Arsene Wenger and The Kick Ins

I doubt that Arsene Wenger watched much non-League football in England during the 1994-95 season – he was managing Monaco in France and Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan during those years – so he will have missed the experiment conducted in the Isthmian League (then known by its sponsor’s name, the Diadora League) that season when kick-ins were trialled as an alternative to the throw-in.

Arsene Wenger

It wasn’t just in England that kick-ins were trialled. They had been tried previously in Japan, and further trials took place in Belgium and Hungary alongside the Diadora League experiment. Whatever the Belgians and Hungarians thought of it, they can’t have been keen, as the experiment did not lead to the universal adoption of the idea. The Diadora League clubs had to complete a questionnaire at the end of the season, from which it had become clear that managers didn’t like them, players didn’t like them, and fans didn’t like them.

A kick-in taken during the Chertsey Town v Dorking Diadora League match in 1994-95

As a keen student of the game, I would have thought that Arsene Wenger would have done his research into the experiments with kick-ins though, but if he has, there is no reference to it in press reports of his proposal – which the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the body responsible for football’s laws – have agreed to trial (again).

What’s wrong with kick-ins? you may ask. After all, it’s football we are talking about, does it not make sense for the ball to be returned to play from the touchline with the foot, rather than with the hand? Maybe, but the fact that the previous experiment with the idea was quickly abandoned suggests that there are issues with it.

I confess to not having watched any Diadora League football during the 1994-95 season (my football watching was confined to the Essex Senior League with Romford and the Football League with Leyton Orient that season), so I do not have first hand experience of seeing the kick-in in action, but everything that I have read on the subject suggests that it was a resounding failure. In fact, it was so unpopular with some, that then St Albans City manager Alan Cockram threatened to sack any of his players who adopted the kick-in.

Rory Delap of Stoke City launches a long throw into the opposition penalty area. Cynics say that the problems these throws caused Arsenal back in the day are responsible for Arsene Wenger's thinking!

A major drawback with kick-ins was that many teams simply took them as a means of lumping the ball into the opposition penalty area, reducing games to a constant stream of aerial penalty area battles, particularly with there being no offside from a throw-in, and therefore not from a kick-in, either. In a similar way, an experiment with not having offsides from free-kicks, conducted in the Alliance Premier League (now the National League) in England in the 1990s, was another abject failure as it resulted in a tedious procession of long free-kicks hoofed into the opposition penalty area with a dozen or more players crowding the goalkeeper as they fought for the ball. In one game that I saw at Enfield featuring this rule, virtually every free-kick pumped into the box resulted in a free-kick to the defending team for a foul on the goalkeeper. The experiment was abandoned after a season.

Kick-ins at most levels of the game are unlikely to improve the game as a spectacle; quite the opposite in fact. In the rarefied atmosphere of the Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A, kick-ins will probably work. Teams in the top leagues across the world generally want to keep the ball on the ground and pass, so kick-ins are likely to be quick, short, and aimed at keeping possession. The idea that kick-ins will speed up the game may even work in those leagues, but those leagues only represent a tiny fraction of the global game, and in more pedestrian levels of the game the effect will be quite the opposite, as teams delay taking kick-ins while their players trot into the opposition penalty area, before delivering a high ball into the box.

IFAB seem to tinker with some aspect of football’s laws almost incessantly; I can’t think of any other sport that does so, so frequently. Some changes are better than others. Sin bins in grassroots football have proven successful in reducing dissent; changes to the offside law and handball have been less popular. Goal-line technology has fitted in pretty seamlessly, but VAR has raised almost as many problems (some would say more) as it has solved, so you must pardon my scepticism about kick-ins, especially in light of the failed experiment of thirty years ago.

I have similar reservations about the idea that has been mooted on more than one occasion – and which has raised its head again recently – that football matches should be reduced to two halves of thirty-minutes each, but with the clock stopping whenever the ball goes out of play.

The most famous clock in English football was at Highbury. 

The rationale behind the idea is sound; in the average Premier League match the ball is in play for fewer than 60 of the allotted 90 minutes, but adopting the idea raises a number of questions. How long is the elapsed time between kick-off and final whistle likely to be? In the Premier League, where the ball is returned fairly quickly, it could be that a game lasts no longer than it currently does, end to end. Elsewhere, in non-League and park football, where retrieving the ball can take longer and other delays inevitably ensue, it may be much longer. Not knowing the approximate time that a game ends will bring its own set of issues for players, fans, and officials.

In the 1930s, Arsenal had a clock that showed game time, but it was banned by The FA

Another question is, who keeps time? Sports like American football and ice hockey have taken responsibility for keeping time away from the on pitch officials, and no doubt, football would want to do the same. Which would work fine in the game’s top echelons, but not so well in grassroots football where not all games even have a neutral referee, and finding someone to keep time would be difficult and the absence of a game-time clock would create its own issue. Giving a hard-pressed park football referee (especially a club volunteer) the additional responsibility of stopping and restarting their watch to ensure 60 minutes of actual play seems onerous and unreasonable.

As an aside, I was at a game last season where the unexpected amount of additional time played at the end of one half was attributed by some people to have arisen from the referee having neglected to restart his watch after a lengthy stoppage for an injury. One would worry that if the referee was sole timekeeper and had to ensure 60 minutes play by constantly stopping and restarting their watch, this might become commonplace.

Despite my doubts, Arsene Wenger’s kick-ins idea may turn out to be a success, but honestly, given the failure of the previous experiment, I feel it will likely prove the aphorism that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.