Given saved your bacon enough times, he has to be your best. I remember you were doing well with Hislop in the side, the year you blew your 12 point lead. Srnicek come back and you seemed to lose focus in defense, I think you could have hung on if Hislop had have kept his place, same with Asprilla, his arrival really rocked things for you when nothing needed fixed.
Always had a confidence problem I felt and his kicking was dodgy although it improved towards the end of his career. Good keeper though overall.
I agree but it's misery now and happiness once I've retired I'm not going to risk the other way around
The best in my time was probably Given for his all round game. We've had a few decent keepers though in Mahoney, Srnicek, Harper. Krul, who were all good at their peak. Assuming it is unfair to choose Beardsley as our worst ever keeper (why would you stick the team dwarf in goal???), there are two clear contenders. For what we paid, then Beasant is definitely the worst value for money. For utter ****ness though, nobody beats Steve Hardwick. I am almost tempted to also stick Hardwick in as my favourite keeper too though. His weekly tantrums every time a goal went in were classic. He reminded me of a kid in our street who used to do the same when we were playing. He used to bang his head against the brick wall, or against the tarmac, whenever things went wrong (yes, I'm talking about you Darren Mitchell - if you read this forum). Steve Hardwick's on field arguments with his centre back, David (stop fartin the match is startin) Barton, were also a weekly highlight of life in the old 2nd Division. I'm going to go with Rob Elliot as my favourite though. As someone already mentioned, the way he turned things around after being written off was brilliant - much the same way Dummett is going to do when you all look back in shame in ten years time at how you treated our defensive god!!
Gary Kelly was ****e too. Ended up in goal at Bury, Oldham and Northwich Victoria if I'm not mistaken.
Best - overall it's got to be Given, I did find him slightly overrated, and his post-Toon career proved he wasn't world class, but he was consistently good to great for us for so long. The fact he had a terrible defence in front of him all the time meant he had to do the work of 3 keepers in every match, and managing to do that for so long was a big achievement. Also he was remarkably loyal, and only left when things were an utter stinking mess. Harper could have been at least as good or even better, but he wasted too much of his career by being happy to sit on the bench instead of going on loan and pushing himself to another level, and Krul produced some incredible performances (i.e. vs Spurs), but was just never consistent enough. Shaka looked amazing when he started, but his formed dropped dramatically quickly, so he can't be considered. Worst - a few candidates, John Karelese was bloody dogshit, Perez was dire, Hooper was a liability, and Dave Bessant was an absolute disaster seeing as he was our record signing at the time. Jak Alnwich was terrible, but he was a youth player who was never supposed to be in the first team, so I think it would be harsh to pick him. I guess it'll have to be a player who was in the team for a significant amount of time, so either Hooper or Bessant....overall I'll go for Hooper who was just dross. Favourite - we'll gotta be Pavel hasn't it? After a torrid start really improved massively and was consistent as well as being a great guy. Also Burridge deserves a mention, in his late 30s when he was with us, but one of our only good players in an awful time, our very own Peter Shilton. Rob Elliott gets a mention here too, as he's also a likeable, decent and honest guy.
