Whatever Happened To... Nasal Strips?

Tunes, it seems, are not the only things that help you breathe more easily. For a short spell in the mid- to late-1990's, another ingenious device - some say a fad - proved just as adept at opening your nasal passages as the sweet lozenge of yore. Or was it?

Robbie Fowler was a Liverpool striker with an incredible talent for scoring goals, but one thing was letting him down - his ability to breathe in more air through his nose than he'd have liked. Despite the fact that his nostrils seemed perfectly capable of doing their job properly, he searched for a way to increase his 'intake yield.' *

What he found was the Breathe Right nasal strip, a "spring-like band" that sticks to the top of your nose and gently opens the nasal passages. For an all-too-brief spell back in the mid-90's, every athlete on earth seemed to be wearing one, all seemingly encouraged by their ability to take in more air during physical activity.

And so it was that Brer Fowler felt obliged to join the ranks of the world sporting elite who were decorating their noses with these funny-looking plasters. It was said that these nasal accoutrements improved air flow by 31% and even helped reduce snoring for those that were so afflicted. Sadly their introduction came too late to be tested on fans of Graham Taylor's England team, but their popularity was beyond question only a few years later and for many years hence.

As it is, there was much doubt poured on this revolution in assisted breathing, some claiming the whole thing to be complete hooey. Dr. Beat Villiger, a Swiss sports specialist invited by FIFA to test the viability of nasal strips, claimed that when the human body was really exerting itself, breathing usually switched from the nose to the mouth anyway, in order to pull in more air.

So in other words, the benefit of wearing one only became apparent if you were doing anything less than a full sprint. Or to put it another way, wearing a nasal strip was a way of telling people that you were so unfit, you needed a bit of help from a plaster to get you through 90 minutes of occasional exercise. Hardly surprising, then, that we don't see them worn much today.

That said, perhaps they just haven't been marketed right, or indeed aimed at the right people? For a device that gently opens up small apertures to improve performance, surely they could be worn on the anus to help TV commentators get more of their words out, or across the eye sockets to give World Cup hosting administrators a wider view of what's going on. Just a thought...

* Made up terminology.

-- Chris Oakley

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Whatever Happened To... Long Laces?

Doh!

This photograph is possibly one of the most famous football images of all time. The smallest of details seem burned into the subconscious - the Seiko advert in the background, the sloping roof of the executive boxes, the expressions of both participants, one sheer effort, the other a mix of panic and futility.

There is one small detail however, that most won’t even realise is there, but one which only people of a certain age would even understand. Look at both Maradona’s and Shilton’s boots. They’re both wearing Puma... Kings I believe. This is clear due to the large Puma logo down the side of the boot.

But wait. There’s something amiss with that logo, for it appears to have a large black line right through the middle. Now, those of us of that certain age can immediately say what it is. In fact, you can probably still smell the mud falling away as you recall achingly removing the boots from your feet after a hard fought 1-0. Or feel the crispness under your fingers as you came to put on those boots for the next match, the laces still caked in turf from last time, for as we all know that black line cleaving in twain the Puma logo, is a lace... a football boot lace.

In the days of personalised, lighter than air, Himalayan Camel leather boots with self-triggering air bags (probably), the concept of laces longer than the Great Wall of China wrapped several times under the sole of the boot is completely anathema. Boots these days only seem content when the laces are kept hidden, concealed beneath aerodynamic, bullet proof Kevlar panels (maybe). Try wrapping a lace round a boot these days and it’ll just about make it to the other side!

The most important question I feel is not so much, why don’t they still do this, but why on earth did they ever?  Why make laces so damn long you had to wrap them round the boot? I’m sure there was a logical reason for it – maybe old style boots just weren’t secure enough? Maybe it was a FIFA edict brought in after the infamous* 1974 Boot Loss Incident, where Chile took its entire team off the pitch against France after 2 of their players’ boots came off and the French players hid them and refused to give them back. The simple fact is, I don’t know why as when I started wearing boots they fitted perfectly and could easily have stayed on with normal length laces.

Yet another thing the modern game has deemed unnecessary, but frankly one whose absence, I think, has barely been noticed.

*made up

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