Prostate Cancer UK is the official charity partner of The Football League this season. It is also one of the main beneficiaries of the moustache-growing campaign Movember, which raises funds and awareness for men’s health initiatives.

This year’s Movember campaign is celebrating what it means to be a better man, by sharing knowledge from one generation to the next. So we asked journalist and author Jonathan Wilson to arm you with some amazing football facts – nine of them, in recognition of the fact prostate cancer will affect one in nine men in the UK.

And who better to focus on than the all-seeing guardians who protect a team with their skill, knowledge and experience… the goalkeepers.

Register to take part at Movember.com, and join the Football League network.

Read on for Jonathan’s top goalkeeper facts...

Arm's length: Peter Shilton had a novel way of improving his reach. Photo courtesy of Action Images

 

1. A cunning Roose
Until 1912, goalkeepers were allowed to handle the ball anywhere in their own half of the pitch. The rule was changed to restrict handling to inside their own penalty box shortly after the retirement of legendary Sunderland and Arsenal keeper Leigh Richmond Roose. The Wales international was notorious for bouncing the ball to the halfway line before launching long kicks into his opponent’s area.

2. A bit of a stretch
Peter Shilton was so determined to make it as a goalkeeper that, as a teenager, he tried to make himself taller by hanging from bannisters. He would also lie on the garage floor and mark with chalk the extent of his reach, each day trying to draw the line a bit further from the wall. Although he remained a little under six feet, his arms were two inches longer than would be average for a man of his height.

3. The fruits of Budgie's labour
John 'Budgie' Burridge, who played for 29 different clubs in a career that spanned 30 years, was so determined to make it as a goalkeeper that he tried to copy Shilton in every way – even going to a hairdresser with a photo of the England keeper and demanding an identical perm. He also had his wife throw fruit at him when he wasn’t expecting it in an effort to improve his reflexes.

4. Elementary goalkeeping
It’s often said that Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was Portsmouth’s first professional goalkeeper. That’s almost true: he played for the amateur side Portsmouth AFC, the forerunner of the professional club, using the pseudonym AC Smith. Conan Doyle also played first-class cricket, his one wicket being that of WG Grace.

5. Scott the superstitious
Liverpool’s Northern Ireland goalkeeper Elisha Scott was incorrigibly superstitious. He would arrive two hours before matches started, change alone, bounce a ball against a wall for an hour and then, whatever the weather, put on two additional shirts and an extra pair of socks minutes before kick-off. When he met Everton’s Dixie Dean in the street one day, Dean, who was famed for his heading ability, touched his hat in greeting – at which, it is said, the intense Scott threw himself to the ground as though to save a header on goal.

6. The proof's in the (rice) pudding
Jack Robinson, of Southampton and Derby, also liked routine. He was fastidious about his diet and warned others against eating “sweets, ices, pastry and other such rubbish”, while insisting on a bowl of rice pudding before a game. When he missed his rice pudding once before a match at Sunderland in 1894, he let in eight.

7. Breakfast of champions
Others were less careful about their diet. William ‘Fatty’ Foulke, for instance, kept goal for Sheffield United, Chelsea and England, and had reached 28 stone by the time he retired. “I don’t care what you call me,” he would say, “so long as you don’t call me late for dinner.” Team-mates also had to be careful not to arrive late for meals: on one occasion at the team hotel for an away game, Foulke got up early and wolfed down 11 breakfasts before anybody else from his team appeared.

8. Sam didn't have the foggiest...
On Christmas Day 1937, with half an hour of Charlton’s away game at Chelsea remaining, a heavy fog descended, making further play impossible. The managers called off their players, accepting that the game had to be abandoned. The 40,000 crowd dispersed, but the Charlton keeper, Sam Bartram, was left standing alone on the edge of his penalty area for several minutes – happily thinking what intense pressure his side must be applying – before a policeman told him the game was off.

9. From hero to zero
If they’re not forgotten, goalkeepers are often the scapegoat. Massimo Taibi is remembered with horror by Manchester United fans after a howler in his third match for the club, after signing from Venezia, when he allowed a Matt Le Tissier shot to dribble under his body. He was dubbed ‘the Blind Venetian’ (although he was actually born in Palermo) and after another error in his next game, a 5-0 defeat by Chelsea, he never played for the club again. What’s rarely mentioned, though, is that he was man of the match in his first two games for United.

For more Movember-related musings, check out our Moustachioed Legends XI and our Top nine father-and-son duos.

How you can get involved

Prostate cancer affects one in nine men in the UK – that means a man is diagnosed every 15 minutes.  Each year the Movember Foundation encourages men to grow moustaches during November and, in the process, raises considerable amounts of money for charity.

As Prostate Cancer UK is the official charity partner of The Football League, we want to make this football’s most successful contribution to Movember ever.

We’ve created a team for each of the 72 Football League clubs on the Movember website, so when you register you can start to grow a Mo on behalf of the team you support. Here’s how:

1.      Register at movember.com
2.      Join your club’s team using the search bar on the site
3.      Ask your friends and family to take part too
4.      Get growing your moustache from 1 November
5.      Encourage your friends and family to support your efforts by donating money.

Best of luck!