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- After becoming one of Argentina’s 1998 World Cup heros with his penalty shoot-out heroics against England, Carlos Roa (nicknamed “Lettuce” by his team mates) was linked to a number of top clubs including Arsenal and Manchester United. However, instead of opting for a big money transfer, Roa took a year off to do charitable and religious work. He then refused to sign a contract extension with his club Real Mallorca, because he reportedly believed the world was coming to an end in the year 2000.
- Goalkeeper Willie “Fatty” Foulke, England international of the late 1890s, was so dismayed at the match officials for allowing an equalising goal to stand in the 1902 FA Cup Final, that at the end of the match he charged out of the changing rooms undressed and chased the fleeing referee into a cupboard. Reports state that Foulke had to be restrained by a group of players from pulling the cupboard door off its hinges, with the referee cowering inside.
- Lev Yashin, former Russian goalkeeper, was the recipient of an unexpected reaction when he conceded in the 1962 World Cup quarter-final against Chile. Striker, Eladio Rojas, was so amazed at having scored past the consummate Yashin that he ran up and hugged him.
- Peter Bonetti – capped 7 times for England between 1966 and 1970 – only made it on to Chelsea’s books after his mum wrote to Chelsea’s manager Ted Drake recommending he give Peter a trial.
- Norwich City’s long-serving keeper of the 1980s and 1990s, Bryan Gunn, was so popular in those parts that he was made ‘Sheriff of Norwich’ for the year 2002.
- Chris Kirkland was brought on as a substitute in England’s game against Greece in August 2006: when Kirkland was an eleven year old kid, his parents and some friends took a bet of £100 at 100/1 odds that Kirkland would win and England cap before reaching his 30th birthday. Kirkland's parents then had their own reason to celebrate his England debut: it won them £10,000. The bookies didn’t really mind: “We have literally thousands of bets like this from proud parents…” one spokesman said. Nearly all come to nothing.
- Praying for good luck in the game, just before kick off, Brazilian side Rio Preto’s goalkeeper Senhor Isadore Irandir continued his prayers as the game began. Corinthians’ Rivelino was clearly not perturbed by the irony, as his shot from the half way line sailed into the goal past Irandir, who was still on his knees.
- Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc was cautioned by police after making the religious gesture of the sign of the cross before a match.
- A game when the keeper really shouldn’t have turned up: Gordon Banks only handled the ball 4 times in England’s 5-0 victory at home to Malta in 1971: and each time was from a back pass.
- Shay Given reportedly keeps a bottle of holy water in his glove bag during games, in case of serious injury.
- American keeper Kasey Keller used to live in a 1000 year old castle called Haus Donk, near Mönchengladbach, Germany.
- For the Football Manager / Worldwide Soccer Manager computer games, Oliver Kahn was one of the few players to prohibit the use of his name. As a result, Kahn’s character on the game is the amusingly titled Jens Mustermann. Jens is likely a teasing reference to Kahn’s long time rival for the German #1 spot, Jens Lehmann, and Mustermann in German apparently means Sample Man…
- In the 2006 World Cup penalty shootout between Germany and Argentina, Jens Lehmann saved two penalties to send the Germans through to the semi finals with a 4-2 win. Lehmann had kept a piece of paper down his sock, which contained notes on the penalty takers that night and had been prepared for him by Germany’s coaching staff beforehand, with Lehmann consulting the paper before the kicks. Before the final missed penalty from Cambiasso, Lehmann spent considerable time studying the paper, in spite of the fact that it didn’t contain any information on Cambiasso. It worked all the same, and the episode is featured in the film “Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen”.
- David James is reported to be a keen collector of Raleigh Choppers: nonetheless, he usually gets around by other means, such as his Chrysler 300C estate which he has had converted from diesel to run on Rapeseed oil.
- “You have to be big to be a great keeper”? Not in Mexico. Óscar "El Conejo" Pérez Rojas – capped over 40 times for his country and currently playing in the Mexican top flight – measures up at only 5 feet 7 inches. But in Mexico that doesn’t seem to be a big deal – Jorge “El Brody” Campos – another Mexican hero who clocked up 130 national appearances during the 1990s and early 2000s, was only 5 feet 6.
- Carlos José Castilho (1927-1987) was a legendary Brazilian keeper who starred at Fluminense and for Brazil in four World Cups: 1950, 1954, 1958 and 1962. He suffered from a form of colour blindness which he believed gave him an advantage, as he saw yellow balls as if they were red. The downside was that he apparently struggled with white balls at night games. An unusual chap, upon injuring his finger for the fifth time which required a layoff from playing for several months, he instead just chose to have it partially amputated, and 2 weeks after the chop he was back in first team action! He ended his life by killing himself.
- Football pundit and former Arsenal keeper Bob Primrose Wilson has taken more than his fair share of stick for his middle name. It comes from a Scottish tradition of giving children their mother's maiden name as a middle name. Wilson fought the odds to make it into the professional game: he originally trained as a teacher after his father had prevented him signing for Manchester United on the grounds that football wasn’t a decent career.
- Aussie Mark Schwarzer hasn’t changed shin pads in nearly 2 decades: he still wears the pair he bought at 19 when he was with the Marconi Stallions.
- Leeds United and Arsenal goalkeeper John Lukic was rumoured to be on board the Manchester United plane in the Munich Air disaster in 1958, as it was thought his mother was an air stewardess on the plane and pregnant with John at the time. Some have denied this, including, perhaps significantly, John himself: “There was a stewardess called Lukic...(But) you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work it out. I was born in December 1960 and the disaster happened in March 1958, so it must have been the longest pregnancy in history!”
- Nasser Hejazi is among the most recognised football players in Iran, and was ranked in the year 2000 by the Asian Football Confederation as the 20th Century’s second best Asian goalkeeper. In 1978, Hejazi was approached by Man United, and trained with them for a month and appeared in the reserves. United wanted to extend his trial period before signing him, but sadly for Hejazi, the eruption of the Iranian Revolution meant that agreeing this with the Iranian Football Federation became pretty tricky: United signed Gary Bailey instead.
- Ricard Zamora i Martínez (1901-1978): a Spaniard with a colourful character and frequent disregard for his own well-being, who continued in Spain’s goal in spite of breaking his sternum in an international with England in 1929. He was taken prisoner during the 1930s in the Spanish Civil war, and only got out alive by befriending the guards and playing football with them. Not always the model professional, Zamora was a heavy smoker with a penchant for Cognac, and was arrested for trying to smuggle Cuban cigars after the 1920 Olympics (a tournament in which he had been dismissed for punching an Italian opponent). He was later suspended from the game for tax evasion.
- Borislav Bisserov "Wiggy" Mikhailov: Bulgaria’s most-capped goalkeeper was snapped up by Reading for £800k in 1995 after some solid displays in USA ‘94. Allegedly, he chose Reading after seeing them play at Wembley in the Playoff Final that year and assuming it to be Reading's home ground.
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Hungary’s Gábor Király is known for wearing tracksuit bottoms in games, rather than the more common shorts or goalkeeper trousers. Some have cruelly commented on a likeness between his tracksuit bottoms and pyjamas.
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Baddiel and Skinner’s Fantasy Football League show in the mid-90s featured a special appearance from Jens Martin Knudsen, international goalkeeper for the Faroe Islands. Knudsen appeared in the Phoenix from the Flames section, reliving the Faroe Islands’ historic 1-0 win over the mighty Austria in 1991, with Baddiel and Skinner playing Austria and Knudsen starring as himself. Former part-time fish factory forklift truck driver Knudsen also became known and loved for appearing in a wooly bobble hat in games (65 internationals in all) – essential in the cool conditions of the Faroe Islands.
A Bad Day At The Office
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Brentford’s goalkeeper Chick Brodie finished his career when a dog, chasing the match ball down the length of the field, crunched into Brodie’s legs as he collected the ball in a game against Colchester.
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Shortly after signing for West Ham from Kilmarnock, goalkeeper Bobby Ferguson played for Kilmarnock in a friendly between the two sides: Ferguson conceded seven goals against his new club.
- Although Jens Lehmann was to become one of the world’s most highly-rated goalkeepers, his early years in the German League at Shalke didn’t always indicate how well things would later turn out. Lehmann found his side 3-0 down early on in a 1993 game against Bayer Leverkusen, and he was brought off at half time by the team’s manager. Lehmann left the ground on his own and went home by tram rather than travelling by the team coach.
- Chester’s keeper Grenville Millington was the unfortunate victim of a collapsing goalpost, after he crashed into it in a game against Plymouth in 1981. The game was abandoned.
- In the massive 1984 clash between Cambridge and Ashford, Cambridge’s start was awful and they went down 4-0 within the first half hour. Nigel Ashman, the Cambridge keeper, bore the brunt of the blame, and was substituted after the 4th goal. One of the Cambridge central defenders went in goal, with the other centre back going up front, and Cambridge pulled it back to a respectable 4-3.
- Manchester United - a club with an esteemed history of great goalkeepers: Peter Schmeichel, Alex Stepney, Les Sealey – just to start - although the pressure at United has seen several other ‘greats’ come a cropper. Two promising United starlets share an ominous distinction: Tomas Kuszczak and Ben Foster both conceded goals direct from the opposition goalkeeper in the space of about a year. Kuszczak was unfortunate enough to do it on the international stage, in Poland’s friendly against Columbia in May 2006: the long downfield punt out of the Columbian keeper’s hands found Kuszczak a way off his line, and as he back-peddled to cover the ball’s huge bounce, he seemed to believe the ball was going to bounce over the bar and coolly left it to drop down over his head and ripple into the net. Ben Foster famously did a similar thing against Tottenham in 2007 while on loan to Watford, falling victim to an appallingly high bounce from Paul Robinson’s long kick off the ground, stranded as the ball flew over his head. In fact, the two keepers follow an old Manchester United precedent set by European Cup winner Alex Stepney, who was lobbed directly from Pat Jennings’ punt in the 1967 Charity Shield. On the positive side for United, Peter ‘The Great’ Schmeichel scored a total of 11 goals during his career.
- Gary ‘the Gaffe’ Sprake: By many accounts a generally solid and sometimes spectacular goalkeeper of the great Leeds United team of the 1970s, who nonetheless has the misfortune of being remembered for a small number of high profile errors. The most notorious came when Sprake, not really under any pressure, threw the ball into his own net in front of the packed Liverpool Kop End. Sprake had begun to throw the ball out to the Leeds full back but changed his mind mid-action, and as he changed the motion of his throw, rather than holding on to the ball merely diverted the ball towards his goal… Of all the places to concede such a goal - the Liverpool supporters on the Kop then began a resounding chorus of ‘Careless Hands’, which was a recent hit for Des O'Connor. Sprake’s 2006 autobiography was entitled ‘Careless Hands’.
Freak Injuries
- Newcastle and Republic of Ireland keeper Shay Given was the unlucky recipient of a full-blooded tackle by West Ham striker Marlon Harewood in September 2006. The injury, likened by doctors to something you’d expect to result from a car crash, resulted in a 1cm tear in his bowel.
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Dave Beasant’s can claim one of football’s more absurd injuries of recent memory: he ruptured ankle ligaments while trying to stop a bottle of salad cream from falling.
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Alex Stepney shouted at fans so vigorously that he managed to dislocate his jaw.
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Manchester City’s German goalkeeper Bert Trautmann broke his neck with 15 minutes to go in the 1956 FA Cup Final. He played on undeterred and finished the game.
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From the Dave Beasant school of goalkeeping: former Liverpool keeper Michael Stensgaard suffered serious shoulder damage while trying to stop an ironing board from folding on him. The injury put him out for 6 months.
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While at Rangers, England international Chris Woods missed half of the 1989 season due to a bizarre ear infection which meant he couldn't balance.
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František Plánicka (1904 –1996) was one of the most successful goalkeepers in Czech footballing history. In 1932, in order to waste time and help defend his side Slavia Prague’s 4-2 cup lead against Juventus, the Slavia fans began throwing stones onto the pitch. Unfortunately, one of the stones hit Plánicka, and seriously injured him.
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Towards the end of his playing career, Wales international Andy Dibble had to receive hospital treatment for chemical burns he received from diving on the pitch markings whilst playing for Barry Town against Carmarthen. Dibble was awarded £20,000 in compensation but was permanently scarred by the burns. Earlier in his career, while at Manchester City, Dibble had the ball headed out of his hand by Gary Crosby of Nottingham Forest, in one of the most famous freak goals of all time. Dibble had made a solid high catch from a cross, and was standing still looking downfield as the players cleared his penalty box. Unfortunately, Dibble was holding the ball with only one hand, and the quick thinking Crosby ran from behind Dibble to head the ball out of his hand and then knock it into the net, in a goal of the sort that would probably not be allowed in today’s game.
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France international Gregory Coupet caught his foot in a net during training in August 2007, tearing a medial knee ligament and missing the rest of the calendar year with injury. He remarked in a TV interview, "At least now I’ll be able to enjoy watching the Rugby World Cup”.
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Leeds United goalkeeper of the 1970s David Harvey’s career was seriously interrupted by two car crashes: the first, in 1975, meant that he missed the European Cup final that year against Bayern Munich, which in his absence Leeds lost 2-0. Harvey headed for Canada and joined the Vancouver Whitecaps in the 1980s, where in his second season he was again put on the sidelines as a result of a car crash. Nonetheless, he fared better than ‘Save of the Century’ Gordon Banks, who lost the site of one eye in a car crash while still at the top of his game, and one of Germany’s most successful goalkeepers Sepp Maier, who was nearly killed in a car accident that ended his career.
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Australian Goalkeeper Joey Didulica, while playing for Dutch outfit AZ Alkmaar in 2006, received brain concussion in an Eredivisie league match after being struck by the ball with a fierce blow to the head from a shot by compatriot Jason Culina of PSV. Didulica was sidelined for some time.
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Rowen “Spider” Fernández – who earned his nickname on account of his collection of spiders - plays between the sticks for Germany’s Arminia Bielefeld and South Africa. He was bitten by one of his spiders in 2003, being seriously hurt and was hospitalized.
Life Beyond Football
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Chelsea hero and England international goalkeeper of the 1970s Peter Bonetti became a postman in the Isle of Mull in Scotland after retiring.
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In an interesting parallel, David Harvey, who played for Leeds United during the 1970s, also went on to work as a postman, and farmer, on Sanday, in the Orkney Islands.
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Manchester United’s European Cup winning goalkeeper Alex Stepney, after pursuing the normal route into goalkeeper coaching, went on to present ‘The Legends Football Phone In’ on Manchester’s Century 105 radio station.
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Before making it as a footballer, Shaka Hislop was an intern at NASA and later graduated with honours with a degree in mechanical engineering.
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Italian international Angelo Peruzzi, while a young teenager, was a ball boy at the 1984 European Cup final between Liverpool and Roma. The final, held in Rome, also saw Liverpool’s Bruce Grobbelaar’s now famous ‘Spaghetti Legs’ routine, where, after chewing the net on the second Roma penalty, Grobbelaar taunted the final Roma penalty taker by mimicking his nervous legs, before the kick flew well over the bar.
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Wales international and Sunderland keeper Tony Norman, after ending his playing days in the late 1990s, went on to became a policeman in Durham. He took forced retirement at 47 when he was diagnosed with heart condition.
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While an apprentice with Aberdeen, Bryan Gunn, who was later to play in Norwich City’s 1992-93 most successful team ever which finished 3rd in the Premiership and later knocked Bayern Munich out of the UEFA Cup, was a babysitter for Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson's children (including future Manchester United footballer Darren Ferguson).
Nicknames
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"Mister Magoo": Kasey Keller’s nickname from the Milwall fans after it became known that he wore contact lenses.
- ‘The Legend’: the Portsmouth fans’ name for club record appearance holder, the one and only Alan Knight
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"Leiteria" (lucky man): Fluminese’s Carlos José Castilho
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“Tarzán”: Argentina’s Amadeo Carrizo
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“El Divino”: Spanish international Ricardo Zamora (1901-1978)
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"Colt": former Hannover keeper Jörg Sievers played for many years in the Bundesliga during the 1980s and 1990s. His nickname apparently comes from the similarity between his name and the name of Colt Seavers, the character in the 80s TV show The Fall Guy.
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“Wiggy”: Bulgarian goalie Borislav Mikhailov was so named during his spell at Reading, as a result of his toupee.
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“Spider”: Rowen Fernández of Arminia Bielefeld. Collects insects.
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“Spider”: Zeljko Kalac of AC Milan and formerly Leicester City substitute keeper. Probably due to his ridiculously-sized frame (Kalac is almost 6 foot 8). Now also known as Il Coccodrillo ("The Crocodile") in Milan, possibly due to his love of crocodile skin shoes.
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“Lurch”: Dave Beasant. See the Addams Family.
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“Uomo di Gomma” (“the Rubber Man”): Italy’s great Gianpiero Combi (1902–1956), who won the 1934 World Cup. Combi was very agile.
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“The Blind Venetian”: Italy’s Massimo Taibi. After getting nutmegged on his Old Trafford debut by a 35 yard pearoller from Southampton’s Matthew Le Tissier, earned this unfortunate nickname from the British press. Taibi had been recently bought from Venezia. After a rather short spell at Old Trafford, Taibi went on to have a successful career in Serie A.
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