Soccer: Keeping faith

The legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly had many brilliant ideas. Forcing his players to eat fillet steak and toast hours before kick-off was not one of them.

But as Ray Clemence, Liverpool goalkeeper throughout most of Shankly's reign, wryly observes, the policy did work. Just not on the pitch.

"It was a benefit at six o'clock in the bar. But of course everyone now knows that red meat takes five to six hours to digest."

Maybe not, but nor was it a hindrance. Clemence was still able to throw himself between the sticks with a gut full of red meat, while his outfield team-mates played a brand of passing football that left every other European club trailing in their wake.

Modern thinking can poke fun at this archaic diet but the Clemence legacy has stood the test of time. His achievement of only letting in 16 goals during the 1978-1979 season may never be surpassed and he remains one of only a select few to have three European Cup medals in his possession.

Clemence, who enjoyed 14 seasons at Liverpool before joining Tottenham Hotspur in 1981, and rivals Peter Shilton, Pat Jennings and Dino Zoff were instrumental in raising the status of goalkeepers. Their heroics throughout the 1970s paved the way for the next generation of goalkeepers to earn star status. Both Liverpool's Bruce Grobbelar and Everton's Neville Southall were two of the better paid players at their respective clubs for much of the 1980s. And after them came Peter Schmeichel, David Seaman, Oliver Kahn and Fabien Barthez.

"After strikers, goalkeeping is the next most glamorous position," says Clemence. "Goalkeepers now are starting to be appreciated. Years ago you used to be the 11th man in the side, shoved into a corner of the training field and told to get with on it. With the exception of the 1970 Brazilian side, I have never seen a team win the World Cup, European Championship or league title without a very good goalkeeper.

"Goalkeepers need to be very strong characters. They tend to get more criticism than any other players. Whenever the ball goes in the net, the goalkeeper gets some heat.

"But then we have seen in penalty shoot-outs how they have the opportunity to make fantastic saves and influence the game. If you look around the world at the best goalkeepers, they all enjoy a really high profile."

And with profile comes enormous riches. Goalkeepers currently holding down a first team place in the Premiership can earn in a couple of weeks what Clemence took home a year. Nobody could blame him if he felt bitter watching the notoriously calamitous David James and journeymen keepers like Mark Crossley and Nicky Walker set themselves up for life on half the talent he had.

It's not, however, something that stirs a great deal of emotion in the 56-year-old. If he had no need to work after giving up playing, he may not have found himself in his current role as England's goalkeeping coach, a position he dearly loves. Besides, he would not have enjoyed living with the fame.

"It would have been lovely to have been in the position that most of the players are now. I played 26 years at the top. I came out the game with a respectable lifestyle and I'm still making a living out of the game. But I have to work. The guys now can play for about five or six years and be set up for life. That is great for them and I have no jealousy about that.

"The profile of the game is so high now that the top professional footballer has celebrity status. Everything he does, he is followed by a camera, by a reporter, by a TV crew. David Beckham can't take his children to school in Madrid because he's followed the instant he steps out of the house. That is a hard lifestyle to have."

He says he even enjoyed his greatest blunder - letting a timid Kenny Dalgliesh shot dribble through his legs while playing for England. It handed the Scots a 2-1 victory in front of 70,000 crazy fans at Glasgow's Hampden Park.

"Everyone is remembered for something and I will be remembered for the Dalgliesh goal. I go up to Scotland quite a lot and the first thing everyone says to me is `Kenny Dalgliesh'. Some of them were not even born. But it's great. I never have to buy a drink when I'm in Scotland."