One thing that I am very serious about is Goal Safety. Because if you mess around with a goal, you are inviting disaster. Last season as a referee, I witnessed a young man break his arm when a goal he was hanging on collapsed on to him. He was lucky it wasn't his skull he broke.
The biggest thing that upset me about it was that he wasn't even a player in the game. He was an older sibling of one of the players. I had just blown the halftime whistle and the two teams were leaving the field. I started to walk to the sideline to gather the game ball and get a drink of water when I saw the young man run out on to the field and jump at the goal to hang on it. As I prepared to yell at him to stop BANG! down it came and him with it. It all happen that quickly.
As I ran over to help, I feared the worst. Just the previous week a young lady in Arkansas was killed by a falling goal post when she pulled down on it while hanging from it. Lucky for this young man, the crossbar had come down on his arm, breaking it. A few more inches to the right, it would have been his head.
Prior to the match, I had inspected the goal. It was secured down by eight 10 inch tie spikes. The young man's force had yanked all of the spikes out of the ground. But this is not uncommon, because most goal anchor systems are only designed to keep the goals stable during game conditions and wind, not a human body using it as a jungle gym.
I am proud to say that at GSL, we take goal safety extremely serious. We use some of the best anchoring systems out there - tie spikes with additional sand bags on all corners. However, even with this if there is a will there is a way. Plain and simple - children and adults SHOULD NEVER hang from or climb on a goal. As a referee, I warn all players and coaches that if I catch any of them being unsafe around a goal it is an immediate yellow card, second violation is a red card. Many of my fellow refs have the same philosophy.