At last, offside explained for everyone.....

[Barry the bird boggler]

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-of-sport/offside-rule-explained-back-50p-coin-124232757.html#more-id

It's confused football fans for years, but now the offside rule has been explained on the back of a 50p coin.

The Royal Mint has issued the coin as part of a commemorative series to celebrate the 2012 Olympics.

One coin has been issued for each of the 29 sports to be competed at the Games this summer, with the designs chosen after a nationwide competition.

You can see all the coins right here with this superb slideshow put together by our colleagues at Yahoo! Finance.

But it is the football coin which has drawn the most attention, with its brilliantly simple illustration explaining the offside rule with just a few easily-understood symbols.

The design was the brainchild of Neil Wolfson, a production journalist from London, who had the bright idea of illustrating the beautiful game not with a stylised action picture but with a reference to one of the sport's perennial talking points.

Other highlights from the collection include the beautifully-dramatic canoeing and modern pentathlon coins, and the cartoon high-jumper on the athletics coin designed by nine-year-old Florence Harper from Bristol.

All the coins can be bought direct from the Royal Mint for £2.99 each, not great value compared to the face value of the contents, but not bad value way for those who don't want to take their chances waiting for a particular coin to turn up in their change.


Wonder who will be the first comedian to "give" one of these 50p coins to a linesman after a contentious offside decision

[On High]

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-of-sport/offside-rule-explained-back-50p-coin-124232757.html#more-id

It's confused football fans for years, but now the offside rule has been explained on the back of a 50p coin.

The Royal Mint has issued the coin as part of a commemorative series to celebrate the 2012 Olympics.

One coin has been issued for each of the 29 sports to be competed at the Games this summer, with the designs chosen after a nationwide competition.

You can see all the coins right here with this superb slideshow put together by our colleagues at Yahoo! Finance.

But it is the football coin which has drawn the most attention, with its brilliantly simple illustration explaining the offside rule with just a few easily-understood symbols.

The design was the brainchild of Neil Wolfson, a production journalist from London, who had the bright idea of illustrating the beautiful game not with a stylised action picture but with a reference to one of the sport's perennial talking points.

Other highlights from the collection include the beautifully-dramatic canoeing and modern pentathlon coins, and the cartoon high-jumper on the athletics coin designed by nine-year-old Florence Harper from Bristol.

All the coins can be bought direct from the Royal Mint for £2.99 each, not great value compared to the face value of the contents, but not bad value way for those who don't want to take their chances waiting for a particular coin to turn up in their change.


Wonder who will be the first comedian to "give" one of these 50p coins to a linesman after a contentious offside decision

Got one of these a couple of days ago - I thought it was a joke at first but then saw the Olympic logo

[Barry the bird boggler]

Refs are getting upset with this coin as although technically correct the "player" being indicated as offside is only offside if he is deemed interefering with play (which, to be fair I think most normal fans understand)...

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-of-sport/refs-cry-foul-over-50p-explains-offside-115836370.html

The new 50p coin which explains the offside rule has been blasted by refereeing experts as "confusing" and "totally out of date".

Referees have got themselves in a lather over what they claim is an incorrect representation of the law on the coin, which was released as one of 29 types of commemorative 50p pieces celebrating the different sports being contested at the London Olympics and Paralympics.

The nifty design on the coin - dreamt up by journalist Neil Wolfson - shows with a few simple symbols what constitutes the offside rule.

Yet referees are arguing that it is incorrect, since 1995 the 'offside' player does not have to be penalised unless he is "interfering with play, or interfering with an opponent, or by gaining an advantage by being in that position".

And some refs are livid at the oversimplification.

"The public will assume this has been thoroughly checked, but sadly it's totally out of date," Referees' Association member Mal Davies told The Guardian.

"On parks pitches it will just encourage players to keep pressurising officials to blow the whistle immediately any time a player is in an offside position - and to abuse them when they don't."

To anybody who is not a referee, it might be pretty obvious that the back of a 27.3mm coin probably isn't the place to debate the intricacies and controversies of the law's application.

And in any case, the coin's designer has rather brilliantly skewered the officials' argument with a piece of logic worthy of a 'Yes, Minister' script:

"With all due respect, I reject Mal Davies's interpretation of the coin (rather than his interpretation of the offside law)," Wolfson said.

"Nowhere on the coin does it say that the 'offside' player is committing an offence — that is a supposition entirely of Mal's creation.

"The coin simply states that the player is 'offside' — which is true, irrespective of whether or not an 'offside offence' results from this scenario."

[RobRoyal]

As the coin's designer said, though, the player actually is offside, it's just that we don't know from the diagram whether or not he is committing an offence.

[Bandini]

The arrow is indicating that the ball is being played towards the player whilst he is in an offside position. I think it's a reasonable assumption to make that he's active.

[Simon's Church]

Mal Davies must think that 'the public' has a combined IQ of about 18.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Mal Davies must think that 'the public' has a combined IQ of about 18.

To be fair, any parks playing whipping out a 50p coin to show the ref he's wrong would probably be pleased to have an IQ that high.

[Barry the bird boggler]

The sad thing is though that people like that actually exist and are out there....

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

The sad thing is though that people like that actually exist and are out there....

even sadder is that one or two of them get jobs as tv pundits.