The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper by Wilson Jonathan

Author:Wilson, Jonathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409123200
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2012-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

6: THE PATIENT ENGLISH

Peter Shilton, stretching up and to his left, reached out with his right hand. Peter Nogly’s powerfully struck shot had swerved violently in mid-air, but Shilton, somehow, had read it and reacted. As his right hand arced across, it intercepted the ball at a point at which his body, stretching slightly backwards, was approaching the horizontal, four or five feet off the ground, and turned it away. Nottingham Forest survived again. ‘Goalkeepers are normally expected to save shots from that distance,’ Shilton said in his 1982 book The Magnificent Obsession, ‘but this was an out-of-this-world shot.’ He had, he explained, reacted slightly late, unsighted by the players in front of him. ‘The other problem,’ he went on, ‘was that the shot started going to my right and then went to my left. I couldn’t get into position quickly enough to save it with my left hand, so I had to bring my other arm across, while in mid-air, to give myself extra momentum and push the ball away with my right.’

It seems astonishing to hear something that happened so rapidly analysed in such a way, but this, surely, is an example of time slowing down for somebody who was absolutely focused and at the top of his game – an example of the former Ajax general manager David Endt’s view that ‘the seconds of the greats last longer than those of normal people.’ (That said, recent theories developing and refining the pioneering work of Benjamin Libet, a researcher into neural activity, suggests the sensation of time slowing down is the brain’s attempt to explain what the body is doing by instinct while offering the ego the comforting thought that it remains in control.)

That save from Nogly was the finest save of many as Nottingham Forest beat Hamburg 1–0 in Madrid to win the European Cup in 1980. If it wasn’t Shilton’s finest game – and he had many fine games – it was certainly his best performance in such a high-profile match. It had been a complete display of goalkeeping. He’d made reaction stops and well-judged dives. He’d shouted and gesticulated constantly, organising a defence that remained magnificently resolute in the face of sustained pressure. He’d come off his line to cut out through-balls and dominated his area. And when technically orthodox goalkeeping wasn’t possible, he’d improvised superbly, as when he’d thrown himself forwards into a crowded box, fists stretched out with his body parallel to the ground four feet below, to punch a Horst Hrubesch flick away from Jürgen Milewski.

Whether he was actually, as many claimed, the best in the world, it’s impossible to say, but Forest wouldn’t have swapped him for anybody; he was absolutely the right goalkeeper for that team. Given that he had succeeded Gordon Banks, and was still only sharing the England shirt with Ray Clemence – with the likes of Joe Corrigan and Jimmy Rimmer providing solid back-up – there was every reason for England to be proud of its goalkeeping heritage.

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