All Keepers Great And Small

The goal-keeper. First on the team-sheet, not always the first name in the memory bank of past players, whether match savers or losers. And they are set apart from their team-mates in so many ways. Are keepers born or do they evolve or happen by accident? Different skills, different kit (even when they could only wear green jerseys!), different perspectives on games, and a lot of different rules.

Actually, they do share plenty of the latter with outfield players, as Forest’s Brice Samba recently discovered. Having had an already eventful start to 2022, which had him sustain a serious-looking head injury at Derby and conceding a ‘howler’ of a goal after sprinting way out of his area against Leicester, he then took justice into his own hands against Stoke and was sent off, leaving the Reds with ten players and no keeper and a follow-up suspension. (The strikingly tall Ethan Horvath is emerging to be an effective back-up which is good news for the club.) All of that doesn’t overshadow Samba’s impressive record of saves, some smart distribution and a contribution to Forest already topping 100 appearances, but it does highlight the uniqueness of the position. A few mistakes can be career-defining.

Billy Casper, a young lad in the film ‘Kes’, never has that problem. He doesn’t aspire to be a keeper. Rather, the football scene (worth seeking out for its comedy and gritty realism) shows how low-ranking that position is considered to be. He acts the fool – and who can blame him? – when stuck between the sticks during a PE lesson on a bitterly cold day. After he performs antics on the crossbar instead of protecting his goal, he gets the sharp end of his teacher’s tongue and cold shower punishment. Billy doesn’t want to be on the pitch, never mind in goal. So many students, over the years, have been cast as goalie at school as some kind of punishment.

Viewed dispassionately, you can see why there might be a reluctance for players to offer their services as a keeper: you’re frequently the target for a ball hit at high speed, liable to all manner of ‘professional’ pushing and shoving in a crowded area, expected to dive head-first at the opposition’s feet and you – mostly – take the the blame if a goal’s conceded. You need to be brave.

In the twilight of my glory days, playing football in obscure leagues for even more obscure teams, I signed-up for a village team in Cambridgeshire. The deciding factor was a fine clubhouse! They also had, as it turned out, a goalie who was fearless. Rumoured to have some kind of steel plate in his head following a farm work accident, he loved nothing more than throwing himself at flailing legs and on-coming boots. The man was impervious! What he lacked in height, he made up for in breadth. I’d wince on his behalf as he came up from a dive smiling with the ball which he then hoofed so high you wondered it might never make it back to earth. And repeat. Make a save, return ball to opposition. When he wrapped his hand round a pint glass in after-match refreshments, he made it look the size of a thimble.

With vastly improved pitch surfaces nowadays, goalkeepers are expected to show outfield skill and some precision distribution. No more mud-bath or sand-pit goal areas (check out the state of pitches past on YouTube) to hinder some fancy footwork or slick pass from the goal-line. But the key skills remain the same. Agility, consistency, concentration, physical presence and positional sense would be on any list of requirements. Forest have been fortunate – and canny – enough to have acquired keepers with all of those qualities over the years. I’ve been fortunate enough to see some of them close-up. Watching them at work has been a privilege at the City Ground.

Peter Grummitt graced us through the sixties with his athleticism. There were times when he seemed to pause mid-air, as if waiting to be photographed, before palming away a goal-bound shot or clutching a ball fizzing off a forward’s head. And then there was Peter Shilton, winner of so many trophies and accolades with the Reds that his greatness could be taken for granted. Both keepers have been much written about and eulogised over the years but their worth extended beyond their individual contribution. They gave reliability and stability to the team. Interestingly, their first name, Peter, means ‘stone’ or ‘rock’. Both, at their best, were as solid as.

Finally, just in case we reduce good keepers to type, goalkeeping can also boast a literary pedigree. The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, kept goal for Portsmouth Association Football Club and French philosopher and writer Albert Camus was a renowned goalie in Algeria. (The experience accounts for his often quoted observation: ‘All I know about morality and duty I owe to football’.) Perhaps those quiet moments, when play was far upfield, gave time for reflection and contemplation, a chance to stand outside the action and see the game from a different perspective. Either way, I admire them all, all keepers great and small.