‘I’m an ex-club doctor – footballers are risking injury with new equipment’

‘One player needed 50-plus stitches and plastic surgical repair and that was all from the bottom of the boot. It was as if someone had taken a Stanley knife down the side of his leg.’

Bob Sangar, a former club doctor for current League One side Wycombe Wanderers, has seen it all when it comes to football-related injuries. But one sticks out in his mind more than most.

‘He had kicked through the bottom of someone else’s boot and ended up with an injury just between the tongue of the boot and the bottom of the leg,’ he recalled.

‘It was just at the front of the ankle, but it was a deep enough cut that it opened straight up into the joint – when you looked in you could see his joint capsule moving around.’

Contact injuries within football are unavoidable but the damage can be grave. Modern-day boots are now equipped with longer and jagged orthogonal studs that can deliver deeper and more serious lacerations to a player.

Sangar, therefore, was left shocked when he discovered the flimsy – and in some cases laughable – shin pads that his players were using which, in theory, should provide a final layer of protection and reduce the probability of a bad tackle turning into a serious injury.

Jack Grealish may have popularised the low-sock, mini shin-pad look but hordes of other players, including fellow England international Conor Gallagher and Manchester United summer signing Joshua Zirkzee, now opt for shin pads no bigger than a bank card. Some use materials that could be torn apart with a bare hand.

‘A lot of players were wearing trimmed-down yoga mats,’ Sangar told Metro. ‘I had one player who is now in the Premier League who regularly used two bits of insoles that he had trimmed down as his shin pads – they didn’t even look equal.

The use of shinpads has been mandatory since 1990 and for good reason. A study by Dutch researcher Ingrid Vriend showed that proper shin pads reduced instances of lower-leg injuries by up to 25 per cent, while other studies have shown that they can lower the force of an impact by almost 20 per cent.

So why then, in the face of such evidence, do so many players opt for such small and inadequate protection? In the end, Sangar found out the answer was quite simple.

‘So many players would simply say they weren’t comfortable,’ he said. That’s because they are made with rigid material. As you run and your muscles move, it feels like it is moving.

‘Elite athletes have a lot of exteroception – they are very bodily aware. Even little things like the stitching or a label on a shirt or socks being too tight – all these things bother them.

‘If something is not making them feel right, they will make compromises in whatever way they can. One of those compromises, unfortunately, is on their shin pads.’

Determined to find a solution and better protect his players, Sangar decided to make his own shin pad back in early 2021, aiming to combine breathability and comfort with increased safety.

The final ‘Smart Armor’ product – a result of 18 months of testing and a six-figure sum of investment – is made using a special polymer that is flexible but hardens upon impact. Developed at Imperial College, London, the material is also used in NFL helmets and can withstand 10,000 life-changing impacts.

The geometric design of the shin pad allows it to mould to a player’s leg when heated up, with Leicester City midfielder Wilfred Ndidi and Bournemouth forward Antoine Semenyo two of the early adopters.

Building such a high-quality product was not a cheap endeavour – a 3D stainless steel mould crucial in the design process cost 15 grand alone – but Sangar is keen for his product to be accessible to as many players as possible, especially amateur players whose matches feature more contact injuries due to lower technical quality and poorer pitches.

‘Footballers are young people – they don’t necessarily consider the ramifications of an injury before it’s too late.

To that end, Sangar is encouraged that several amateur and grassroots clubs have already moved to ban the use of mini shin pads due to safety concerns but he is equally dumfounded by the lack of urgency from the game’s most senior bodies to regulate the use of such products in the professional ranks.

‘There’s a really stunning absence of direction coming from the Football Association and in particular IFAB (International Football Association Board),’ Sangar said.

‘It’s really odd that in this culture where we take injury so seriously with things like concussion, that IFAB and the FA haven’t issued any firm guidelines on what shinpads could conform to.’

Particularly concerning to Sangar is the rise of academy players who will wear mini shin-pads – often gifted to them by online sellers – despite the possibility of their career being whisked away in its infancy after one big injury.

‘I’ve looked after a number of younger players who get a few concussions in a row or one big injury and that’s that – their career is over,’ Sangar ended.

‘Footballers are young people and they don’t necessarily look forward to what the ramifications of an injury could be before it’s too late.

‘So it’s incumbent on us who have a more birds-eye-view of footballers to ensure that we support them. Shin pads are a part of it but it’s a really simple thing and if we can regulate this one thing then it’s a real problem.’

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