390: Kevin Pressman, Sheffield Wednesday, Merlin’s Premier League 98 Official Sticker Collection

We’re staying in the Steel City and, more specifically, with Sheffield Wednesday for today’s post as Mat Jolin-Beech continues our proud traditions at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words of paying homage to great 90s goalkeepers and finding any excuse to slag off Joe Hart. You might judge a young Mat for his behaviour in the early 2000s but, if it helps, around the same time one of my mates from school got called a ‘fat c***’ by Cheltenham Town’s Steve Book during a Carling Cup game. These things always even out. Over to Mat.

 

Every club has a cult hero. Sometimes it is that player who is terrible but scores against your main rivals – Diego Forlan anyone? Or that player who is terrible but keeps working and wins the fans over with effort and a realisation they’re not THAT bad. See Marouane Fellaini. Others are those stalwarts, those men who become synonymous with the club that they spend the majority, or the entirety, of their career with. Today’s subject is one such man, and one who if he’d been playing in another era, would have won at least a handful of senior caps.

The man in question is big Kevin Pressman - the Hillsborough hero and Owls legend. He spent 19 seasons with Wednesday, making 479 appearances between 1987 and 2004. He was a good keeper, fending off the challenge from a raft of top-quality rivals for the number 1 jersey, including Chris Turner, Chris Woods and Pavel Srníček.

 

Standout performances often came in the Steel City derby, and Pressman developed a reputation for saving, and scoring, penalties. The winner in the FA Cup shootout against Watford is the example given by the most reliable of sources, Wikipedia. Big Kev also earned a stay in the English footballing record books, getting sent off within 13 seconds in August 2000 against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Handling outside the area won him that dubious honour that was eventually taken from him in late 2008 by David Pratt of Chippenham Town who was sent off just three seconds into a game.

 

However, for me, having seen Pressman play twice my memories are a little different. Once was at Hillsborough watching Sheffield Wednesday beat Wimbledon when the Owls were a Premier League team, and Wimbledon actually existed. The other was from the terrace at Priestfield Stadium in League One. Or Division One. Or the Championship. Or it could have been the FA Cup. Anyway, the mighty Gills, led by the diminutive Andy Hessenthaler, went on to beat Wednesday.

 

My main memory from that game, being the urchin that I was, is berating Pressman constantly throughout the whole game for being a fat bastard. Every time a goal went in, there were a couple at least, we’d dart to the front row of the terrace behind Big Kev’s goal and shout abuse at him. I was even proud when I spotted myself on the highlights.

 

Looking back, am I proud? Not really. Was my appreciation of football different then? Yes. Yes it was. Was Pressman actually a good keeper who, if he was around in the last decade, would have been held in higher esteem? Yes. He’d easily be ahead of Nick Pope and Joe Hart in the rankings for England call-ups. Dear God – he’d have been well ahead of the likes of Rob Green and Joe Hart ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

 

So, in retrospect, I doff my hat to Big Kev, a fine servant to Wednesday, a decent Premier League keeper who, due to David Seaman, Tim Flowers and Nigel Martyn, failed to win any senior England caps which is a shame when you realise players like Jay Bothroyd have done so.