Would Birmingham City have gone up with Tom Heaton as their keeper?*

By: Martyn | May 12th, 2009

In light of the news that Cardiff City have signed their four-thousandth keeper in the space of two seasons, I began to wonder if we’ve been so willy-nilly with regards to signing shot-stoppers because they’re a flushable member of the team and begging, stealing and borrowing has made savvier financial sense. Or, if it’s such a key position that we’ll try and try again until we find the perfect man for the job. The easiest way to compare and contrast the fortunes of teams and their net-tenders (the examples I present have featured most regularly or are considered first-choice in spite of an injury cutting short their campaign) in this division is by using the ostensibly superficial age and experience measure. I realise that statistics are often misleading – as is focusing on one sole position on the field of play when 11 cogs comprise the team machine – but looking at the list of Championship custodians of choice from the 2008/09 season I do believe a pattern emerges illustrating that experience is priceless. So many teams play nigh-on identical tactics and formations at this level that there really is no goalkeeper who features in a team with the media-fabricated Keegan-philosophy of ‘You score 9 and we’ll score 10′, and as a result perhaps comparisons using this method aren’t as futile as first appears.

(Team/age/keeper/total league career appearances)

1. Southampton’s 32 year old Kelvin Davis – 462
2. Birmingham City’s 37 year old Maik Taylor – 455
3. Doncaster Rovers‘ 39 year old Neil Sullivan – 452
4. Sheffield United’s 30 year old Paddy Kenny – 409
5. Ipswich Town’s 31 year old Richard Wright – 363
6. Reading’s 36 year old Marcus Hahnemann – 355
7. Plymouth Argyle’s 32 year old Roman Larrieu - 258
8. Burnley’s 33 year old Brian Jensen - 250
9. Queen’s Park Rangers‘ 35 year old Radek Cerny – 234
10. Nottingham Forest’s 29 year old Paul Smith – 219
11. Blackpool’s 27 year old Paul Rachubka – 207
12, Crystal Palace’s 29 year old Julian Speroni – 197
13. Bristol City’s 34 year old Adrian Basso – 186
14. Derby County’s 27 year old Stephen Bywater – 179
15. Coventry City’s 24 year old Kieran Westwood – 177
16. Sheffield Wednesday’s 26 year old Lee Grant – 176
17. Preston North End’s 25 year old Andy Lonergan – 139
18. Norwich City’s 24 year old David Marshall – 128
19. Swansea City’s 28 year old Dorus De Vries – 113
20. Wolverhampton Wanderers‘ 22 year old Wayne Hennessey – 95
21. Watford’s 26 year old Richard Lee – 89
22. Cardiff City’s 32 year old Peter Enckelman – 79
23. Barnsley’s 30 year old Heinz Muller – 68
24. Charlton Athletic’s 23 year old Rob Elliot – 56

Starting with the top 7 in this list, immediately an anomaly arises. Woeful Southampton had the most experienced goalkeeper in the division in Kelvin Davis, yet they contrived to occupy the penultimate position in the final standings after accruing a meagre 45 points and letting in 69 (waaay, etc) goals. Nevertheless, I believe this can be explained away by looking further up the field to the outfield Saints personnel, many of whom were still in nappies. Maik Taylor features prominently in the list and the veteran certainly played his part this promotion-winning season given the fact that the Blues scored a pathetically dull 54 goals. Correspondingly, two sticksmen who’s teams reached the play-offs grace the top 6, Paddy Kenny and Marcus Hahnemann respectively. Richard Wright (season-destroying saver of a Ross McCormack penalty in the last ever game at Ninian Park) is a top goalkeeper and his team Ipswich Town’s promotion challenge was ruined by the persistently negative tactics of Jim Magilton. The other top 7 career-appearance makers in this division include a Frenchman (Larrieu) playing in a side that looked impotent and brittle from right-back to centre-forward. And last but definitely not least is a veteran currently saving bacon in South Yorkshire; Neil Sullivan’s mid-table finishing Doncaster Rovers conceded 53 goals in the league this season, akin to Hennessey’s champions Wolves who let in 52. Who knows; if Donny’s inexperienced and misfiring strikers had rippled the net more often then perhaps Sullivan’s heroics and season-long contribution would have received more coverage. Experienced goalkeepers also offered glorious benefits to the promoted sides from the 2007/08 season. West Bromwich Albion had Jason Donovan’s favourite player Dean Kiely in goals (656 league career starts at the time of going up!), Stoke City entrusted the position of last line of defence to Steve Simonsen (216), while Hull City went with Welsh-American Boaz Myhill (206). In the 2006/07 campaign, Roy Keane picked Darren Ward in goals for the champions Sunderland (35 years old, 486)

Moving on to those propping up the rest of the alternate jersey-wearers, and misfortune and conceding is the name of the game. 2 keepers (Marshall and Elliot) featured in the bottom 7 appearance makers suffered relegation, and 2 others – Muller and Lee of Barnsley and Watford – only narrowly avoided demotion playing in sides that conceded 130 league goals between them. This trend hasn’t been a phenomenon restricted solely to one Championship season either. Last season’s bottom side Colchester United persevered with Dean Gerken in goals and at the time of that relegation he had made just 86 career appearances. This season he’s fared no better and has even ended up being loaned out to League Two’s Darlington. When Leeds United were relegated in the 2006/07 season, Casper Ankergen was first-choice. He finished the season having made just 99 career appearances. Naturally, teams at the bottom of the table tend to be subject to budget-cuts and are therefore forced to blood inexperienced rookies. But clearly, this is of minimal aid to the side and it is no surprise that teams with experienced keepers tend to entertain happier times and loftier league placings.

However, there is another glaringly obvious exception in the bottom 7 career-showing makers as represented by league winners Wolverhampton Wanderers and their youthful stoppers. When they weren’t using Wales’s Wayne Hennessey (he who once went 9 games without conceding for Stockport County prior to then letting in 11 goals in 3 games!), Carl Ikeme (23 years old, 24 appearances in league football) got the nod. Balderdash! In 2005/06 when Watford reached *The Promised Land* via the play-offs, their goalkeeper Ben Foster ended the season with just 66 career appearances to his name! Delving down the league in that particular FLC season and we find that Milwall were relegated despite putting their faith in Andrew Marshall to keep the ball out of the net: He’d reached his 31st birthday and had made 329 career appearances come the campaign conclusion. Alas, when compounded with the evidence from this season that having a Kelvin Davis in your side won’t keep you up, any arguments for the virtue of having a battle-hardened pro seem weak. Yet like with most things in life, you cannot blanket everything under theory even if the vast majority get smothered.

With the wide variety of goalkeepers Cardiff City have used since Neil Alexander acrimoniously left the club after a 6-year spell (Rangers, 31 years old, 357), perhaps it is no coincidence that we have failed to reach the play-offs on the back of some catastrophic defensive calamities. Annoyingly, Alexander left after a falling-out with the manager (or not). Jostling with the balding blond Finn for the role of showing his buttocks to a different behind-the-goal stand each game was Tom ‘Hopeless’ Heaton (23 years old, 35 career appearances). It would be daft to declare that an experienced goalkeeper is the ultimate factor in a side achieving success or suffering failure. However, there is a far more beneficial case to be made for the man in your team’s gloves (not that this description resonates in the age of your Micah Richards’s and Pascal Chimbonda’s!) having been around the proverbial block for several years and acquiring invaluable experience. More than anything I suppose, a goalkeeper with experience is able to orchestrate and organise the side in front of him with more know-how and therefore, threats can be averted rather than reflected upon after a goal slips in. Unfortunately, Dave Jones and us City fans are learning this the hard way since the departure of the likeable and reliable Alexander and it’s a joke that this situation has taken any time at all to be remedied. Will our new Scot David Marshall be one of the rare exceptions to my/the rule and at last offer us a stable presence? Here’s ruddy well hoping so!