The fog rolled in on Boxing Day at Anfield. It prompted memories of a forgotten goalkeeper fighting the elements at Christmas….
“The goalkeeper’s coming in with cold hands, cold feet, Adrian is my man of the match,” Jurgen Klopp declared as Liverpool steamed eleven points clear at the top of the table 2019 just a day before December drove into view.
Allison had just been sent off as Liverpool were cruising to victory over Brighton. Suddenly, the second choice had to deal with coming in from the cold.
While outfield players can warm up the engine after a few quick sprints, goalkeepers need to pick up the temperature of a match immediately in the most challenging conditions. Unplanned substitute keepers have to work out the coordinates straight away.
When Hugo Lloris moved from Tottenham to the MLS for a new challenge, he wasn’t planning for wind, lightning, rain, dust, and a snow blizzard. That’s exactly what the Frenchman got against Real Salt Lake, whose ground could have done with an HGV gritter to fight the white stuff in March last year.
“The biggest difference is, I never played on the snow. There was probably, I don’t know, 15, 20 centimetres between my feet and the floor, and it became really dangerous,” said the former Tottenham man. The Los Angeles FC coach Steve Cherundolo insisted the game should never have gone ahead. Had he never seen those original matches with the orange ball back in the 1970s and 1980s?
In 1995, two Americans played in goal on opposite sides for the first time in England. Millwall’s Kasey Keller and Charlton’s Mike Ammann endured the tangerine football and the blizzard. The former didn’t have his best day. "That was the worst we've played since I've been here," stormed Millwall manager Mick McCarthy. "We've gone from being a team that was unbeatable to a soft touch.” Welcome to England in the deep freeze, guys.
Klopp protected Danny Ward after one game against Bournemouth, “Let the self-confidence grow of goalkeepers, they’re normal human beings. Only gloves on hands. The rest is normal.” Some might dispute that last sentence, but history shows the isolation of the custodian in extreme conditions.
Take Christmas Day at Chelsea in 1937. Yes, players would turn out at the most wonderful time of the year. Charlton’s legendary Sam Bartram was in nets for the visitors as the score was locked at 1-1 with half-an-hour remaining. Having not seen any action for approximately 15 minutes, Bartram was curious to know what might be happening at the other end.
He later wrote: "After a long time, a figure loomed out of the curtain of fog in front of me. It was a policeman, and he gaped at me incredulously. ‘What on earth are you doing here? The game was stopped a quarter of an hour ago.”
Bartram was tagged as one of "the finest goalkeepers never to play for England.” He even left his own wedding to play for the club before going on honeymoon. Off to sunnier climes than Stamford Bridge probably.
In the decades before undersoil heating in modern stadia, the sight of keepers wearing tracksuit bottoms was very much the requirement. Peter Schmeichel’s iconic save against Rapid Vienna in the 1996 Champions League was more memorable for the long pair of pants.
In the 1980s, leggings and gloves on outfielders were an insult to those in nets who dealt with the abrasive freeze of sliding across their rock-hard penalty box. West Ham legend Phil Parkes chose to wear shorts on a snow blanket at Portman Road in an FA Cup tie. England’s Jack Robinson insisted goalkeepers have to be made of a compound of steel. He was right.
During the most recent episode of Chelsea’s European cruise around the Conference League, Astana goalkeeper Mukhammedzhan Seysen stole the headlines for wearing a beanie hat in the -14 conditions in Kazakhstan. He also pulled off some excellent saves, but that was less important than his headgear apparently.
The goalkeeper is always dealing with the direct effects of terrible conditions. They are the ones standing alone, never hitching a lift, but trying to work out the roadmap in the freeze frame of the action. They get the direct abuse of Mother Nature too.
In a dead Europa Conference rubber between HJK Helsinki and Aberdeen, fans took the entertainment into their own hands by reigning down snowballs at home stopper Niki Maenpaa in Finland’s capital.
The 38-year-old veteran was taking a goal kick when he was pelted by the Dons support. The match was stopped and the tannoy announcer said that the game might have to be abandoned if such fun and games continued.
Goalkeepers can also be creative when given the chance to shine in the ice. CSKA Moscow’s Igor Akinfeev used the snow as a kind of golf tee to take a goal-kick during a Russian Premier League clash against FC Rostov in December last year. However, Akinfeev was stopped in his snow tracks by referee Rafael Shafeev who told him to kick down his home-made castle.
There are occasions when snowflakes will occasionally fall in the number one’s favour, which is handy given that the protection of their species is scowled at by so many.
Hannover’s Genki Haraguchi rounded Bayer Leverkusen’s Lucas Hradecky in 2019 and slotted the ball towards goal. It halted at the terminus of snow on the line “Today it was more a case of snowballs and sometimes it looked like a comedy," joked Hradecky.
The comedy of errors is one that goalkeepers have to take on the chin all year round. A good dose of humour rather than an icicle jaw is essential.
As January marks the beginning of a new annual of goalkeeping stories, there will be images that capture the coloured jersey in full flight in every continent in all conditions. Goalkeepers have to front up when others haven’t got the foggiest.
