BACK in the mists of Mersey time there were two words that kids playing football on our patch of concrete and tarmac - lamp-posts for goal-posts, not jumpers - hated with a Biblical-type vengeance.

It was a sneering phrase that used to provoke the same sort of blind fury that Samuel L Jackson's Pulp Fiction character Jules Winnfield could summon.

Nowadays those two words would be 'Gary Neville' - what a butting dunderhead he turned out to be during the all-Manchester FA Cup derby. But that is now. Way back then the brace of words to raise hackles to over crossbar height were 'goal hanger'.

There was nothing worse than running your tripes off in the nightly pell-mell push for the ball only to then find some bone idle striker anchored barely feet from the goal ready to apply a finishing touch to so many others' hard work.

I well remember one lad, who would do just that every flaming game and then when he had scored would dash off at a breakneck pace otherwise anonymous during the contest to lap up the acclaim for his dubious opportunism. But to the rest of the combatants, especially his opponents and probably even his own team-mates, his feat was nothing less than that of a sneak thief. Goal hanging then was akin to a capital offence in Scouse street football.

So fast forward some 40 years on and what do we now find. The modern-day game has been besmirched by the offence that four decades earlier would have faces contorted in rage.

And it's FIFA, football's very own law-makers yet again displaying their unique wisdom and vision, who are promoting the very idea of goal hanging.

The 'new' interpretation of the offside law is behind the latest outbreak of an unwanted football fever. Twisting the offside law yet further from 'not interfering with play' to having 'daylight' between attacker and defender, the new variation effectively means that you can be stood offside - by yards, and I do stress yards, let alone daylight - and still not be deemed offside.

One of the greatest strengths of football is its simplicity. Never mind the beautiful game, it is the simple game, yet FIFA are contrarily contriving to over-complicate it. Maybe they feel threatened by the new-found popularity of rugby union and have opted to match that sport by fogging the national game in a blur of rules and offences that perplex avid union followers.

If FIFA want to encourage attacking play then this is precisely the wrong way to go about it. So far attacking teams have benefited, most notably Carling Cup finalists Bolton when they ran Leicester City ragged with their tactical placing of players in 'offside' positions.

But coaches will not be slow to cotton on and rather than open the game to more goals, what's the betting that defences will simply retreat towards the cover of the goal in more saturated numbers at a set-piece so that before a ball is kicked the six-yard box is as congested as the M25 on a Bank Holiday Monday.

No-one is immune to that sagging feeling when your team's attack strays offside. But for close on a century the sport has thrived without too much intervention. Leave the tinkering to Claudio Ranieri's management of his Chelsea set.

If a player is offside, then he's damn well offside otherwise there's going to be much gnashing of teeth and wailing of cries in the goal hangers' paradise.

YESTERDAY, the Evening Press sadly reported on the death of former York City striker Steve Cooper.

'Coops' died at the age of 39 and his passing eerily echoed the deaths at a young age of two other players of the modern City era, David Longhurst and Keith Walwyn.

Cooper's time as a City player was brief, around 14 months. But the man, who perfected a gravity-defying somersault as his goal celebration way before your LuaLua's and Keane's, made a significant impact during his stay as a Minsterman. He leapt right into the fans' affections.

On and off the field Cooper was an unquenchable character, who never gave less than the maximum. City were privileged to have him on their books.

Updated: 11:16 Tuesday, February 17, 2004