If you are preparing to play a league soccer game, you typically need to place two shields made of fiberglass in the front of your socks to protect your shins. Models include simple oval guards and longer versions with attached ankle guards. Over the centuries, shinguards have come in and out of style, as soccer vacillates between being a highly physical contact sport and a beautiful game involving finesse.
Invention
In 1874 England, Nottingham Forest player Sam Widdowson inaugurated the use of soccer shinguards by cutting down a pair of cricket shin pads and wearing them outside his socks. They were held in place with straps made of leather, according to the "Encyclopedia of British Football." Not all players wore them; a history of the London-based pro team Arsenal notes just two or three of the club's 11 players wore shinguards, while the "majority had short socks untidily drooping down the leg," writes Bernard Joy in "Forward, Arsenal!"
Trickery
Around 1890, Ernest Bambridge of the Swifts soccer team in Slough, England, seemed certain to miss a crucial cup game due to a broken leg. To the consternation of Arsenal players, he drove up at the last minute wearing a white shinguard on one leg. "Those were the wholesome hacking days, and long before the end the shinguard was covered with marks," Joy writes in his history of Arsenal. Bambridge scored the winning goal, and it was revealed that he had worn the shinguard on his healthy leg as bait, with the injured leg unprotected.
Post-war Years
In Brazil, observed in 1949 and 1951 by visiting Arsenal players, a stylish game of short passes prevailed then as now, and "there is so little tackling that shinguards are rarely worn," Joy relates. In Europe as well, a socks-down style without shinguards prevailed in the 1950s and 1960s, writes Tulane University School of Medicine professor, HIV researcher and soccer aficionado Richard Witzig in "The Global Art of Soccer." International stars such as Michel Platini, George Best and even Pele disdained shinguards. Peruvian star Teofilo Cubillas, who played in Europe for Porto and later for pro teams in Florida, never wore shinguards, stating he didn't feel the same control of the ball.
Revival
Hard play came back into fashion in the 1980s. Shinguards became larger and featured protectors for the ankle and Achilles tendon, but this took away from the skill of the game, Witzig notes. Latin stars including Argentina's Diego Maradona and Brazil's Pele, the target of slower defenders, began their careers disdaining shinguards. Both migrated over time to wearing shinguards for self-preservation.
Regulations
In 1990, FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, began to require shinguards at professional matches, as rumors circulated that FIFA was motivated by a fear of HIV transmission from bloodied legs. Witzig speculates that the new shinguard requirement helped Germany with its power soccer style win the 1990 World Cup. Brazil quickly figured out how to play in shinguards, winning the 1994 World Cup. Since that time, Brazil's national team had adopted modern, lighter shinguards, many just 6 inches long, to permit creative and masterful control of the ball.
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