City will be great again states Keelan

[Tom NCFC 0]

http://new.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/Sport/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=Sport&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=Sport&itemid=NOED17%20May%202008%2009%3A14%3A00%3A767

[BlyBlyBabes 0]

Tell that to BigFish, Kevin.

He''d rather have a Chumpionship medal than 10 years in the Prem.

True, true.

OTBC

 

 

[Unlucky Fried Kitten 0]

This is a lot more easily said than done.

[nutty nigel 7,902]

For me Kevin Keelan is the greatest Norwich City player of all time. Others have valid claims to that title but Keelan''s 673 games and 17 years at the club spanned generations. He was an exciting player to watch for all kinds of reasons not least that sometimes his fiery temperament would light up a dull match. But also when we got to the top division he proved time and time again that he was the equal of any other keeper in the country.

Keelan wasn''t immediately a hero when he came here though. He had a difficult start to his time with our great as it say''s in his book from the 70''s "The Story Of A Goalkeeper" by Philip Webster :-

If Keelan had been judged harshly on his first performance for Norwich City he would have been lucky to last 16 days let alone 16 years! He made his debut at the start of the 63-64 season on a rainy day at Ninian Park, Cardiff, and conceded the softest goal of his career to the legendary John Charles. He remembers: ''I was anxious to do well in my first game. I had been having a reasonably good game when the Norwich forwards were blown up for offside well inside the Cardiff half. John Charles, their cente-half at the time, took the kick about 75 yards from our goal. He knocked the ball up into our area. It was too long for his forwards and I could see it was going to land behind our defence a few yards oin front of me - a routine ball to deal with, or so I thought. But to my complete amazement the ball hit a divot and flew up into the air over my head and into the net. What a nightmare. I wanted to show my new teammates what I could do and they must have thought they had got a clown between the posts. I suppose I was fortunate that it was an away match and the City fans did not see my gaffe''

I guess if you are going to let in a freak goal on your debut it shows the class of the man that it was scored by one of the greats of the game and not some ''no mark'' who wouldn''t be remembered years later!

But Keelans great strength of character saw him through those early days just like the same strength of character saw Iwan come good after a very difficult time. Let''s hope that the same strength of character is ingrained in the new team we will get next season. It''s been missing for a while.

 

[Robert N. LiM 6,282]

Lovely post, Nutty. Keelan was before my time. I was always a huge fan of Gunny, for reasons of character as much as his excellent goalkeeping. The fact that sage judges usually put Keelan ahead of him in polls like this seems testament to the fact that he was quite a player, and clearly quite a man.

[Camuldonum 0]

I saw Kevin Keelan play quite a lot over a long period and he was not only a great servant to your club: in quality terms he was right up there with the very best people of the time. For season after season you had one of the best keepers in the country.