WHO WANTS TO PLAY
IN GOALS?
I remember when I was playing football in the street that the smallest, youngest or most useless kid went in goal.  Growing up, I reached the age of fifteen and suddenly decided that I wanted to be a goalie: I was tall, fairly agile, my mates told me that I was quite decent and it was the only way I was going to get into the school team.  Then as a seventeen year-old I was invited to play locally for the reserves: I made the mistakes most youngsters make at that age and at that level, then at nineteen I made the first team, where I stayed for the next eight years.  My hero became Pat Jennings: my hair became longer and, when they began to grow, my sideburns were just like Pat's.   Pat Jennings, the 'big man', was quite simply brilliant.  The saves he made were magnificent: he never had a bad game and I remember him scoring a goal direct from a downfield 'punt'.  If England could have had him in their side of the seventies he would have been a natural successor to the great Gordon Banks.  When Pat decided to call it a day I kept going for a few years, until the knocks I received were more painful than the knocks I gave out, then decided that golf would be less of a means of punishing my aging body.

England has been well served by its goalkeepers over the years: from my own living memory there was Banksy, the man who made the save of the century from Pele.  After him there was Clemence and Shilton, then Chris Woods, then young David Seaman.  Seaman has given England great service over the years but as soon as an error slips in the media are on his back.  The two goals he has conceded for England recently that have been given so much publicity are the result of the same movement as the ball is being kicked: the movement is forward, and there is the problem, because he should be jumping on the spot. 

Against Brazil he took a couple of steps forward and couldn't adjust his feet to get back.  The goal scored direct from a corner the other week was caused by exactly the same problem. 

My advice to Seaman is to quit the England job after Christmas but offer to help Paul Robinson in the England camp for a year or so, and carry on for the rest of this season and all next season for Arsenal and show the media what you still can do: remember, Dino Zoff was never as good as Seaman but he played international football into his forties.

There is an old saying that to be a goalkeeper you are either very brave or very stupid.  I'd like to think that I was the former, but in my eyes Barnsley's Andy Marriott is probably the latter.  A few weeks ago Andy, as the PFA representative, met club officials who were proposing that the players take a salary cut in order to help the club out of its financial plight.  On behalf of the players, Andy turned the proposal down flat, saying that the best thing that the players could do was to lift the club up the table, then the success on the field would bring in more of the paying public.  Well Andy, in those four games since you came to that conclusion the players have won two points out of a possible twelve.  Is it time that the players reconsidered their position? 

Since the manager went the players seem to be giving more in terms of effort and the team seems to have a slightly better balance but when someone like David Hirst comes in and offers to work with the players for free, why look a gift horse in the mouth?  The squad at Sheffield Wednesday ten years ago seemed to have a great spirit: Big Ron Atkinson had players of the calibre of Hirst, Waddle, Woods, Francis, Danny Wilson, Nigel Pearson, the American John what's-his-name and the Irish midfielder who suffered from alcoholic constipation: he couldn't pass a pub.  The team spirit was great and Hirsty was one of the mainstays, so why not let him become involved?  Barnsley are in crisis so anything for nothing can't be bad.

Finally Andy, get the players together and think that at present to accept only 75% of your contract this year is a lot better than what you are likely to be getting this time next year!!