Northern Ireland vs Switzerland (21/03/2025)

His skin has to be thick in order to cope with the verbal abuse. The last line of defence is frequently the scapegoat. Jonathan Wilson enjoys the gallows humour in the sad fact that it’s always the goalkeeper’s fault - and even if it isn’t he still gets the blame! The title of Wilson’s book, ‘The Outsider’, sums up the burden that every keeper must carry as the one whose mistakes are usually most costly. Way back in the early days of the game keepers dressed like their team-mates and whichever defender was nearest the goal dealt with the danger. But gradually the keeper’s role became specialised as the only player allowed to handle the ball. Handling was at first restricted to the keeper’s own half and then was restricted to within the penalty area. He was issued with a distinctive strip to emphasise his unique role. He became the outsider. Wilson shows how this status has changed over the years. For decades the custodian was truly an outsider, staying on his goal-line as a mere shot stopper. But the game has changed radically. Today’s keepers double up as sweepers, as confident on the ball as any centre back. In the modern game the outsider has come in from the cold. Wilson’s book presents us with a wonderful parade of keepers, the good, the bad and the Artur Boruc. Who will ever forget Artur’s air kick in 2009 as a backpass trickled beyond him into the Polish net at the Kop End? It was the one and only time when the Windsor crowd did not cheer a goal by the home team. We were too convulsed by laughter! Wilson celebrates the legendary and the flamboyant as well as more restrained netminders, including many superb keepers whose reputation and career were ruined by one enormous error. After Uruguay won the World Cup against the odds by beating Brazil in 1950, a woman in a Rio shop pointed out keeper Barbosa to her little son with the devastating words: ‘Look, there is the man who made all of Brazil cry!’ In the pages of Wilson’s book we meet Lev Yashin of Dynamo Moscow and the USSR, ‘the essence of Soviet chic’, all in black and with a 48 per cent clean sheets record. We meet Gordon Banks, ‘safe as the Banks of England’, the bedrock of England’s 1966 World Cup win. Although all of us who were at Windsor Park in 1971 will never forget how Georgie Best bamboozled him. We meet Jan Jongbloed, who played for the Netherlands in the World Cup finals of 1974 and 1978. He was not the best keeper in Holland and not

very tall, but Johan Cruyff preferred him because his ball control and distribution meant that he fitted in as an extra sweeper in the Dutch system of ‘total football’. I saw him dancing with delight at Windsor’s Kop End at the final whistle when the Dutch beat us 1-0 in 1977 to qualify for the finals. Both Cruyff and Best graced the Windsor turf that afternoon. We shall not see their like again. We also meet Peter Schmeichel of Manchester United and Denmark, a European Cup winner. Schmeichel boasted “it is of huge importance to me that my opponents are intimidated by my presence between the posts”. I loved seeing Schmeichel at Windsor in 2000 picking the ball out of the net at the Railway End courtesy of Sir David Healy, who refused to be intimidated. Just to keep it in the family, I also loved seeing his son Kasper picking the ball out of the same net twice in 2023 thanks to efforts from Isaac Price and Dion Charles. We meet our very own goalkeeping hero of the 1920s and 1930s, Elisha Scott of Liverpool and Belfast Celtic, who won 31 Ireland caps back in the days of muddy pitches and leather footballs and permitted shoulder-charging. Wilson praises Scott for his ‘imperturbable’ temperament, a vital quality of any successful keeper. Wilson also heaps well-deserved praise on the big man from Newry with the enormous hands. He writes: “Pat Jennings was my favourite. He was such a cool, calm person. He had a way of catching the ball with one hand. He was a quiet, unassuming man, a real gentle giant.” I cherish my memory of being at Wembley in 1985 watching Pat inspire our defence in a backs-to-the wall ordeal to gain the scoreless draw needed to qualify for the 1986 World Cup. And who could ever forget his calmness under fire against the Spanish in Valencia in 1982? I loved that heart-stopping moment when he palmed the ball above the head of the onrushing Juanito and then nipped around him to gather it safely. It was true greatness. Inevitably it is the goalscorers who grab the headlines, but everyone knows that victory depends to a huge extent on the last line of defence: the outsider, the guy with the safe pair of hands. ‘The Outsider - A History of the Goalkeeper’ by Jonathan Wilson is published by Orion Books.

IRISHFA.COM

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