Chapter 12. The Proper Use of the Head

According to many critics there are just two things wrong with football. One is that the players don't make enough use of their heads. The other is that they use their heads too much. Those opinions aren't as Irish as they seem. What they really mean is that the players don't use their heads sufficiently for thinking purposes, and that as the game is played, they have to use them too much in dealing with the ball. In both directions there is truth in the observation.

There are plenty of players, young and not so young, who don't think about the game as much as they should. In this chapter I am not concerned with that. There isn't much doubt, on the other hand, that too much of our football is played with the ball in the air, resulting in a considerable amount of head-work. It is also true to say that lower down the scale the ball spends more time travelling through the air rather than along the ground. Even if it is correct, however, that so far as learners of the game are concerned, there is too much kicking the ball hard and running after it at top speed, the young players need not be criticized unduly. The fellow who is learning to drive a motor-car crashes the gears. The footballer in the first stages of learning, crashes the ball.

Higher up the scale, players who have long passed the learning stage are inclined to give the ball too much air, calling for the use of the head rather than the feet. Perhaps in time to come, when floodlit matches become more common, the ball will be kept closer to the ground. To-day the flood-lighting arrangements are such that the ball is 'lost' to the players when it is put high into the air. Let us hope that there will be no rearrangement of the lighting which will enable the players to see the ball just as well when it is in the clouds as when it is comparatively close to the ground. Some people are so upset, however, about the up in the air play that they would go to the length of barring the use of the head. Whether it would be a good thing for the game if it became more literally football, and less head-ball, is a question which can be left to the Brains' Trust. We have to accept things as they exist, and the proper use of the head to the ball is one of the things which have to be learnt. Let me add that the game would certainly lack some of its charm if a law was passed which made heading the ball an offence.

Few football incidents give greater pleasure than the occasions when the centre-forward goes up for the ball, as it is pushed over from the wing, rises to his full height, and then, perfectly timing the application of the head, sends the ball into the net with as much speed and accuracy as he could have done with either foot.

But such a shot needs something more than speed and timing - extraordinary skill. Effective heading of the ball is difficult. And the difficulty arises because, in the first place, heading a football is not nearly such a natural process as kicking it. Much more natural is it for the young player to be frightened of the ball when the occasion arises for the head to be applied. Unless the young player of to-day differs from the young player of my time, he will, in the first place, have to overcome the natural tendency to try to head the ball with his eyes shut. Of course, it can't properly be achieved like that. So in learning how to master the art of heading, priority should be given to taking fear out of the task.

If I had a team of boys in my care - from the very beginning-I would certainly bar the use of the head to the ball in the very early stages. Unless the head is properly used in contact, the ball can hurt. It is a truism to say that any action which is associated with pain gives rise to fear. I would start the lads off with a soft ball - a rubber ball without leather casing. With such a ball fear would disappear, and the habit would soon be formed of heading the ball while the eyes remained on it. In due course, the ordinary football could be used, but for practice purposes it would be better that the ball should not be blown up too tight.

If you have a spare room, where a ball can be dangled from a piece of string in the ceiling, it can be turned to good purpose in learning how to head the ball properly. Another helpful form of practising heading is to take the ball on to a spare piece of ground and see how many times in succession it can be headed into the air. This is the best way I know of getting the habit of keeping the eyes on the ball up to the actual instant of contact.

Even top-ranking professionals, realizing the importance of heading practice, can often be seen out in the middle, during their mid-week preparation, in groups of three or four, heading the ball this way and that to each other, counting as they do so the number of times one head or the other is used without letting the ball go to earth. The point should be stressed that this form of heading practice is mainly habit-forming. It calls for the head being set back in order that the ball can be kept in the air. In actual play the ball has mostly to be headed downwards, or in such a way that it moves towards its intended target.

Here we come to another natural fault which has to be cured - that of tucking the head into the shoulders as the ball comes in contact with it. Try, without a ball, twisting the head this way and that, with the head tucked in. The movement of the head is restricted, isn't it? Now go through the same process with the neck at its full stretch. The movement either way is much freer. It is the flick of the head, at the moment of impact, which can direct the ball to the desired place, and also apply the sometimes necessary force. Exercises which strengthen the muscles of the neck will serve their purpose in helping to master the art of heading the ball properly.

The forehead and the temples are the parts to use to give the ball direction. Indeed, the top of the head only comes into deliberate use to 'slide' the ball by way of a pass to a colleague behind the player who is doing the heading. From time to time it does happen, in the course of play, that a footballer will have to head the ball as he can, not as he wills. He takes the hard-driven ball on the top of his head, and out he goes as completely as the boxer who has taken a fierce blow on the vulnerable part of the chin. Some heads are harder than others.

There were several reasons why I admired that great fullback Eddie Hapgood during the years in which I played with him. Particularly, however, did I admire Eddie for the fact that he refused to shield his 'soft head' when the necessity arose. Yet it was nearly certain that if Hapgood used his head to a heavy ball, driven hard in his direction, he would immediately go down for the count. This wonderful full-back could have been excused if he had permitted the consequences of heading the ball to affect his play. He must have been as much afraid of the ball going to his head as any boy starting on his football career. Indeed, his head was so susceptible to injury that at one stage of his career the idea was given serious consideration of converting him from a full-back to a winger, where he would have been able to use his head almost exclusively for thinking purposes. But Eddie stuck it at full-back to pick up dozens of International caps. He has a place to himself in my memory as the only player I ever saw score a goal with a penalty 'kick', with his head. Taking a penalty for his side, Eddie drove the ball within reach of the goalkeeper, who punched it straight back to him - hard. Hapgood headed it back - also hard - into the net.

The legs are connected with heading, too. If two rival players go up together with the object of heading the ball, obviously the one who gets highest into the air is the one most likely to get to it. So it is worth while to practice the jump and heading at the same time. There are odd players who somehow or other - I have never quite been able to decide how they do it - get high in the air and then, for a split second, seem to be poised there, and with neck at full stretch head the ball where they want it to go. Watch Nat Lofthouse if you get the chance, and you will see what I mean.

Don't be afraid of the ball. It won't hurt if the timing is right. Keep the eyes open, and on the ball. These are the main things which make for mastery in the art of heading. In this phase of the game there is, perhaps, the greatest gap between the various grades of football. The way to narrow that gap can be written in huge capitals - PRACTICE. Get down to this heading practice early, too. I have frequently been asked, by ambitious players anxious to catch the eye of the scouts, what these experts really look for in the budding player. Opinions differ, of course, but I know one good judge of a footballer who has ideas in that direction which are connected with heading. Manager Jimmy Seed, of Charlton Athletic, declares that the first point, on which he makes a note, when watching a young player, is the use he makes of his head in connection with the ball. This manager says that as the result of long experience he has come to the conclusion that the player who has mastered the art of heading can generally be accepted as having acquired also the gift of ball control on the ground.

To talk of mastering the ball with the head may be a new line to many. That is good reason for allowing the thought to sink in deeper. There is the nod of the ball, this way or that. There is the full-blooded header, not best done, as many people suppose, by leaning the body backwards and bringing the head forward. Force is much more easily applied when the body is in line with the head. The shoulders have a part in heading at its best.

Connected with heading, of course, even at the bottom of it at its best, is proper timing. I expect you have seen more than one sensational goal headed by a player who has flung himself forward like a catapult to meet a ball with his head at precisely the right moment. That takes a bit of doing. All correct heading takes a bit of doing. The most amazing headed goal I ever saw was scored by Charlie Buchan, playing for Sunderland against Blackburn Rovers. We players of the Rovers knew all about Buchan's heading habit; how very dangerous he could be, for instance, when the ball came across high from the corner-flag. 'Don't worry,' said 'Aussie' Campbell, the Rovers wing half-back. 'Leave Charlie to me when they have a corner-kick'. In due course, there came the corner-kick to Sunderland. In accordance with his promise, Campbell took up position close to 'Big Charlie', near the Rovers goal. The ball floated into the penalty area head high; Campbell's ball, so he thought. Then the near miracle happened. Buchan, with Campbell still between him and the ball, stretched his neck out over Campbell's shoulder and met it perfectly. Into the net it went. Campbell's body was still nearer to goal than Buchan's head. After the game 'Aussie' had his leg pulled. He was teased about his marking of Buchan. Still wondering how it had happened, he eventually summed it up thus: 'That fellow isn't a footballer', he said. 'He's a bloomin' giraffe'.

Buchan had stretched his neck to the full extent, had timed the movement of the head perfectly.