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An England goalkeeper shirt with 9 on the back?

An England goalkeeper shirt with 9 on the back?

  • Thanks to Lee Hermitage for the picture from Ted Croker’s book.

We’ve mentioned England’s numbering at the 1982 World Cup in a previous post about sides who allocated digits alphabetically by surname.

It was quite a change for a country so used to traditional systems, but England didn’t go the full hog – captain Kevin Keegan was allowed to keep ‘his’ number 7 (he should have been 9), while goalkeepers Ray Clemence, Joe Corrigan and Peter Shilton were 1, 13 and 22 respectively.

Corrigan suffered an injury, however, and FIFA’s rules at the time prevented the calling-up of a replacement after the squad was submitted – eight years later, Dave Beasant would come in after David Seaman was ruled out.

It meant that England had to come up with a contingency if something happened to Clemence and/or Shilton. In his autobiography, The First Voice You Will Hear Is, the late Ted Croker, FA secretary from 1972-89, revealed that the plan was for Glenn Hoddle to play in goal if needed.

An Admiral yellow England goalkeeper shirt with number 9 on the back must be the rarest of all player-issues – we wonder what has happened to it?

 

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2 Comments

  1. December 2, 2019 at 20:54 — Reply

    A little aside to the story.

    I met Glenn Hoddle at a THFC Legends Night a couple of weeks ago, and in the Q&A session asked him about the ’82 World Cup, whether Ron Greenwood had briefed him about possibly having to be back-up keeper, and what happened to the shirt !

    He was totally gobsmacked by the question, and knew NOTHING about being lined up as stand-by goalie. I’d taken the Ted Croker autobiography along, and showed him the relevant page when he signed a couple of bits for me at the end of the evening.

    One highly stunned football legend !!!!!

  2. July 12, 2017 at 20:36 — Reply

    And there’s me thinking that the whole Lehmann fiasco was a one off!

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An England goalkeeper shirt with 9 on the back?