Alnwick takes high road as he follows in England

JAK ALNWICK made, as Diego Costa will testify, quite an impact when he broke through suddenly at Newcastle United just over two years ago. The goalkeeper came on for his injured team mate Rob Elliott at half-time in a Barclays Premier League game against Chelsea at St James’s Park back in late 2014 and helped his side record a memorable 2-1 victory.

The highlight of his unforgettable debut was undoubtedly flattening Stamford Bridge striker Costa, a physical player who is far more used to inflicting injury on his opponents, early on.

But since the 2014/15 season, when the local youngster played a handful of games for Alan Pardew’s side, he has fallen from prominence. He joined Bradford City on loan before being transferred to English League One club Port Vale.

But the 24-year-old, who signed a two-and-a half-year-deal with Rangers on Monday after completing a £250,000 move, is hopeful a stint in Scotland can have the same effect on his career as it did with his old team-mate Fraser Forster and other prominent keepers.

“Playing against Chelsea on my debut was the first men’s (senior) football match I had ever played in my career,” he said. “I was 21-years-old. Normally, lads, especially goalkeepers, going into a game like that would have 80 league games behind them. I came on for 45 minutes at home. It was the best day of my life really. For hours afterwards I just sat there in a daze. I didn’t know what had happened. It was amazing. I made some good saves against some top players.

“Diego Costa played up front for them that day. My first touch of the ball was to smash him. There is a good picture of that moment. But, no, I came up against people I had idolised and watched on TV every week. It was pretty surreal playing against all these great players. But I coped with it pretty well. It was a great time.

“But dropping down was something I needed to do because I only had seven league games to my name. That was it. Unless you are an experienced goalkeeper teams don’t look at you basically. I knew I needed to go and get the game time.”

Alnwick added: “Fraser Forster was born 30 seconds away from my house and we crossed paths at Newcastle. We grew up in Stocksfield, in the same village and played for the same youth teams and stuff like that.

“I think if you ask Fraser himself he was a late developer. But he worked hard every single day. You would always see him in the gym every day or outside practising his kicking. I think he will be England’s number one. He was good with me.

“It was nice to cross paths with him because he is a top keeper. I was fourth choice goalkeeper, but I was training with the first team every day. There was Fraser, Tim Krul and Steve Harper – a good mix of different styles of goalkeepers and different ages. I learned a lot from all of them. I try to build my game around what I learned.

“Fraser came up here, did brilliantly for Celtic in the Champions League and got his move down to Southampton and got involved in the England set-up.

“You look at all the goalkeepers, Artur Boruc, Allan McGregor, Craig Gordon, David Marshall, Fraser Forster, who have done well up here. The clubs up here, especially Rangers, which is a massive, massive club, produce keepers. Now it’s a massive step forward in my career and hopefully I can be a part of what this club is going to achieve.”