Man City v Arsenal

[David G]

Never heard of it. If there ever was such thing it would have had to had non clear definitions. How do you define "side of the goal area? And what happens if ball goes over the bar (though this is the same for corner kick)? It would have made the shape and the boundaries of goal area not fit for purpose. For corner kick, there are two corner arcs, fully boundaried and fully fit for their purpose.

There was such a thing and in those days it didn’t have to drill down into so much minutia (though there are still laws of the game that are not clear from their definitions), whereby the left or right of the centre of the goal area (including the centre) was accepted as the point the ball was placed. And if the ball went over the cross bar the Referee would signal as they do nowadays (for corner kicks) as to which side of the goal the ball should be placed.