Following on from my earlier Goal! post, this one updates the Lyons Maid Goal! story and shares some more information for the enthusiast.

In my experience, your typical footie fan tends to know their stuff, particularly when it comes to their favourite team. It turns out that a particular advocate of Goal! knows his stuff about this lolly and got in touch to share some insight.

In my last note, I mentioned that a lolly buyer could invest some additional pocket money to buy a soccer pitch and play a five a side game with the collected sticks (subject to having eaten enough of the lollies to have the requisite number of players). I also mentioned that the sticks could be painted in the colours of opposing sides.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Lyons Maid spent a lot more time on formulating the game than just supplying a pitch. 

In typical seventies board game tradition, it turns out that a set of rules was created and other essential playing tools provided, in this case spinner disks representing referee calls as well as disks for play, strike and penalty decision making. The pitch had more than 100 playing positions so there was plenty of scope for the ten players on it to move around.

The rule sheet even included hints and tips on playing football from the legendary Kevin Keegan.

For your pleasure, I have attached a selection of images showing the rules and some evidence of how you could frame your Goal! collection if you were lucky enough to have all the elements.    

Click on images to enlarge
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I know that the lolly was called Goal! but, in my opinion, it also deserves the “Cool!” label. 
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Across the life of this website, there have been a number of Lyons Maid lolly related posts (see below for links).

It was actually some blog related dialogue between John and Tim about the Superman lolly that prompted this post about the Kevin Keegan endorsed “Goal!”. This product was launched a year before its Superman stable mate and, arguably, set the scene for what was to follow later.

Why, because the Kevin Keegan stick was the first plastic moulded character and its production success must have been the proof of concept that led to the more complex, much more expansive Superman project.

As a kid I had a Keegan stick, in fact I kept it in the same tin as my Superman superheroes. I didn’t remember there ever being more than one style of stick and there wasn’t any of the collector excitement that I experienced with Superman. To be frank, I don’t remember enjoying the tri-coloured lolly as much as the cola flavoured Superman either.

John’s comments prompted me to do some research to fill in the blanks in my knowledge.

Here’s what I learned:

The tri coloured lolly also represented three flavours; cream soda, pineapple and strawberry.     

​There was only one character and it was in the likeness of Keegan. Instead of collecting different figures, the idea behind Goal! was that kids could collect multiples of the same stick. Why would they want to do that? Well if they did, they could stage a football game. Think a lolly stick equivalent of “Striker” (by Parker Games) or “Subbuteo“ (both games were popular in the seventies).

Lyons Maid had a merchandising operation that, for an additional monetary consideration (25p), would supply a kid with a five-a-side football pitch. If the child wanted more realism, it could paint its sticks in the colour of its favourite teams and then have a competition.

​For my generation, Keegan was a legend (a real life superhero if you will), one the best, most well-known footballers ever. Lyons Maid capitalised on his popularity, packaged a product and advertised it hard. I have attached some imagery that I discovered through my research so that you can enjoy it too.

My Keegan stick is long lost, I haven’t seen one in decades and, whilst I would like a "Kevin" (he would be an honorary superhero), there isn’t the driving passion (as there was with Superman and his buddies) to find an example. But the lolly was still an absolute “goal” as far as I am concerned because look what it led to.

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Related posts
2012 Lyons-maid-supermans-superheroes-ice-lolly.html
04/12/2012 The-sequel-to-the-supermans-superheroes-stick-story
25/02/2015 Fantastic-plastic-perranporth-find
15/02/2017 First-class-ice-lolly-cool-cornwall-catwoman
10/03/2019 Lolly-stick-happiness
19/03/2019 Lyons-maid-supermans-superheroes-lolly-sticks-in-colour
19/03/2019 Lolly Legacy