My first post on NewsBiscuit, so be gentle!

I thought the idea of Waddle's penalty going into orbit was such a superb seed that it deserved a story - so I had a go at writing it. Here goes...

David

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Waddle's Italia 90 penalty kick re-enters orbit

One of the enduring puzzles of modern astronomy has been solved, it has been revealed today. A team of scientists from the University of Aberystwyth have at last been able to provide a positive identification of a mysterious object whose origins have baffled astronomers around the world for over a decade.

Previous observations of the object's trajectory had taken the scientific world by storm, as they suggested that it had actually originated within the vicinity of Earth itself. Although the accuracy of these early measurements still left too much uncertainty to be sure the object was of man-made origin, the news prompted speculation as to its identity.

Now that the Aberystwyth team have used the latest techniques to measure the object's path to a much greater degree of precision, its origin is now known with certainty. "Not only can we be sure it did originate on Earth", explained Professor Dai Evans of the Aberystwyth Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, "but we can even pin-point the exact location where it began its escape from the Earth's gravitational pull. We can identify its point and time of departure as Turin, around the beginning of July 1990, and hence we are confident that it really is Chris Waddle's errant penalty kick from Italia 90."

Ironically, the object was nicknamed "the football" by astronomers in the late nineties long before its true identity was known, when the first fuzzy images taken by earth-bound telescopes revealed that it appeared to have a regular pattern of dark geometric shapes on a white-ish background.

"At that time the football was way out at the far reaches of the solar system", continued Professor Evans. "It would have been shrouded in a covering of frozen methane gas at a temperature of about minus 200 degrees. But as it now begins its return to the inner solar system it will shed this covering as a comet-like tail, and will become visible to the naked eye some time during this summer. It is a pity that no England fans will be around to see it."

The whereabouts of the ball kicked by Waddle has been a popular topic of discussion amongst football fans for many years. It is usually presumed that the ball disappeared somewhere in the crowd, but sceptics point out that the ball was never actually recovered.

Due to precession of the Earth's orbit during the last 18 years, the football will actually miss us on its return path and continue out to the opposite edge of the solar system. "It will continue going in and out of the solar system, describing a pattern a bit like you got with one of those Spirograph toys in the seventies" enthused Prof Evans. "The really exciting thing is that it will eventually return to its exact original starting point after several hundred orbits of the solar system, and there is a real possibility that it could actually end up in the back of the net. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad kick after all!"

FIFA officials were unavailable to comment on whether the resulting goal would stand.