Greatest Goalie of All Time

Terry Sawchuk.

Yeah Dassaev (sp?) in my lifetime I guess. Sepp Maier was very good too. But probably one of those mythical goalies from before I was born, either Zamora or Yashin.

EL Loco

There are lots of locos though.You mean Quiroga or Higuita?I have a jumper that makes me look like Yashin when I play football in the park.Props must be given to Pat Jennings,and respect to Schmeichel.

Erik Thorsvedt!

Dave Beasant.

Oggy.

Luuuuuuuuuudo-o! Luuuuuuuuuuudo-o! Luuuuuuuuudo-o!

Tony Parks was the best keeper in 1984. The best I've ever seen would probably be Neville Southall - thoroughly underrated in my view.He was much better than Shilton but somehow Shilton got most of the goalkeeping plaudits throughout the 80's, probably because he was playing for poorer teams after Forest.

Alan Rough, no contest.

Dick Pym. Apparently.

Best Chelsea keeper I've seen : Eddie Niedswiecki (sp?).

Best performance I've seen by a Chelsea keeper : Tony Godden v. Man Utd 1987-ish : saved 2 pens.

Best Others : Southall. Clemence. Jennings. Ogrizovic (kept Cov up for about 10 years)

Overrated : Shilton. Beasant (truly useless for Chelsea 1990-92). Gary Bailey. Seaman. R. Wright.

Good Current keepers : Bosnich, Sullivan, D. James.

Favourite nutter : John Burridge.

Wasn't Beasant sacked from Chelsea as a direct result of one especially bad match?

Barthez is certainly my favourite one of the moment, although I'm going to have to say Seaman, aren't

Wave your hands in the air1 Wave 'em like you just don't care!

Beasant was 'released' by Ian Porterfield after a truly horrendous game against Norwich.

The 'Beasant game' was (and I can tell you this without looking it up since it was my 30th Birthday) Nov 16th 1991. We lost 3-0 at home to Norwich and all three of the goals were schoolboy errors. Two of them were so embarrassing that they totally eclipse Barthez's recent blunders - at least he *moves about* no matter how ineptly. Beasant LITERALLY just stood there as two shots rolled past him. One of them MAY have been an own goal from Jason Cundy (good player before he went Yiddish) - I'm not sure though, I'll have to check.

Porterfield shipped him out on loan to Grimsby, replacing him with the ever-reliable Kevin Hitchcock for the rest of the season. Beasant made the bench after his loan spell, but I'm not sure if he ever started a game again.

In fact, even before this game he was totally useless - the amount of times he was lobbed for opposition goals was unreal, and he couldn't catch a cross to save his life.

91/92 was a typical Chelsea season - 14th place in Div 1 and after a decent run in the FAC we contrived a way to get knocked out by Sunderland in the quarter-finals. Porterfield dropped Clive Allen for the replay and replaced him with the dire Tony Cascarino on the ground that it was 'windy on the night'. Jesus!

Spurs are bound to draw Chelsea in the Worthy semis. Damn that hoodoo.

Beasant is not the worst keeper I've seen a Chelsea shirt though. The year we went down 1987/88 there was a 'keeper crisis'. Eddie got crocked then Roger Freestone got injured too. In, on loan from Brighton came.....

.....PERRY DIGWEED.

Oh Lord, he was grim. Not only could he not hold the ball in ANY SITUATION, but he spread total panic through the back four from the first minute.

A Watford fan site votes him the most inadequate player ever to appear in a Watford shirt, and another claim to fame is that he was in goal for Palace when they were beaten 9-0 by Liverpool in 1989.

Best goalkeeping performance I've ever seen in the flesh: the late Les Sealey - keeping the score down to a respectable 3-0 as Coventry were torn apart by an uncharacteristically rampant Everton, Goodison Park, March 1981.

Southall was magnificent, of course - like George Best, his reputation outside of his own domestic environment probably isn't that high, as he had the misfortune to play at international level for one of the minnows of world football. I shall resist the challenge of making a similar case for Kevin Ratcliffe...

But was Big Nev as good as Ted Sagar? I fear the number of drinking gentlemen in the British Legion in Kirkdale with which one could have such a debate falls by the month.

Let's hear it for Paul Cooper - the penalty king.

Is your geezer Simonsen any good, MJ? He looks a rum 'un - sort of huge and prematurely balding like a cross between De Goey and Ogrizovic. Wasn't Gerrard pretty decent last year?

I bet Chelsea weren't singing the "I can drive a tractor" song that day against Norwich ...

Actually a Spurs-Chelsea semi would be the first remotely interesting thing to happen in the Worthy this season, or for a long time: likewise, the 97-98 Coca-Cola Cup (as it then was) was redeemed by Chelsea's comeback against Arsenal in the second leg of the semi, sweet revenge for, IIRC, two league defeats by them already that season plus one in the first leg at Highbury. In fact, didn't Arsenal beat Chelsea in the league *between* the two legs of that tie?

Perry Digweed - Jesus it's been a while, but you're right! No wonder Nigel Martyn was waiting in the wings at Palace 12 years back. The other outstanding example of goalkeeping incompetence, all the more legendary for having been Swindon's keeper when they conceded 100 goals in the second season of the Premiership, is FRASER DIGBY. How could Beasant have kept Liverpool out in the '88 Cup final when they were rampant?

I have to nominate Schmeichel, though I'm loathe to. He added so much to ManYoo's self-confidence: just his *being there* seemed to reassure new players drafted into the defence or wherever. In fact he came as close as any goalkeeper I've seen has to being at the heart of the team: how else could they have screwed up replacing him so comprehensively and continually?

Digby has surfaced at QPR since Chris Day broke a leg- he seems like a travelling keeper for hire these days, like Digweed, like Budgie Burridge. Swindon's year in the top flight was surreal - did Digby keep goal all season? I seem to remember the useless Nicky Hammond played a little bit. Friends of mine who support Reading still have nightmares about his short stint at Elm Park.

Dr. C: difficult to say about Simonsen. Clean sheets are always nice, but he's not had an extended run in the side yet. Gerrard was looking pretty good, yes - as was Myrhe. In fact, I think The Observer ran a startlingly rare positive feature on EFC a couple of years ago, focusing on how Everton's goalkeeping future was in, heh- heh, GOOD HANDS. That very afternoon Gerrard's blunders gifted Aston Villa a place in the Cup semi-finals.

Perhaps the best I've ever seen, although I could be biased - Goram. I don't think there has ever been as good a shot stopper.

All round presence goes to Schmeichel though, he seemed to intimidate the opposition into missing more than anything else.

Goram loses points for that horrible haircut.Dr C - I'm sure the Beasant clangers you refer to were early on in season 92-93.

I really hate to say it too, but yeah it's the red nosed bastard isn't it?

Chesterfield though = home of good goal keeping. in the past at any rate, at least two of the keepers mentioned above started there.

And the best save ever = Jim Montgomery 1973 cup final

Nope. 1991/92. As I said, it was my birthday, so I know it's correct.

Sartorially, the best keeper has to be Campos.

Curtis Joseph quite clearly.

JOE CORRIGAN.

Mike Richter is my personal hero.

Roy is the best, tho.

Naw, I agree with Sawchuck (though Hasek can be unbelievable more often than not, and Brodeur is consistent as heck, if heck can be that consistent). Richter had that one stretch a couple years back where he was god awful; nice to see him rebound.

Ah, for the days of Peter Sidorkiewicz (sic, I imagine) & Kay Whitmore.

And, of course, Mr. Hockey misspells the name of the Greatest Goalie Ever. Score!