September 10 – Beasant’s 11 | On This Football Day

September 10 – Beasant’s 11

ODDS are that if you support a football club in England than today’s subject has more than likely turned out for your side. Whereas some players are happy to remain the loyal husband to their hometown club, there are others who put themselves about more than Russell Brand at a sex-addiction clinic.

Big-haired goalkeeper Dave Beasant was just such a player and today in 2002 he signed on the dotted line for his 11th club, Bradford City, as the 43-year-old showed no sign of hanging up the gloves.

Beasant began his hobo-like career playing for non-league Edgware Town in 1978 before moving to Wimbledon a year later where he would make over 300 appearances for the club, earning himself the nickname ‘Lurch’ after his resemblance to the Addams Family’s butler.

During his spell with the Dons he became the first ever ‘keeper to save a penalty in an FA Cup Final, when Beasant, also captaining the side, kept out John Aldridge’s spot kick during their famous win over Liverpool in 1988.

Unfortunately for Beasant, it’s not the Cup Final save, the England appearances or the 774 matches he played that he is most famously remembered for.

During his four-year spell at Southampton in the mid 1990s Beasant joined the pantheon of comedy injuries, as he dropped a jar of salad cream on his foot and spent two months on the sidelines with ruptured ankle ligaments as a result. The injury came when he believed he could control the falling condiment that he had accidently knocked over, but he ended up proving all those ‘good touch for a big man’ clichés that Peter Crouch has to face on a weekly basis sometimes ring true.

Beasant’s spell at Bradford proved to be a short one, as he would soon move on to Wigan, then Brighton, before becoming player-coach at Fulham where he would finally call it a day in 2004 after a 26-year career that saw him take in no less then 14 clubs.

As much as we’d love to show you salad cream-gate, YouTube just doesn’t come up with the goods, so instead see him saving from Aldridge in 1988. If you were wandering what was going down in south London today in 1905, click your mouse here. We’ll be back tomorrow, but before then – shameless plug alert – why not pre-order the forthcoming OTFD book here. Until tomorrow footy fans….