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AUTUMN 2011

Craig

The greatest saves of all time

GK1 looks at the top 5 saves in the history of the game

Coaching Corner

The art of saving penalties

Exclusive interviews with:

Gordon Banks OBE

Equipment

Precision, Uhlsport & Sells Goalkeeper Products
Gary Bailey
Kasper Schmeichel

Kid Gloves

The stars of the future

Also featuring:

Alex McCarthy, Reading FC John Ruddy, Norwich City
Alex Smithies, Huddersﬁeld Town
Bob Wilson OBE

On the Move

Summary of the latest GK transfers

Business Pages

Key developments aﬀecting the professional ‘keeper

Welcome to

The magazine exclusively for the professional goalkeeping community.

Welcome to the Autumn edition of GK1 – the magazine exclusively for the professional goalkeeping community. After a frenetic summer of goalkeeper transfer activity – with Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and

suppliers, coaches and managers alike we are proud to deliver the third issue of a magazine dedicated entirely to the art of goalkeeping. GK1 covers the key elements required of a professional goalkeeper, with coaching features, equipment updates, a summary of key transfers and features covering the uniqueness of the goalkeeper to a football team. The magazine also includes regular features‘On-the-Move’, summarising all the

Editor’s note

Andy Evans / Editor-in-Chief of GK1 and Chairman of World In Motion ltd

Tottenham amongst those bolstering their goalkeeping ranks – our latest edition of GK1 brings you a full and comprehensive round-up of all the ‘keepers who made moves in the Summer latest transfers involving the UK’s professional 2011 transfer window. We also catch up with legendary goalkeepers Gordon Banks OBE and Bob Wilson OBE, and give our verdict on the ﬁve greatest saves of all time. We bring you an exclusive interview with John Ruddy - one of just 4 English goalkeepers to start for a Premier League club on the season’s opening weekend – and sit down with four of England’s brightest goalkeeping prospects, underlining that despite a current shortage of home-grown Premier League GK talent, the future of England goalkeeping is in safe hands.

goalkeepers;‘Kid Gloves’, promoting the country’s up-and-coming goalkeeping starlets;‘Outside the box’, focusing on life after football, and many other goalkeeper specific topics. In‘The Business Pages’, GK1 offers a summary of the key developments – legal, contractual and administrative - to affect the professional goalkeeper. GK1 is a magazine for the goalkeeping profession. We actively encourage your contribution, so please feel free to contact us with your suggestions as to how we can improve YOUR magazine.

GK1 Magazine is published by World in
Motion ltd, a leading global management company and the UK’s foremost agency for professional goalkeepers.

With the endorsement of the leading players, key brands, glove and equipment

CONTENTS

How did he do that?

The greatest saves of all time

Exclusive Interview: Safe as the Banks of England

Gordon Banks

Coaching corner

Featuring: Science ﬁction or science fact - an indispensible guide to saving a spot kick

46
Well done Bob

Bob Wilson’s charity bike ride

On the move

All the latest transfer news

Kid Gloves

The stars of the future

Where are they now?

Ian Feuer

20 22 26 30 31

GK1 Management, Chancery House, 1 Lochaline Street, London,W6 9SJ

[email protected]

Tel: +(44) 208 741 6060

www.gk1.co.uk

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Publisher:World In Motion ltd

Editor-in-Chief: Andy Evans

Deputy Editor: Charlie McNicholas

The Business Pages

Featuring:
Learning the trade - just4keepers

News in brief Exclusive Interview: Ruddy brilliant

John Ruddy

Paradise found

Neil Doncaster - crucial SPL vote

Outside the box

15

16
32 36 38

Commercial Editor:William Pethybridge

Ex-England stopper Gary Bailey

Essential Equipment

The latest goalkeeping products

Precision Goalkeeping

with Kasper Schmeichel

Features Editor: Rob Dakin

Design:Tim Alexander

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Matt Jones

AUTUMN 2011 3

headquarters and as per

striker Rivaldo. Ridiculous really. www.

more than three yards out. Goal? With the

Scottish keeper stranded following the penalty box pinball you’d have thought so. Yet with the Bolton fans starting to celebrate, the mighty Scot managed to incredibly stretch a giant arm backwards, put it under the ball, and scoop the ball

out from under the bar. www.youtube. com/watch?v=PqAmG3xK9_Y youtube.com/watch?v=iieYg7Sm8FM

GK1

usual, opinions were ﬂying back and forth across the oﬃce as to the greatest save of all time. Prompted by Craig Gordon’s miraculous save for Sunderland against Bolton, we were extolling the virtues of a host of famous saves, some old, some new.

Peter Schmeichel: Rapid Vienna v Manchester United,

4

Champions League, 1996

Similar in several ways to our winner. Schmeichel pulled off a save to rank alongside Banks’ legendary stop from Pele in the World Cup in 1970 as United beat Rapid Vienna 2-0 to go into the quarter finals of the European Cup. He went down to his right and defied logic by scooping the ball up and somehow over the bar from Rapid’s Rene Wagner. Banks once said: “It was as good as mine against Pele.’’ Sorry Gordon, but our

judges beg to diﬀer! www.youtube.com/ watch?v=UZvJ8GT73rM

Enter, GK1 editor Andy Evans to restore order before concluding there’s only one solution!

Jim Montgomery: Sunderland v Leeds United, FA Cup Final 1973

How

did he

do that?

2

And so to kick off your latest edition, GK1 has surveyed a group of top goalkeeping coaches to bring you the Top Five jawdropping, eye-bulging, gravity-defying saves of all time.
Jim’s effort would have to come close to winning, were this a
‘double-save’competition. The first save is good, but the second has near paranormal qualities. Commentator Brian Moore takes a while to realise it’s not a goal. Monty’s efforts coupled with Ian Porterfield’s goal combined to cause one of the great FA Cup

upsets of all time. www.youtube.com/ watch?v=PZmFoo4payA

(In reverse order:)

Gregory Coupet: Barcelona v

Lyon, Champions League, 1999

Craig Gordon: Sunderland

v Bolton, Premier League

5

After just two minutes at the Nou

3

Camp the Lyon keeper pulled out one of the all-time great stops as he ﬁrst acrobatically headed an unintended lobbed backpass by a defender onto his own crossbar, and then immediately parried a close header by the arriving Barcelona

December 2010

With just a few seconds left at the end of the first half Bolton won a corner. Gary Cahill headed into the danger area before Zat Knight smacked a shot towards a gaping goal from little

Gordon Banks. England v Brazil World Cup 1970

1

Turn the page for more…

www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ngE9RCAdWaE

GK1 asks a select group of the nation’s top goalkeeping coaches for their Top 5 great saves of all time.

Craig Gordon’s wonder save against Bolton, December 2010

AUTUMN 2011 5

in! But as soon as I realised I’d kept it out, I knew I’d done something a bit diﬀerent,” says the typically modest Yorkshireman.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Gordon Banks

Hot and Bothered

“Everything that day was in Brazil’s favour. It was a midday kick off. The only shadows were around your feet and it was 102 degrees out on a rock-hard pitch. In the team-talk, Alf (Ramsey) told us to keep possession and hold off from sprinting until the final third otherwise we’d be dead by half time.”
From the start, Banks watched on as the World Cup holders struggled to cope with the flair and pace of the tournament favourites, Brazil.

Safe as the Banks of England

Yet even prior to that great day, the
Brazilians had the upper-hand, thanks to some under-hand tactics from the locals.
“Brazil had been in town for a couple of weeks, handing out little ﬂags, meeting and greeting the locals,”recalls Banks, who kept for his country on 73 occasions.

Banks with Brazil legend Pele

that little fella Tostão was unmarked on the near post!”
73-year-old, who now travels to Liverpool to sit on the weekend Pools Panel.

Like so many great keepers, Banks relied on his positional instincts, making his way across the goalmouth in the blink of an eye as Pele rose to send a bullet header goalwards.
The reason why this awe-inspiring eﬀort seemingly never grows old has much to do with the need for anticipation. It wasn’t a knee-jerk instinctive save from a point-blank shot. Everything Banks did that day came from a split-second conscious ability to judge exactly what he needed to do to keep his team level.

“Because I was diving backwards, the bottom half of my body swung around and I ended up facing almost backwards... and that’s when I saw the ball bouncing away.

During England’s glory years, the No1 jersey belonged to Gordon Banks OBE. For some, possibly the game’s ﬁnest exponent of the art of goalkeeping. Banks has received endless accolades - not to mention a World Cup winners’medal - but he knows he’ll always be best remembered not for one season, one tournament or even one game - but for one save...that just happened to be the greatest save of all time!

“And the night before the game, local fans stopped the traﬃc outside our hotel at about 2am and of course all the car horns started. It took the police a couple of hours to restore peace and quiet by which time we were all wide awake! Then they came back again and did the same thing.”
“Moore-o (Bobby Moore) came and clipped me on the top of the head. Tostão had his hands in the air then started clapping. Pele had his hand in the air, almost asking how that had happened,”... a question no one has ever really answered.
“A bit naughty but to be honest, it didn’t make any diﬀerence in the end. On the day we played superbly.”

ore than forty years on, following GK1’s canvas of opinions, we

“I never used to stand on my line, always Best Laid Plans two or three yards oﬀ it. Thank goodness. I looked at his take-oﬀ point and his balance to help work out which way the header was going. That’s when I also heard him shout ‘Gol’!”
“We created more chances and should have

M

had the pleasure of

Don’t Look Up

won. In fact, that was the ﬁrst time I started to believe that we could go on and win the World Cup again...and I thought we’d see Brazil again in the ﬁnal. That time, they’d be the ones who were nervous.”

congratulating Gordon, who took time out to recall the memories of the day he wrote his name into footballing folklore in the sweltering heat of Guadalajara.

Banks was to make save after save to keep England level - a consummate athlete at the peak of his powers. Just ten minutes into the game, the attack and its fabled outcome began with the Brazilian captain Carlos Alberto.
“I knew straight away I’d have to guess how high the ball would bounce off the rock-hard surface whilst at the same time reaching behind me.”
Sadly, Banks’plans were to be foiled days later by a severe stomach upset, confining him to hotel quarters while a two-nil lead became a 3-2 defeat to West Germany.
“Of course I was disappointed. I think I was a better keeper in ‘70 than in ‘66. I was in my thirties, all the experience I’d gained for England and at club level and I was in such good form; supremely confident in my abilities. It felt like it was my time and I know that spread to the players around me.”

‘Gol’

“It’s true,”recalls Gordon. “He shouted ‘Gol’ as he headed it!” It had taken the greatest player of all time to bring out the very best from the finest ‘keeper these shores have ever produced.
“He was such an amazing player. He fizzed this beautiful pass with the outside of his right foot, to Jairzinho. In a flash, he ghosted past Terry Cooper towards the by-line. For a moment it looked like he’d over-run it. If he managed to get the cross in I knew we were in trouble. He looked up and so did I...and quickly wished I hadn’t!”
“Rivelino was charging in from the left,
Pele was sprinting through the middle and

Watching the save back in real time does little justice to Banks’ eﬀorts. Only in slow motion can you consider the acrobatic ability, the calculations necessary, the instincts and the amazing distance covered...all in the blink of an eye.

Not one to use a dozen words, when one or two will do, Banks warms to the topic as the memories of that roasting-hot day - and a very special pair of gloves - come ﬂooding back.
“To be honest, I thought it had gone
“I just thought it was a goal. I’d managed to get the top of my thumb to it,”recalls the

6 AUTUMN 2011

AUTUMN 2011 7

as it was nil-nil at the time. Like they say, sometimes saving a goal’s as important as scoring one.”
So often these days polls are dominated by recent players, recent goals, recent teams...yet in some ways it’s the legacy of Banks’moment which is the most significant.
“I suppose it’s the internet which keeps the interest these days. Kids can listen to their dads, well their grand-dads, then log on and read about it and play it over again and make their own judgements.
“I’m sure it helps that the header was from Pele. He was the very best I ever saw, built to play football with such a great brain.
“We didn’t talk about it at the time, just shook hands as we left the field. It never really cropped up again until we got home.”
Years later, the Brazilian legend came over to the UK to collect yet another award - and not for the first time explained why his memories of the day are so clear.
“I’ve played all over the globe, won
World Cups, scoring more than 1000 goals. But every time I come here to England, the only thing people ask me about is Gordon Banks!” went and found some at a local sports shop. The palms and the backs of the fingers were covered in those pimples you find on a table tennis bat! I popped them on at training the next day and they were terrific.

Wonder Gloves

As the Pele save had proven, if it was saveable, Banks was your man.
More than four decades later, the memories are undiminished, the pride still there and the recollections saved for a lucky few.

Banks on Today’s Keepers

“Because we were at altitude, the ball was moving about a bit and so my handling wasn’t what it needed to be.
But our chat reveals a chapter of the story lost in the midst of time regarding the gloves he wore that day.
“Five minutes with these gloves on and
I couldn’t drop a thing. They were brilliant and sent my conﬁdence through the roof and they’re the ones you see me wearing in Guadalajara.

GK1: So who does Gordon Banks enjoying watching these days?

GB: “I get down to the Britannia Stadium when I can to see Stoke (He’s the Hon. Club President ) and sometimes to Leicester. Joe Hart is a terriﬁc talent. He’s had a tough time of late, but he’s young and he’ll be great for England in years to come.
“In the heat of the Mexican sun, the players wore as little as possible. The keeper’s attire couldn’t have been more simple - cotton shirt, ordinary shorts and a cap if the sun shone,”remembers Gordon.
In England, keepers only wore gloves if it was wet! Little woollen ones at that! That was until a week or so before the Brazil match.
“To be honest I couldn’t wait to get home to see if I could ﬂog a few pairs,”he joked.

Legacy

“I’m not surprised to see Craig Gordon’s save in the Top 5. He’s a special talent and that was a real reflex save from very close range and he had to fetch the ball almost from behind him. He’s of an age where he’ll keep on improving and Scotland have got themselves an excellent talent there. Reina’s another terrific keeper I’d pay to go and see.”
It wasn’t really until England’s GK1 returned home that the fascination with THAT save became apparent.
“I was lying in bed watching a football match in my hotel room and saw this Mexican keeper had these big gloves on,” remembers Banks.
“Every time I was interviewed on TV or by the newspapers, the question about the save came up over and over again.”
So does he tire of discussing it? “I can’t afford to! No, seriously, I’m very proud to have made the save especially
“I went straight to Alf (Ramsey) and asked if I could go into town to find some. Off I

8 AUTUMN 2011

COACHING CORNER COACHING CORNER COACHING CORNER COACHING CORNER COACHING CORNER COACHING CORNER COACHING CORNER

he casino barons of Las Vegas

wearing red and then had the same ‘keeper

couldn’t get away with loading change his shirt to a coloured one. After the dice against you as much as this! For heaven’s sake,

all the penalties had been taken he saw that only 54% of penalties were scored against the keeper in red as opposed to 69%, 72% and 75% against ‘keepers wearing yellow, blue and green shirts respectively. Considering only 20% of all penalties are saved in professional football this increase in save percentage by wearing red is certainly not to be sniﬀed at. But, red is not a colour commonly worn by goalkeepers in England. In the 2010/11 Premier League season no goalkeeper wore red.

T

he’s only 12 yards away! No defenders to worry about, time on his side and just you, with a hope and the occasional prayer to stop what four times out of ﬁve, is the inevitable...a goal.

Science Fict ion or Science

The boﬃns working on behalf of the penalty takers reckon they’ve devised the perfect penalty: one which no keeper, however agile, however focused, however lucky, has the proverbial ‘cat in hell’s chance’

of saving!

Sadly, having worn red winning the

All it takes is a run up of 5 or 6 paces, approaching the ball at an angle of 20 to 30 degrees, kicking it at 65 mph, crossing the line 50 cms below crossbar and inside the post, unstoppable!
World Cup back in 1966, it’s likely to be a long time before England’s GK1 wears red!

Stand Off-Centre

In theory it makes no sense...
Well, with all due respect, GK1 scoffs at the theory of a perfect penalty! Our research has gathered together the thoughts of some of the finest scientific, psychological and good old fashioned footballing brains to give you the optimum chance to become this weekend’s penalty hero! but every keeper’s tried a

2

version of this at one time or another. Researchers in
Hong Kong learnt that if a ‘keeper stands a small distance closer to one post than the other it may not be obvious to the kicker but subconsciously the penalty taker knows which side has a larger target area and will tend to shoot that way. Armed with this information the ‘keeper is in a stronger position to dive to the larger area and can increase his chance of saving the kick.
Researchers found that by moving just
10cm towards one side of the goal and making one side of the goal 3% bigger, the goalkeeper can increase his chance of

FACT

Seeing Red

Since the late 1890’s, when keepers ﬁrst wore a diﬀerent

1

coloured-jersey, green has been the predominant colour of choice. But latest research from the University of Chichester conﬁrms green is the least successful colour to wear and actually red should be the ‘must have’colour saving the penalty by as much as 15% even in every goalkeepers’wardrobe this Autumn. before the kicker begins his run up.
Award-winning psychologist, Dr Iain
Greenlees found that ‘keepers in green saved one in four spot kicks compared to the ones in red who saved almost half!
His studies noted that red is seen as a signal of danger in the natural world and therefore penalty takers notice the goalkeeper more easily. It encourages a natural fear of failure and makes the ‘keeper look bigger in the goal than he would wearing a diﬀerent colour.