One-2-Eleven – Villa’s Best.. Goalkeeper

“ONE-2-ELEVEN – Goalkeeper”

We spend so much time banging on about the good, the bad and the ugly of Aston Villa as things stand. That`s fine, this is a fan site, and so we should put the world to rights on Vital Villa. Let`s face it: if we had our way, we`d be a solid top four outfit year in, year out, fifteen-time FA Cup winners and quite possibly have a few more European titles to our name.

However, back on Planet Premier League (© Sky 1992), we are/have been none of those things. Sky have a lot to answer for in taking the game away from ordinary fans, but they have brought a few good things along too – one of the high points of Sky Sports is the Fantasy Football League show. Granted, John ‘Fenners` Fendley may be a bit irritating (though far less annoying than Tim Lovejoy it has to be said), and our very own Paul ‘Magic Man` Merson spends every show rhetorically asking “How good was he?” but it`s light-hearted, easy viewing and has a few features on the show that are pretty appealing.

One of them is the ‘One-2-Eleven` where the guests are invited to pick the best XI they played with/coached/have seen in their lifetime. This really captured the imagination of my 11 year old, and together, we had a crack at our respective ‘ultimate` Villa sides: pretty unfair on my son, of course, having been subjected to the last five or so years only. At least I`ve got 35-odd years of choices!

It struck me: we should have a Vital Villa ‘One-2-Eleven` thing going on. So, as a diversion from the nerve-wracking battle in which we find ourselves (yet again), I thought we could have a pop at our ultimate Villa side, from our lifetime, so over the next few weeks, I will come up with my all-time Aston Villa side.

I`m going for a 3-5-2 formation, a bit out of fashion of late, but gently being resurrected by Louis van Gaal at Manchester United this season. So first up is the goalkeeper.

We`ve been lucky at Villa to have had some top-drawer goalkeepers over the years (‘top, top ‘keepers` to use modern parlance!), and a few not-so-memorable ones. Mervyn Day took my Villa virginity, so-to-speak, but Nigel Spink was definitely the early pacesetter. ‘Spinksy` is a bona fide Villa legend – 19 years, 361 appearances, oh and a European Cup winners` medal for good measure. In the days when champions were the ones competing in Europe`s top competition.

We`ve also had Les Sealey, Michael Oakes, David ‘Calamity` James, Peter Enckelman to name a few, and even the legendary Peter Schmeichel popped in, even scoring for us for good measure. But for me, none of these compare to Mark Bosnich. The Aussie was our ‘keeper during my favourite period in the 90s, and cemented his place in our Hall of Fame with his heroic display against Tranmere in the League Cup semi-final, saving three penalties in the shoot-out.

He was a character on and off the pitch (the infamous ‘Nazi` salute at Spurs, only making it to his second wedding hours after being released from custody following some stag-do nonsense at a strip club), but was always excellent for us, a great shot-stopper and had a great command of his defence. Oh, and he won two trophies.

So there we have it – Mark Bosnich, the best Villa goalkeeper of my lifetime.

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