Netting for football goal post

Abstract

A netting material attached to a football goal post where the netting is secured at the upper two corners to the back side of the vertical uprights to provide a slack loose netting attachment behind the goal pots to collect successfully kicked footballs kicked between the uprights and the horizontal crossbar. A plurality of retainer ties are secured to the vertical border of the netting and loosely looped around the adjacent vertical upright, while a bottom retainer tie or ties are looped around the crossbar, provided the netting is sufficiently open at the bottom to enable successfully kicked footballs to drop to the ground beneath the goal post. The retainer ties maintain loose engagement of the netting with the uprights and crossbar to provide slack loose attachment to the backside of the goal post. Raising and lowering of the netting on the goal post can be manual alignment or alternatively activated by a pulley system comprising a pulley wheel secured to each upright and the load-bearing end of the pulley rope attached to the mesh net.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A netting attachment to a football goal post having laterally spaced vertical uprights supported by an intervening lower horizontal crossbar member attached to the lower end of the vertical uprights, the area between the vertical uprights and above the horizontal crossbar defining a successful kick area, the crossbar supported by at least one vertical support post, comprising: 
 a netting attached to the backside of the vertical uprights, the netting having a mesh net secured peripherally to border edge material of laterally spaced vertical border cords and vertically spaced top and bottom border cords, the border edge material adapted to maintain the mesh net in approximate rectangular form for attachment between the laterally spaced vertical uprights and deployment behind the vertical uprights and the horizontal crossbar;    the netting having a corner attachment means secured to the border edge material at each of the two upper corners of the rectangular netting for attachment of the deployed netting to the backside of the adjacent respective vertical upright to provide upper attachment of the netting to the respective adjacent vertical upright; and    each vertical border cord on the netting having a plurality of retainer means spaced vertically for loose engagement of the respective adjacent vertical upright, each retainer means secured to the respective vertical border cord and loosely looped around the adjacent vertical upright to provide loose attachment and slack deployment of the netting behind and between the laterally spaced vertical uprights, the deployed netting adapted to catch a football kicked between the uprights and above the horizontal crossbar without interfering with the successfully kicked football.    
     
     
         2 . The netting of  claim 1 , wherein the retainer means comprises flexible ties looped around the respective vertical upright.  
     
     
         3 . The netting of  claim 2 , wherein the netting has at least four retainer ties loosely attaching the netting to the respective adjacent vertical upright.  
     
     
         4 . The netting of  claim 1 , wherein one or more bottom retainer ties are secured to the bottom border cord, where the bottom retainer tie or ties are loosely looped around the horizontal crossbar while maintaining slack loose deployment of the netting on the backside of the crossbar.  
     
     
         5 . The netting of  claim 1 , wherein the backside of each vertical upright has a rearwardly directed upper connector means for respective attachment with the respective upper attachment means secured to the border of the netting at the upper corners of the netting.  
     
     
         6 . The netting of  claim 5 , wherein the upper net connector means comprises an eyebolt connector secured to the backside of the respective upright.  
     
     
         7 . The netting of  claim 1 , wherein the upper corner attachment means on the netting are attached directly to the upper ends of the vertical uprights by securing each corner attachment means directly to the respective upright.  
     
     
         8 . The netting of  claim 2 , wherein each retainer tie attached to the respective vertical border cord comprises a flexible strap loosely looped around the adjacent vertical upright to maintain slack loose attachment of the netting to the respective adjacent vertical upright.  
     
     
         9 . The netting of  claim 1 , wherein the netting is raised and lowered on the goal post by a pulley means.  
     
     
         10 . The netting of  claim 9 , wherein the netting is loosely engaging the respective adjacent vertical upright while raising and lowering the netting.  
     
     
         11 . The netting of  claim 9 , wherein the pulley means comprises two separate pulley systems, where one pulley system is attached to the upper end of one vertical upright, and the other pulley system is attached to the other vertical upright, where each pulley system has a pulley wheel operatively attached to its respective vertical upright with a pulley rope operatively engaging the pulley wheel, the pulley rope having a load bearing end attached to the netting and a pulling end for exerting or releasing force applied to the pulley rope to raise or lower the netting.  
     
     
         12 . The netting of  claim 1 , wherein each pulley system comprises a fixed wheel pulley attached to the top of its respective vertical upright with the load bearing end of the pulley rope passing through the top connector means and attached to the netting for raising the netting and securing the netting to the upper connectors respectively on the respective vertical uprights.  
     
     
         13 . The netting of  claim 11 , wherein the two pulley systems are operative to lower the netting to collect into a netting bundle.