ENGLAND HAVE TWO OUTSTANDING KEEPERS — BUT JOE HART ISN’T ONE OF THEM
When I started they didn’t have proper goalkeeping gloves... I wore a pair of string gardening ones
IHavE become increasingly impatient over the last few years about the extent to which the art of goalkeeping has declined, despite the high number of specialist coaches.
Often I have been described as the godfather of the position, which is very flattering, and I am extremely proud that I played 125 times for my country.
One of the big problems we have in England is the influx of foreign goalkeepers, who have been brought in by foreign managers. So few English goalkeepers are given a chance.
Take Joe Hart. He has had to move on loan, first to Torino and then to West Ham, to get firstteam football. I didn’t think he was fairly treated by Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and I think the argument about distribution is misplaced — goalkeepers are there to keep goal!
Joe is what he is and until now he hasn’t been challenged for his place with England. He’s a good goalkeeper, like Tom Heaton, but nothing more than that. and now his place should be under serious threat. He was very lucky to keep his place in Malta, where he had little to do. I expect he will have more action tonight against Slovakia when his performance will come under scrutiny.
He needs a clean sheet, because he has Jack Butland breathing down his neck. and Jordan Pickford, too, although the new Everton goalkeeper is currently injured.
We need to see both in action for the national team before the World Cup. If you are not in the team, then you are not even being given the chance to make judgments and eliminate errors.
Both can become better goalkeepers than Hart. I am excited by the pair of them and they need to push each other to become better and better.
Watching them in the Premier League, they are the two English eye-catchers and I see something of myself in Pickford, in particular the way he directs from the back. I always felt it helps to be vocal. You are in a position to see the picture in front of you and I see him shouting and calling and generally looking in charge.
He has confidence and agility, a developing technique, and I think he is ready to take that step up and hopefully prove me right. I like what I see.
When I started, there was no such thing as a goalkeeping coach. I joined Leicester City when I was 10 — but I was not really allowed to do that. I was told if I came straight from school I could have an hour and a half of coaching every Tuesday and Thursday with one of the trainers.
We would do it in the car park at the club’s old Filbert Street ground, which had a shingle surface. I had to pad up to save myself from grazes. as a reward they would allow me on to the pitch, which as a 10-year-old was something else.
I played wherever I could, in the street under the lamp light. My dad had a greengrocers with a big wall and I would throw the ball and catch it at the highest point. When I first started out there weren’t even proper goalkeeping gloves and I used to have to wear a pair of string gardening gloves.
My manager was Matt Gillies and I suggested to him that I stay behind after normal training to do some specialist work. It was almost unheard of then. I would try to have someone stay behind to give me 15 shots from different angles and break down different aspects of the art.
Somewhere I read how Tiger Woods, when he was growing up, used to go home and make diagrams about his golf, things like the heights attained by different irons.
That was how I worked, thinking about new exercises to eliminate my weaknesses.
I knew, for instance, that I could improve my punching, so I went to the gym and did work on the punchbags.
I was fortunate, too, in having Gordon Banks as a mentor at the club, a great goalkeeper who taught me so much, though when I first went to the club he mainly practised crosses and shot-saving.
Dealing with specifics is all-important if you want to eliminate mistakes. You know that every goalkeeper makes mistakes; it’s the best ones who make the fewest.
Take myself. People always remember my mistake against Poland in 1973, the year we failed to make it to the World Cup in Germany, but don’t talk about the 1989 game in Poland where I had a blinder that helped us to the finals in Italy the next year. What I had developed as specifics at club level, I took into the England camp. Many of the routines now employed were the very ones I had worked so hard on.
I suppose in that way I was something of a pioneer.
I once watched Ray Clemence coaching the England goalkeepers and shouted from the touchline, ‘Hey Clem, they are my routines’.
he laughed and nodded! I watch games now, live and on television, and I get increasingly frustrated.
I look at situations and say to myself, ‘That should have been stopped’ and ‘he is in the wrong position’.
Sadly, I feel that the real art of goalkeeping is being lost and maybe it is time something was done about it.
I hope Butland — who is in the prime position to challenge hart — and Pickford can help do something about that. When I watch Butland, I see a young man who has great potential with a commanding personality. he has overcome injuries but has come back strong and should improve even further. he and Pickford should push each other to become world class, but there is still a lot of hard work needed.