ability is Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney. Despite his relatively short height, he has developed a great jump, which combined with his sense of timing is paying off.

In his early days, Rooney was not known for his heading. Then in 2010 he made a special effort to improve his heading skills.

He had a remarkable run later that season when he scored seven successive goals with his head. This was a player who in his previous 342 top flight appearances had only scored with his head four times.

“It’s coming off my bald patch,” he joked at the time. Rooney no longer has a bald patch, but he is still regularly scoring headers both for England and United.

Another current great header of the ball is Real Madrid’s Ronaldo, although it rarely gets mentioned because of all his other skills.

The best header of the ball I ever saw in action was Scotland and Man U’s Denis Law in the 1960s. He was even smaller than Rooney but had a tremendous leap and wonderful timing. Some of his headers were as fierce as if they had come from his feet. He was also very accurate and was never afraid to jump for a ball against some of the giant defenders of that era.

Heading the ball is definitely an art and also requires considerable courage as is witnessed every week. Hardly a game goes by without a bloody clash of heads at some time in the match.

Of course, the modern ball does help with headers. The current lightweight balls are a far cry from the old leather version with laces, which existed up to the early 1960s. The leather would soak up the water and on rainy days with muddy pitches, the ball would become incredibly heavy. It was like trying to head one of granny’s Christmas puddings.

In those days it was not unknown for players to be knocked out or at least severely concussed if they misheaded the ball. And if they were unfortunate enough to head the laces they bore the marks for months to come.

Everton and England legend Tommy Lawton used to say the great Stanley Matthews was so precise with his crosses that he ensured the laces were facing away from a teammate who was going to head the ball. Lawton was a fine header of the ball and his contemporaries claimed he could even put top spin on the ball when he connected.

But widely regarded as the best header of the ball was Lawton’s predecessor at Goodison Park, the great Dixie Dean. The Merseyside star scored an amazing 473 goals from 502 games. Dean, whose record of 60 goals in one season is unlikely to be ever matched, could shoot with both feet, but it was his power in the air that really stood out. It is estimated that almost half of his goals came from headers. Teammates reckoned Dixie could head the ball harder than many players could kick it.

Apart from his uncanny timing, one of the reasons Dean was so successful with his headers was his ability to leap above the defenders. When he was in the mood, he could jump onto a snooker table from a standing position. Sir Matt Busby said of Dean: “He could out-jump, out-time and out-head any defender.”

Dean’s efforts were all the more remarkable because he suffered from a skull fracture after a motorcycle accident and played with metal plates in his head.

One slightly unusual headed goal was scored by Arsenal’s Eddie Hapgood against Liverpool at Anfield in 1935. His penalty was saved by the ’keeper but the ball rebounded straight back to Hapgood who was still standing on the penalty spot and he headed it home.

So Hapgood could always claim he scored from the penalty spot with his head, a good candidate for a trivia quiz.

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