Page 27 - 358264 LP231909 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 (Issue 257)

THE
NUMBER
ONES
I don’t know why I’ve always loved goalkeepers, there’s just something about them. They’re different, often mad as a hatter, get to wear a differ- ent shirt, get to catch the ball. It’s weird because, throughout my child- hood I ended up in goal because I was rubbish at football, last pick and in goal you go, so you’d think that would put me off them. But it didn’t. And there are some in my Sunderland-watching life that stand out. There are, of course, many who stand out for negative reasons, but they will have
But let’s focus on four of the good ones.
to wait for a less positive article. From Perez to Camp, from Hesford to Chamberlain, there are many less than happy memories.
Firsts in football are always special. The first goal, the first trip to Roker, the first star player. Well, my first goalkeeper was Barry Siddall. At the age of four I was overwhelmed by the man in green. And
looked like his Mam had knitted for him just to aid the camouflage effect. When you see pictures of him in his Sunderland kit today it’s hard to believe that he was only 22 when he signed. I can only assume that, like many players of the era, he’d
I don’t mean green with flash lines or a swooping multi coloured design. Or even a sponsor’s logo. Just green. If he lay down you wouldn’t have been able to see him. And he always wore green gloves that
had a hard paper round. He left when I
was seven, replaced by the first real hero
I had as a child, the ever-wonderful Chris Turner. Turner never got the international recognition I felt he deserved but our next champion did. Wales’ greatest keeper (from the late 80s to the mid 90s if you ignore Neville Southall), Tony Norman.
NORMAN
Now, I need to explain this to the kids reading, internationals used to be rare. Not like now when Accrington and Morecambe have enough internationals to get matches cancelled. And so, for us to have Wales’ sub goalkeeper in our ranks was an honour. Norman was a staggeringly regular player, rarely being injured and actually setting
a record for his previous club Hull for consecutive appearances and could be relied on to put in solid performance after solid performance. He was the keeper who
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