FOOTBALL SHIRT NUMBERS

Is it just me who is irritated by the trend in football shirt numbers? In the old days it was simple; there were eleven people on each side, and they had the numbers 1 to 11, starting with the goalie and ending up with the left wing. The one substitute allowed had the number 12. Now however there are "squads", so numbers go from one to perhaps 40. It's all very confusing.

Other sports don't do this. Both forms of rugby have numbers from 1 to 13 or 15 (though, somewhat oddly, rugby league starts with the fullback, whereas rugby union ends with him). Cricket doesn't have any numbers at all, at least in the test match version. The exception seems to be American sports, where everybody has personalised numbers anywhere between 1 and 100. Some numbers, belonging to particularly famous players, even get "retired". It is this trend that is moving across to European football.

The reason, as with most things American, is money. It's much more difficult to market a Cristiano Ronaldo number 7 Real Madrid shirt to hundreds of thousands of football-mad kids, if he keeps changing his shirt number. That never seemed to be a problem with (say) George Best, who always wore a number 7 shirt. But I suppose the stakes are higher today.

Anyway, as I say, I find it irritating when a football player has the number 32 on his back. I must be getting old.

Walter Blotscher