Could the future of English goalkeeping be in safe hands at last?

The Weekend Dossier

Roy Hodgson was disappointed to lose Wayne Rooney to injury for England's last World Cup qualifiers, but it might have been worse. He could have been without Joe Hart. As if to underline how important Hart's continued availability is, on Tuesday, while Hart was playing Real Madrid, one of his understudies was also in action. By all accounts Jack Butland was in fine form, but he was playing for Birmingham City in the Championship against Bolton. Which is rather different to facing Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Mesut Ozil in a Champions League tie in the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.

When the Premier League opened 20 years ago, 16 of the 22 goalkeepers were English-qualified. Last weekend six of them were, and that figure was bolstered by Reading's decision to drop Australian Adam Federici after an unbroken run of 50 League matches, allowing Alex McCarthy a rare opportunity, and an elbow injury to Newcastle's Tim Krul that enabled Steve Harper to enjoy a recall.

The other four Englishmen between the sticks were Hart, Ben Foster (West Brom), John Ruddy (Norwich) and Kelvin Davis (Southampton). Foster, 29 years old with five caps won over four seasons, no longer wishes to be considered for England, while Davis, 36 next week, has played one top flight season in a decade, a relegation campaign with Sunderland seven years ago. Which leaves Hodgson to select Hart and Ruddy almost by default, adding Butland whose experience prior to this summer came with England age-group teams and in League Two with Cheltenham.

Back in 1992 six of the English-qualified goalkeepers had already played international football and two more, David James and Ian Walker, would do so. Players as good as John Lukic, a title winner with Arsenal and Leeds, and Steve Ogrizovic, a top-flight regular for 14 seasons, would never win a cap. How Hodgson would envy such depth.

Not that he is the only one. When Ged Roddy, the Premier League's Director of Youth, toured the clubs to canvas opinion in the review of youth development which would ultimately create the Elite Player Performance Programme (EPPP), he asked managers what single improvement would they most like to see implemented. Arsène Wenger asked for a policy to produce more English goalkeepers.

Arsenal's last regular English keeper was David Seaman, a decade ago.Manchester United's was Les Sealey in 1990-91; Chelsea's was Dave Beasant in 1993 and the last Englishman to keep goal at Anfield regularly was David James in 1999. Liverpool now have four goalkeepers, none of them English.

As a consequence, since Seaman left Arsenal, Hart is the only English No 1 to have played more than four matches in the Champions League. Collectively Chris Kirkland, Ben Foster, Ross Turnbull, Scott Carson and Ben Amos played 14 times as deputies. While Butland had the useful experience of the Olympics he is no more likely to play in Europe in the near future than Ruddy, who has only one Premier League season behind him. Meanwhile, Spain have Iker Casillas, Pepe Reina, Victor Valdes, and David De Gea.

It is not as if there are a host of keepers in the wings. Eight of the 20 sitting on the bench last weekend were English, two of whom owed their place to the absences of Federici and Krul. Of the eight only Rob Green, whose replacement by Julio Cesar at QPR seems to sum up the fate of English keepers, and David Stockdale, Mark Schwarzer's understudy at Fulham, are England possibles.

There is, finally, hope on the horizon. Goalkeeper training, even at senior clubs, was often cursory and basic: shots and crosses. Now there is a much greater focus on handling, positioning, distribution, communication and the mental side. But the quality has still varied from club to club.

In future under EPPP all category one and two clubs must employ a full-time head of goalkeeping, responsible for drawing up a syllabus to coach keepers at all ages. He, and his staff, need to be qualified to Uefa B licence and Football Association goalkeeping B licence level. The latter qualification, a six-day residential course costing £950, is stage three on the FA's coaching pathway to the Goalkeeping A licence, which 65 candidates passed last year.

At present would-be goalkeeping coaches need equivalent outfield qualifications first, a ruling James, long an advocate of better goalkeeping coaching, has decried. When James signed for Liverpool in 1992 he asked who the goalkeeping coach was. "Goalkeeping coach? Ray Clemence never had a goalkeeping coach," responded Ronnie Moran, the coach at what was then England's most successful club. Which in part explains why, two decades later, only 20 per cent of the Premier League's regular goalies are English.

Premier League: Goalkeepers

Club Goalkeeper Nationality

Arsenal Szczesny Poland

Aston Villa Guzan US

Chelsea Cech Czech

Everton Howard US

Fulham Schwarzer Australia

Liverpool Reina Spain

Man City Hart England

Man Utd Lindegaard Sweden

Newcastle Harper England

Norwich Ruddy England

QPR Julio Cesar Brazil

Reading McCarthy England

Southampton Davis England

Stoke Begovic Serbia

Sunderland Mignolet Belgium

Swansea Vorm N'lands

Tottenham Friedel US

West Brom Foster England

West Ham Jaaskelainen Finland

Wigan Al Habsi Oman

(Started last weekend's matches)

Five Asides

1 Ferdinand should be admired for handshake snub

In the warped world of football fandom it was no surprise that Chelsea supporters abused Anton Ferdinand last week; less explicable was the observation of neutral observers, including the PFA chief executive, Gordon Taylor, that Ferdinand should have shaken hands with a man he believes racially abused him. Ferdinand is not grandstanding, he is just being true to himself when it would be much easier not to, and he should be admired for that. It is true the case has already been to court and John Terry found not guilty but the magistrate's summing-up suggested he would have returned a verdict of "not proven" had it been available, as it is in Scotland.

Ferdinand may yet be vindicated when the FA conducts its own hearing into the case this week. This takes place against the backdrop of last week's report by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which stressed that much more needs to be done to eradicate racism from the game.

2 Football can be good for your health

Further to the article in these pages last Saturday highlighting the positive impact football can have on society, Leeds Metropolitan University has concluded a study that found 70 per cent of the 10,000 men reached by the Premier League Health initiative improved their lifestyle. This prompted a recommendation that the NHS should use football clubs as an agency to influence men's health.

3 Ba should let his goals do the talking, not his agent

There are good agents out there, but Demba Ba's representative illustrated why the breed are so widely despised with his response this week to Ba being dropped by Newcastle after 17 goalless matches. Ba did his talking on the pitch in the second half against Everton. He and his agent should have left it at that.

4 Robins needs good luck on Coventry merry-go-round

Good luck to Mark Robins as he attempts to provide Coventry City with the kiss of life. Quite how England's ninth-largest city is only represented by a club seemingly headed for the fourth tier is a mystery, but the fact that Robins is the Sky Blues' 11th manager in as many years might just provide a clue.

5 Women's game still needs much more support

There were mixed messages for the women's game on Wednesday as England reached the 2013 European Championship. A teatime TV audience that peaked at 1.1 million on BBC 2 was encouraging, but a live attendance of 5,821 was disappointing, regardless of the Uefa- imposed kick-off time (which was ideal for schoolchildren, if not working parents). Building support for the women's game remains a long haul.

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