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| Footballs' strange swerves get a spin from Salford | Footballs' strange swerves get a spin from Salford |
| (8 days later) | |
| While Manchester knuckles its brains over that red card last night, Salford has chipped in with some interesting football research. | While Manchester knuckles its brains over that red card last night, Salford has chipped in with some interesting football research. |
| They're less concerned with high-flying footballers than with strangely-flying footballs – the much discussed phenomenon of unexpected twists and swerves in the air. | They're less concerned with high-flying footballers than with strangely-flying footballs – the much discussed phenomenon of unexpected twists and swerves in the air. |
| A Salford study has just won the annual Catherine Richards prize for the best paper published in Mathematics Today, which is much more absorbing than some may feel – just like that excellent Radio 4 programme on numbers and statistics, More or Less. Led by Dr Edmund Chadwick, a group of aeronautics researchers found that modern footballs can be spun in much the same way as cricket balls have been time out of mind. As they put it: | A Salford study has just won the annual Catherine Richards prize for the best paper published in Mathematics Today, which is much more absorbing than some may feel – just like that excellent Radio 4 programme on numbers and statistics, More or Less. Led by Dr Edmund Chadwick, a group of aeronautics researchers found that modern footballs can be spun in much the same way as cricket balls have been time out of mind. As they put it: |
| Aspiring Premier League stars can gain just as much from studying Wasim Akram as Gareth Bale, because cricket-style reverse swerve is an important factor in how modern footballs behave in the air. | Aspiring Premier League stars can gain just as much from studying Wasim Akram as Gareth Bale, because cricket-style reverse swerve is an important factor in how modern footballs behave in the air. |
| The behaviour is a result – apparently unintended – of rough surfaces designed to make footballs go faster. The aerodynamics are uncannily similar to those of a cricket ball which has been used for 40 overs or more. If a skilful player puts a lot of spin on a football, similar to its forward velocity, a pressure difference leads to aerial bending and swerves. Older footballs could not be used in this way because their seams and smooth surfaces led to a different flow of air. Simulations are the next step, to recreate particularly famous aberrations, and the group is hopeful that they may eventually exonerate Robert Green from his 'howler' against the USA in 2010. Dr Chadwick says: | The behaviour is a result – apparently unintended – of rough surfaces designed to make footballs go faster. The aerodynamics are uncannily similar to those of a cricket ball which has been used for 40 overs or more. If a skilful player puts a lot of spin on a football, similar to its forward velocity, a pressure difference leads to aerial bending and swerves. Older footballs could not be used in this way because their seams and smooth surfaces led to a different flow of air. Simulations are the next step, to recreate particularly famous aberrations, and the group is hopeful that they may eventually exonerate Robert Green from his 'howler' against the USA in 2010. Dr Chadwick says: |
| There was a lot of talk about altitude and the ball being too round at the time of the 2010 World Cup, but we've seen with that ball and its successors the addition of rough surfaces to increase speed also makes the ball more unpredictable. Applying too much spin will cause movement that the player did not intend and, while this can be beneficial in fooling goalkeepers, it certainly reduces accuracy when striking the ball hard. Better players will need to adjust their games to these new balls. | There was a lot of talk about altitude and the ball being too round at the time of the 2010 World Cup, but we've seen with that ball and its successors the addition of rough surfaces to increase speed also makes the ball more unpredictable. Applying too much spin will cause movement that the player did not intend and, while this can be beneficial in fooling goalkeepers, it certainly reduces accuracy when striking the ball hard. Better players will need to adjust their games to these new balls. |
| The research findings are novel but Chadwick's conclusion of how to both cope with them and use them to cunning effect echoes schoolteachers down the centuries. He concludes: | The research findings are novel but Chadwick's conclusion of how to both cope with them and use them to cunning effect echoes schoolteachers down the centuries. He concludes: |
| Like much else in sport that will ultimately come down to practice. | Like much else in sport that will ultimately come down to practice. |
| The paper, Reverse swerve - a new phenomenon in football by Edmund Chadwick, Thurai Rahulan and Yu Wang may be obtained from the university's school of computing, science and engineering. | The paper, Reverse swerve - a new phenomenon in football by Edmund Chadwick, Thurai Rahulan and Yu Wang may be obtained from the university's school of computing, science and engineering. |
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