Alec Chamberlain

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Personal information
Alec Chamberlain
Full name	Alec Francis Roy Chamberlain
Date of birth	20 June 1964
Place of birth	Ramsey, England
Height	188cm
Position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current club	Watford
Number	1
Youth clubs
1980-1981	Ramsey Town
Professional clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (goals)
1981-1982 1982-1987 1987-1988 1987 1988-1993 1992 1993-1996 1996-	Ipswich Town Colchester United Everton Tranmere Rovers (loan) Luton Town Chelsea (loan) Sunderland Watford	0 (0) 188 (0) 0 (0) 15 (0) 138 (0) 0 (0) 90 (0) 246 (0)
* Professional club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 14 October 2006.

Alec Francis Roy Chamberlain (born June 20th 1964) is a goalkeeper in the English football leagues. He has now made 790 appearances during his 25-year career and is currently on the books of Watford, where he is also goalkeeping coach.

Chamberlain started his career at Ipswich as a trainee, but didn't make a single appearance for the club, moving to Colchester in 1982. He spent 5 years at Layer Road before joining Everton for £80,000. However, the then 23-year old was unable to displace established Everton goalkeeper Neville Southall, and his only appearances in the 87/88 season were during a loan spell at Tranmere. Chamberlain signed for Luton Town in the summer of 1988, where he became a regular, and player of the season twice.

Signing for Sunderland in 1993, he was part of the team that was promoted in 1995/96. Despite this, in the summer of 1996 he was allowed to join recently relegated Watford, who paid £40,000 for him. He started off unable to get in the team, but finally played when first-choice goalkeeper Kevin Miller was sold to Crystal Palace for £1,000,000 in 1997. Now the first-choice goalkeeper, he was part of the Division Two Championship winning side in 1997/98 and was instrumental in Watfords promotion to the Premiership in 1999. In the playoff semi-final second leg against Birmingham City, he made a stunning save to deny Birmingham a winning goal, and won the match for Watford with a penalty shootout save in sudden-death. He appeared at Wembley when Watford beat Bolton Wanderers 2-0 in the Play-Off final.

During the Premiership campaign, Chamberlain started off with an injury, and had to wait six games before he could play again. On Watford's relegation to Division One in 2001 the club signed Tottenham goalkeeper Espen Baardsen and the two players competed for the starting position through the 2001/02 season. When Gianluca Vialli arrived as Watford manager in the summer of 2002 he selected Baardsen as his first choice, but Chamberlain returned to the side after a poor run of form and kept his place.

Under Ray Lewington, he was first-choice for the whole of the 2002/03 season. In 2003/04 he started as first-choice, but lost his place to Lenny Pidgeley for several months, before retaining his place towards the end of the campaign. At the beginning of the 2004/05 season Richard Lee had taken the starting position, and with Chamberlain taking the goalkeeping coach job in the autumn of 2004, he has largely been a reserve ever since.

In the summer of 2005 Chamberlain was given a testimonial by Watford. With Chamberlain in goal Watford lost to Premiership side Charlton 2-1. Various events are being run throughout the 2005/06 season to celebrate Chamberlain's 10 years at the club.

On the 20th July he signed a new one year contract keeping him as player at Vicarage Road until summer 2007 making him (at 42) the oldest current Premiership player[1].

[edit] External links

Watford F.C. - Current Squad

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Alec Chamberlain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] External links

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