13.4.14

Fisting out the ball

I must admit that I might have been a little biased towards the poor goalkeeper in my accounts of the earlier days of the Association game.  Yes, the custodian would often find himself stuck in the back of the net regardless of where the ball was, and when shoulder charges were de riguer, it was a brave goalie who tried to do anything than get rid of the ball as soon as he could.
We do, however, have accounts of William Foulke terrorizing forwards, and of Leigh Richmond Roose shoulder charging an advancing forward into touch thirty yards from goal, rendering him unconscious in the process. J.A.H Catton writes of Blackburn Rovers' Joe Lofthouse bouncing off the solid frame of Notts County's 'keeper,  Mordecai Sherwin. So perhaps the old goalkkeper was not so vulnerable after all...
The postcard is an illustration by Tom Browne dating from the 1900s . Browne was the artist who  drew the Striding Man logo for Johnnie Walker whisky.