Football Betting: The strange death of English goalkeeping

Internationals / Dan Fitch / 31 March 2009 / Leave a Comment

Dan Fitch finds an unlikely culprit to blame for the current lack of top quality English goalkeepers.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that everything was better in the past. Recently I grew nostalgic and purchased an old-fashioned bakelite telephone, complete with a proper dial. It's identical to the one we had in our house when I was a kid and it looks so much nicer than the bland models of today.

It's lucky though that I stand by the mantra that looks are everything, because it turned out that I held a rose-tinted memory of how well the phone performed.

Dialling a number now seems a long and cumbersome operation after all these years of pushing buttons. It's also practically impossible to dial without making a mistake when drunk, which given that my free call plan doesn't kick in until 7pm, makes the phone practically redundant.

One thing I know that I'm not being nostalgic about is the quality of English goalkeepers in years gone by. In the old days, we had more decent shot-stoppers than Jacqui Smith's husband has seen blue movies.

We won the World Cup in 1966, with the safe hands of Gordon Banks between the sticks. After Banks' reign we were blessed with two brilliant keepers in Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence.

As if these two weren't good enough, there was also Joe Corrigan and Phil Parkes. When Shilton hung up his gloves, keepers of the calibre of Chris Woods, David Seaman, Nigel Martyn and Tim Flowers competed for the number one spot. For so many years we enjoyed an embarrassment of riches.

Foreign goalkeepers were largely regarded as a joke. You might get the odd decent Russian or Italian, but most were punch-happy, long haired clowns, who looked more likely to catch a venereal disease at the local discotheque, than a cross.

Scottish keepers were so bad that Saint and Greavsie had a section of their show devoted to their gaffes. You can only laugh at others' mistakes from a position of power and self-assurance. We knew our keepers were best.

Then something went wrong. There is now a dearth of English goalkeepers and the national team is suffering. Capello seems to be finding the right blend outfield, but without a world-class keeper, there will always be major doubts as to what the English team can achieve.

David James is the current England number one, but though he has undoubtedly become more consistent since joining Portsmouth, he's still liable to make the odd mistake. James will be 39 come the next World Cup and only remains in the reckoning due to the lack of decent competition.

There are a number of English goalkeepers who should be at their peak right now, but have not fulfilled their potential. Robert Green is currently in the squad, but at 29 and with only a couple of caps to his name, he doesn't have long to wrestle the number one shirt from James.

Paul Robinson is in better form since joining Blackburn, but not so good that he looks likely to add to his 41 caps. Injury problems have held Chris Kirkland back, but despite playing very well for Wigan this season, he has again been overlooked by Capello.

Of the youngsters, Joe Hart and Ben Foster face the same problem. Neither are getting regular first team football at their clubs and Capello will be hoping that they both at least get loan moves in the summer.

It is possible to win an international tournament without a brilliant keeper. We know this, because the French won things with the erratic Fabien Barthez and Brazil never seem to have anyone who is really world class. Still, you'd rather have Iker Casillas or Gianluigi Buffon behind your back four.

England are [1.83] to keep a clean sheet against Ukraine and just [1.18] to finish top of Group Six. As ever, England are at an artificially low price to win the World Cup at [9.4], which is shocking value when you can back the holders Italy at [14.0], Germany at [14.5] and Holland at [16.5].

Personally, I blame our lack of decent keepers on the same thing I blame most things on: Thatcherism. Kids growing up in the eighties didn't want to be mere custodians, when they could be movers and shakers in the more glamorous outfield positions. Not only that, just think how much taller everyone would be if Maggie hadn't nicked our milk.