Wigan's number one has enjoyed a stellar campaign and is touted to go to the top.
When scanning through a Team of the Season, it’s only natural to see the lineup dominated by players representing the campaign’s most successful teams. That’s the case in League One, with eight of the inclusions having either earned promotion or a place in the Play-Offs, but Wigan Athletic goalkeeper Sam Tickle is one of the anomalies.
Speaking to Goalkeeper.com, he admits: “It's nice to be in it, but I wasn't going for it, just trying to do the best I could all season.”
Even so, success on awards evenings is becoming commonplace for the 23-year-old, who was named the Latics’ Player and Players’ Player of the Year last season – becoming the first goalkeeper since Ali Al-Habsi to win the first of those.
“It's always nice for the goalies to win something,” Tickle says. “I think if a goalkeeper wins something, he's got to do something really, really special, because no one really likes goalkeepers. It's normally the strikers.”
Tickle has certainly come up with special performances, keeping 18 clean sheets across all competitions last term in his first full campaign for his boyhood club, then bettering that tally with 20 this time around.
The importance of that record can’t be understated, as Tickle says the team’s defensive work “helped us stay in the league”, while sharing that it was satisfying to double the defence’s original target of 10 clean sheets.
When asked about the saves that stand out to him, Tickle mentions those against Northampton Town and Bristol Rovers at home, adding: “I think they're the best saves, when you know you've made a save and that's got you three points, or a point.”
It hasn’t always been accolades and celebrated moments for Tickle, though. “I was always really small for my age and couldn't kick very far,” he says of his academy days. “At 16, I didn't get a scholar, but it was a bit of a strange one because going into it the goalkeeper coaches thought it'd be alright, and then it wasn't to be.”
He joined Non-League side Pilkington, an experience he found “eye opening” but “loved”. The goalkeeper says: “I just think the game was so much tougher mentally, especially coming for crosses. The first few games I realised that I was going to start getting smashed and I needed to toughen up a bit, but that helps.”
He adds: “I think when I was that age, I just wanted to play football. I didn't really care where it was. I just wanted to play, I just love being the goalie. I just love diving about, so I don't think that changed anything.”
Even so, Tickle was back at Wigan after just a year. Speaking about reintegrating back into the club, he shares that it was “alright because I always felt I should have been there.” He continues: “It was a bit strange, but I felt like I belong there and that's what I deserve. So, it felt right.”
When Tickle made his first-team debut in an EFL Trophy match against Crewe Alexandra in 2021, he felt he’d “been ready for a while”. He continues: “I got told the day before that I was playing. To be fair, I wasn't really that nervous going into that one. I was more nervous for the League One season opener at Derby, but I just went out at Crewe and thought 'I'm gonna give it my best'. I was buzzing, I loved it.”
Having gone out on loan, he then made his league debut for the Latics. It was “sort of a free hit” on the final day of the 2022/23 Championship season, as Wigan had already been relegated and Rotherham United didn’t have anything to play for. “I thought for a while before that game that I could have been playing maybe,” he says. “Obviously, it's tough when you're in a relegation battle to chuck a young one in, but I thought when I get a chance, I'm going to show everyone what I can do.”
That was helped by Shaun Maloney coming in and taking things past the youngster being seen as a training goalkeeper. “The first thing he said to me was 'I've heard a lot about you',” Tickle shares. “Then in training sessions and stuff, you'd notice he was picking up on things you were doing. And then I thought 'I've got a bit of a chance here', and then he threw me in. I owe a lot to him.”
Having kept a clean sheet in the match against Rotherham, Tickle admits he “had a bit of an inkling going into pre-season that I might have had a chance” of starting in League One. He continues: “The gaffer said, 'come in tomorrow morning an hour before training', but training got moved to half eight or nine, so I came in an hour early, and he was like, 'what are you doing here?' He gave me the number one training kit and was like, 'you're going to be the number one'. That was a really nice moment.”
Tickle says there was a change in training with his new role: “Training sort of revolves around you and the games when you're playing, especially one or two days before a game. But I really loved it.”
He was also fulfilling his boyhood dream, revealing that “That's all I ever wanted to be, was the number one for Wigan, growing up. I knew that I'd played in Non-League, and that sort of set me up for it because after I played Crewe and Rotherham, I thought it's not much different. It's just a lot quicker, the tempo, but it doesn't change too much.”
He and Wigan emerged from the season opener against Derby with three points, and Tickle says: “As soon as I knew I was going to play Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday, getting the rhythm, I knew I'd be alright.”
He certainly has been, even earning England U21 call-ups for the March and October camps in 2024, where “the standards were a joke”. He says: “When you're in goal in the mini games, you're watching and thinking, 'this is unbelievable'. And then someone shoots and you're like 'oh, I've got to save that'.”
He also played in a 7-0 win over Luxembourg during the first of those camps. “It was crazy when I made the debut,” he says. “It couldn't have been more perfect, really, because the game was up north as well, so all my family could come. They were really proud, mum and dad.”
He continues: “I found out the day before because Traff [James Trafford] went up with the seniors. I was in the gym in the morning, the goalkeeper coach grabbed me and was like 'you're going to make your debut tomorrow', so I was absolutely buzzing.”
Reminiscing on the game itself, he says: “I remember, sort of up to 75 minutes, I was just buzzing, thinking 'this is class', and then after that, I was thinking 'right, I've got to get a clean sheet'. I was so nervous for the last 15 minutes.”
The FA Cup, which Tickle admits is his “favourite cup” has also given him memorable moments with Wigan facing Manchester United last term and Fulham this time around. “Once you get through and you get a good draw, it's so good,” Tickle says. “The standard of Premier League teams is another level, but I loved it. I saw it as another challenge. My dad always says 'just go out and enjoy it and do what you can, that's usually enough', and that's what I did.”
He made some notable saves to deny Marcus Rashford, and says: “When it's backs against the wall stuff, it's so good for a goalie because you're flying about making saves. It's like you're a kid again, especially when it's a team like theirs that is so good. It was unbelievable.”
Most goalkeepers will hope to face that kind of quality on a regular basis, and Tickle says: “I've always said I wanted to play in the Premier League, to win the Premier League, I wanted to go to a World Cup. They were my dreams growing up: to play for Wigan and play in the Premier League. That'd be the dream, just to play the highest possible level I can.”
While winning individual awards isn’t necessarily among those dreams, picking them up along the way shows just how influential he has been while fulfilling one of them.
