Gary Sprake

Gareth " Gary " Sprake ( born April 3, 1945 in Winch Wen) is a former Welsh football goalkeeper. The 37 -fold A-National player was 1962-1973 regular keeper of Leeds United. There, he won the British Championship in 1969, before the 1968 League Cup and the Fairs' Cup twice (1968, 1971). He made just to gain attention often acrobatic rescue missions, such as. Due to his occasional but well- publicized blunders in some significant games

Sports career

Sprake grew up in Wales Swansea on in an area -based and the goalkeeper Jack Kelsey. He strove after this to the goalkeeper position and by appearances for the Welsh national student he signed in May 1962 with Leeds United his first professional contract. Because he had already given the age of 16, after Tommy Younger was ill on March 17, 1962 shortly prior to the game against Southampton FC (1:4) his start. After a short time he conquered if the club a regular place and in November 1963 he was awarded his first international match for Wales against Scotland the youngest Welsh international goalkeeper. By 1975, he eventually amassed a total of 37 international matches; to five appearances came for the U-23 youth team.

His playing style was characterized by often spectacular rescues, but as it were some mistakes in important games in memory. As he matured in the season 1963/64, for a regular player, he provided with consistently good performance with that the second division championship and thus built the rise was realized in the makings. In the following season 1964/65, he missed only one game together duty League and FA Cup. He stood with Leeds in two competitions each just ahead of a title success before Manchester United, the English championship and Liverpool decided due to the better Torquotienten the Cup semi-finals after extra time for themselves. Against Liverpool two years later he conceded a first massive self-inflicted by him and, as "notorious " hit when he tried to throw the ball to his teammate Terry Cooper, the action was unbelieveable broke off and thereby laid the ball off him slipping away into his own goal. The stadium music in Liverpool mocked Sprake finally so that the song " Careless Hands " by Des O'Connor was played. The new nickname Sprake was also not let go then and in 2006 published an autobiography also named " Careless Hands". Nevertheless, he showed himself in the decisive moments of the 1967/68 season with strong nerves, as he both in the final of the League Cup against Arsenal (1-0 ) and in the final two games of the exhibition Cup (1-0, 0-0) against Ferencvaros Budapest a " clean slate " retained. A special satisfaction was in 1969 when winning the English Championship the major draw at Liverpool on the way to the league title, in which he also conceded no goals for him.

In 1970 Sprake a "triple" from English Championship, FA Cup and European Cup played with Leeds long as national champion with, but in the end won a single title. It remained a renewed mistake of Sprake in the FA Cup final against Chelsea in memory. After an early 1-0 lead for Leeds was the " unlucky " a harmless shot by Peter Houseman just before half- time slip through his arms. While the place was in an extremely poor condition have been - only a few days earlier at Wembley Stadium, the " Horse of the Year Show " took place - but according to experts, a goalkeeper of his caliber should have parry the unquestionably tricky bumpy. In the second half, scored two teams each have a goal and at the end they parted with a draw. For the following replay coach Revie Sprake took the occasion of a knee injury out of the gate and replaced him with David Harvey, who handed in an error-free game, but the 1-2 defeat and could not turn away. Although Sprake in the next two years to the "number one " stayed and 1971 he once again won the Fairs Cup, now on the previous margins considerably adhered to him, and in the final phase of the 1971/72 season he was finally ousted and Harvey. This he also missed the part in the obtained FA Cup final in 1972 against Arsenal (1-0 ), in which Harvey again convinced with a very good performance. A short time later Sprake criticized his coach publicly, thus his reputation again deteriorated in Revie and also the players and its own followers. Only once he came in 1973 for use before joining for the transfer fee of £ 100,000 to Birmingham City.

A back injury caused but rapidly for early career end at the age of only 30 years. This was due primarily been a blood clot in his back that had to be treated as part of a spinal fusion. After the retreat from the business of football Sprakes made ​​by an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper headlines, in which he accused Revie to have been involved in match-fixing. This led among other things to a final break with his former teammates, who had always formed a tight-knit community with Revie also across the field beyond. Later he threw beyond Leeds United right to be responsible for his chronic back problems since cortisone injections were him regularly during the active time been injected. Thus he was in Leeds quasi a " persona non grata " and from the successful eleven champions he was left with respect to a subsequent integration completely left out. Only after the publication of his 2006 autobiography written " Careless Hands: The Forgotten Truth of Gary Sprake " sought with Eddie Gray again a former teammate to contact Sprake.

Title / Awards

  • English Championship ( 1): 1969
  • English League Cup ( 1): 1968
  • Charity Shield ( 1): 1969
  • Fairs Cup ( 2): 1968, 1971
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