485: Ludek Miklosko, West Ham United, Merlin’s Premier League 95 Sticker Collection

On Easter Sunday morning I headed to Walthamstow’s Lloyd Park for, what I hope, becomes a semi-regular game of small sided football with some gentlemen of a similar age. Having ascertained the night before that we were using seven-a-side goals I packed my goalkeeper gloves and made it clear that’s where I would be happiest playing. I have had a couple of decent games in nets at my work’s Friday indoor kickabout this year so was, if not confident, happy to continue this vein of form. Around ten minutes in I was beaten at my near post by a shot I should have got more behind. Any hope of redemption disappeared quickly when a backpass bobbled over my foot and rolled into the side of the net. I spent the rest of the game’s eighty or so minutes running about avoiding any further goalkeeping duties.

In part due to the critical results of goalkeeping errors, and also down to the generally poor quality of punditry on the position, the job of guarding the net is often lonely and underappreciated. The very best goalkeepers can seemingly go entire seasons without having to do too much such is their command of their defensive colleagues, positioning and reading of the game. When they are called into action they merely do what is expected of them and the pay off for the qualities listed above is often a backhanded compliment about making a “routine save” or “straightforward catch”. It is little wonder that some shotstoppers felt the need to get involved further up the field and develop a penchant for goalscoring such as Jose Luis Chilavert or jazzing up their saves, or even their warm ups, like Rene Higuita and John Burridge. After all you could save twelve Serie A penalties like Massimo Taibi but only be remembered for when you let a shot from Matt Le Tissier dribble through your legs.

On the other hand a truly great goalkeeping performance can define not just a game, or a season, but a career. Jan Tomaszewski’s heroics against England for Poland in a World Cup Qualifier in 1973 have gone down in history, in part due to Brian Clough’s hubris-laden pre-match description of him as “a circus clown in gloves”, but very little was ever said outside of his homeland about his phenomenal performances at the 1974 World Cup where he saved two penalties and kept the mighty Brazil at bay to secure the Poles’ a third placed finish. Over two decades later West Ham United’s goalkeeper Ludek Miklosko produced a phenomenal performance against Manchester United on the last day of the 1994/95 season which had enormous repercussions on the title race and, rightly or wrongly, overshadowed what was a truly impressive career for club and country.

Heading into the last day of the season reigning champions Manchester United needed to beat mid-table West Ham and hope that Liverpool could defeat league leaders Blackburn Rovers. After half an hour this hypothesis was looking meaningless as Alan Shearer put Rovers 1-0 up at Anfield and West Ham took a shock lead through Michael Hughes. Before half-time Andy Cole hat hit the post and almost immediately after the restart Lee Sharpe’s header seemed destined for the top corner before Miklosko leapt to paw it away. Brian McClair nodded in an equaliser shortly afterwards before Miklosko once again performed heroics to deny Mark Hughes. Two more saves from point blank range to deny Cole meant the game finished 1-1 meaning that, despite John Barnes and Jamie Redknapp leading Liverpool to a 2-1 victory, Blackburn were the Premier League champions. Forget the insatiable firepower of Shearer and Chris Sutton or the suspension of United’s talismanic forward Eric Cantona for fly kicking an abusive fan: the sole reason for Blackburn’s triumph was an inspired performance by Ludek Miklosko.

What this quite popular narrative seems to suggest is that the Czech goalkeeper’s career consisted entirely of this one game against Manchester United and was a shock to all and sundry. In reality it isn’t that much of a surprise that Miklosko made a string of excellent saves against quality opposition when you consider his career leading up to this game. At the age of nineteen he had been named the best goalkeeper in the prestigious Toulon Tournament where he helped Czechoslovakia to a third placed finish. Two years later he earned the accolade again as his nation were runners up to Yugoslavia and gained the first of forty international caps in the same year. He made over two hundred appearances for Banik Ostrava before joining West Ham in 1990. Having ousted long-time first choice keeper Phil Parkes towards the end of his first season he helped the club bounce back from relegation and earned a place in the PFA’s Second Division Team of the Year for the 1990/91 campaign as well as the Hammer of the Year award. The Hammers suffered relegation again in the 1991/92 season but bounced straight back with Miklosko yet again named in the PFA’s Team of the Year and he was an ever present as West Ham established themselves in the Premier League. It was not until 1998 that he lost his place in the Hammers’ first team and was a key reason behind the club’s survival in the top flight.

The tendency to reduce an entire footballing career to one standout performance is nothing new and goalkeepers seem to suffer this fate more than others. Ludek Miklosko’s performance against Manchester United in May 1995 was pivotal to the destination of the Premier League title that year and will be the go to footage for any nostalgic looks back at his career. With over 600 club appearances over two decades there is clearly a lot more to it than one afternoon in East London. Hopefully my fellow Walthamstow kickabout colleagues will take a similar view next time I turn up with my gloves.