By RUSSELL BENNETT
A SIMPLE question Syd Pargeter’s older brother posed to him a few years ago has spawned what could be the most exciting development in football boot design in recent times.
“He used to watch a lot of football – soccer, Aussie Rules, everything – and he said to me one day ‘when they get a free kick in front of goal, why do they so often spray it wide?’,” Mr Pargeter said.
“I’d played footy since I was a kid and I thought that was a bloody good question so I thought about it to see if I could give him an answer.”
Mr Pargeter – an 85-year-old former mayor of Berwick who has a sports and recreation reserve named after him in Endeavour Hills – took his search for a solution to a whole new level.
He has designed, and received an official patent for his own football boot – tentatively named The Accurate Football Kicker.
Mr Pargeter said he was told by senior patent examiners at the Australian Patent Office that his boot had the potential to change the world of football forever.
But there’s a hitch – he has so far been unable to get a boot-maker to alter several pairs of footy boots to enable test trials to demonstrate his claims that these reshaped boots will greatly improve kicking accuracy.
On the outside, Mr Pargeter’s boot design is very similar to the Concave football boot – designed to increase the sweet spot to maximise the area of the boot that makes contact with the ball.
But it’s on the inside that Mr Pargeter’s boot is potentially game-changing.
“When a player kicks a powerful kick, what happens to the air inside? It compresses and the sides pop out,” Mr Pargeter said.
“I don’t know why people have been so slow to do something about keeping them in.
“I got some straps to bring them up the top and either lace or Velcro them up – these are inside the boot itself.”
The inward curves allow for much better surface contact with football giving the kicker better directional control – particular at goal kicking.
Mr Pargeter’s boot could theoretically be used to improve the kicking of Aussie Rules, soccer or rugby players.
But it’s wayward kicking for goal by Aussie Rules forwards that’s his real bugbear.
He’s now appealing to the likes of Nike, Adidas and Puma to help make his patent a reality.
He desperately wants a manufacturer to build a prototype boot out of some he has had donated from local soccer and Aussie Rules players.
If Mr Pargeter’s patented design becomes a reality, it could be worth big money. But that’s not why he wants to see it pan out. He just wants an answer to his brother’s question.
“I want someone like Steve Johnson from Geelong to try it out!” he said.
Syd Pargeter OAM is a former ruckman who had Neil ‘Nipper’ Tresize as his rover, and who played against Geelong champion Bob Davis.
Anyone who could help Mr Pargeter on his mission should send an email to sport@starnewsgroup.com.au.
