GOALKEEPING GREAT AND THREE LIONS LEGEND WILL BE HAILED FOR RECORD 125 CAPS DURING LANDMARK GAME
PETER SHILTON will be honoured at Wembley as part of the 1,000 game celebrations for an incredible achievement.
The former keeper has a record 125 caps – meaning he appeared in an eighth of all the England games played.
And he will be guest of honour for tomorrow’s Euro qualifier against Montenegro.
“It’s quite a milestone for the FA,” said the 70-year-old. “I had 20 years with England, that’s a long time and obviously there was a period where Ray Clemence was looked on under Don Revie as No.1 so I had a lot of trips as well as a lot of caps.
“It’s always been an honour to me, it was always my main ambition to play for England at whatever level I was at.
“When I was a schoolboy, it was for England Schoolboys, that was my main aim and I managed to play at Wembley in front of 90,000 when I was 15. I was fortunate enough to have some luck with injuries but also to make my dreams come true.”
However, Shilton feels the
Football Association and some clubs lost sight of the importance of ex-players, although he praised Gareth Southgate for “raising the bar” and putting the pride back into wearing the shirt.
The England boss often gets former internationals to make presentations to new caps in the dressing room and Shilton (right) believes it is the kind of gesture that makes all the difference. He said: “That’s one of the good things Gareth has done, he’s brought that standard back into it with the England squad.
“It’s just raising the standards and, as a manager, that’s what you have to do at international level. It’s the ultimate, playing for your country. I think it went out of the game a little bit, even at club level. I heard they wouldn’t give well-known former players complimentary tickets and they seemed to turn their back on history.
“But that’s started to come back and that goes for clubs as well. They seem to have realised that history isn’t a threat, it’s a vital part of the club.”
Shilton will go down as one of the all-time greats and is arguably the best goalkeeper of them all.
He picked out the 1990 World Cup in Italy as his highlight, but contrasted qualifying for that tournament to missing out in 1974 after being held at Wembley by Poland, whose keeper Jan Tomaszewski saved nearly everything.
Shilton said: “Favourite memory would be Italia 90 because we did to get to the semis, we were so close in the end. It was the luck of the shoot-out.
“I was 40, I thought I’d had a good tournament, particularly in the quarterfinal and semi-final games.
“I suppose one of the biggest disappointments for me was when we drew 1-1 at Wembley with Poland, the Tomaszewski game, and we failed to qualify under Alf Ramsey. It resulted in him getting the sack.
“It was such a low point for me because I wanted to play in the World Cup so much and I had a part in the goal with Norman Hunter, where we both didn’t distinguish ourselves.” prestige of the