Goalie or goalkeeper?

             

                                        Gordon Banks

There's an old saying, what I know about football wouldn't get my hair cut. And that about sums me up as I haven't been watching it for very long – well about ten to twenty years; forty – let's face it sixty and I still only know it from the survival end. I have no knowledge about tactics, plans, diamond shaped formations or pressing. I just know what I know. The people in the crowd at football matches know everything about it - or think they do.

What I know about football – we are talking about asSOCiation football, and you can see that little word in caps there which is why America calls it soccer – is that I have followed, for all that time, a team called Aston Villa. I am in good company as Tom Hanks likes the Villa and so does King Billy – the next king after Charles (if, indeed he calls himself Charles; his granddad, Albert, called himself George – bit like the pope, you see).

I have followed other teams too – Liverpool and Manchester United – but only as a passing interest.

The one thing I have noticed about football, in all that time, is that it has changed and not always for the better. When I first started watching, a ball would be passed from either of the wings and as the ball reached inside the six yard box, the goalie and the centre forward would jump up for it and if the goalie caught it the centre forward would shoulder charge the goalie over the goal line and it would be a goal.

When Aston Villa last won the cup, they played, maybe, the best football team ever; the Busby Babes. The team of 1957. The final was marred by a collision after only six minutes between Villa forward Peter McParland and United goalkeeper Ray Wood, which left Wood unconscious with a broken cheekbone. Wood left the pitch and Jackie Blanchflower took over in goal for United. Wood eventually rejoined the game in an outfield position as a virtual passenger before returning to goal for the last seven minutes of the game. 

Not long after that game, on February 6^th 1958, most of the United team were killed in a plane crash in Munich.

In doze daze (those days) there was no such thing as a substitute as, before you ask, no, Wood wasn't subbed. In another cup final someone went off after a short time and the team carried on with ten men. So they introduced substitutes after a lot of nagging with old sweats saying the game will never be the same; an injury was the only reason for substitution which has evolved in to making the use of substitutes into tactical decisions which football has never been able to use correctly like other sports such as Basketball; even Rugby have a more sensible approach to new ideas – but not football. You may think they need to come into the twenty first century but I would say they need to come in to the twentieth first.

It is such a reactionary sport, very conservative when you can count on one hand the number of gay footballers who have ever come out; there are quite a few, believe me, but the powers that be in football are only just about managing racism.

I missed most of the Premiere League when we lived in America, only watching the World Cup, which was strange when we would hear the American commentators referring to PKs (penalties) and one of them used to call the goal the onion bag. So when I came back and started to watch the Premiere League I was startled at the quality of the football, the skill of the players and the excitement of the whole thing. Of course most of the live football is on Sky TV which costs an arm and a leg so I am quite satisfied with Match of the Day which is on BBC TV.

The one thing I did notice was that the goalie, these days, doesn't seem to run out to punch the ball away, or even catch it, as often as they used to, preferring to stay on the goal line and taking a chance.

Talking of goalies, I was talking about football to a pal, when I lived in LA, and I mentioned the goalkeeper; 'the what?' my pal said 'the goalkeeper!' I said – 'never heard them called that before' he said.

Gordon Banks died recently; possibly England's greatest goalkeeper, maybe even the shortest. He made a famous save in the 1970 world cup from, maybe the greatest ever footballer, Pelė, which people say was the best save ever. The people who say that didn't see all his saves, of course, and, even though I have used it once or twice, there is no such thing as the greatest anything – even a country (sorry America) – but Banks would be up there if there was such as thing.

At his prime Banks got into a car crash and lost the sight in his right eye – he was a great ambassador for football after that, but had to sell his world cup medal later on because of financial difficulties; footballers were always on low money and these days most of them are not great earners but Banks was dedicated as most footballers are.

Banks would dive for every shot – even the ones he knew were going wide – and when asked about this he would say it would warm him up, get him ready and make him feel part of the game.