Bruce Grobbelaar

Personal information
Bruce Grobbelaar

Full name	Bruce David Grobbelaar
Date of birth	6 October 1957 (1957-10-06) (age 52)
Place of birth	Durban, South Africa
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1977 1979–1981 1979–1980 1980–1994 1993 1996–1997 1997 1997 1997–1998 1998 1998 1998 1999 1999 2007	Highlanders F.C. Jomo Cosmos Vancouver Whitecaps → Crewe Alexandra (loan) Liverpool → Stoke City (loan) Southampton Plymouth Argyle Oxford United Sheffield Wednesday Oldham Athletic Chesham United Bury Lincoln City Northwich Victoria Glasshoughton Welfare	024 (0) 024 (1) 440 (0) 004 (0) 032 (0) 036 (0) 000 (0) 000 (0) 004 (0) 001 (0) 002 (0) 000 (0) 001 (0)
National team
1975–1979 1980–1998	Rhodesia Zimbabwe	001 (0) 032 (0)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Bruce David Grobbelaar (born 6 October 1957 in Durban, South Africa) is a former Rhodesian-Zimbabwean-British football goalkeeper. He played for a number of clubs, most notably Liverpool F.C. during their dominant 1980s period.

1 Early years
2 Playing career
3 International
4 Match-fixing allegations
5 After Southampton
6 Retirement and coaching
7 Teams
- 7.1 Playing
- 7.2 Coaching
8 Honours
- 8.1 Runners-up
9 References
10 Notes
11 External links

Early years

In his teenage years, Grobbelaar was a talented cricketer and was offered a baseball scholarship in the United States, but a career in football was his main ambition. His footballing career started with a Bulawayo-based team, Highlanders FC, in Rhodesia's second biggest city. In his late teens he was signed up by Jomo Cosmos in South Africa, but left claiming to have been sidelined owing to his colour in this predominantly black team. Immediately after leaving the Cosmos, he signed up for National Service, spending two years on active service in the Rhodesian National Guard during the Rhodesian Bush War. In 1979 Grobbelaar was signed up by the Vancouver Whitecaps of the NASL after he had attended their scouting camp in South Africa.

Playing career

Vancouver Whitecaps

At the Vancouver Whitecaps, Grobbelaar played under the management of former England and Blackpool goalkeeper, Tony Waiters, making his debut against the Seattle Sounders in 1980. Though second choice to former Wolves keeper Phil Parkes, he became a cult figure at the Whitecaps. During 1980, he visited England to see family friends, and a chance phone call from Ron Atkinson, brought him an impromptu trial with West Bromwich Albion. Atkinson was keen to sign Grobbelaar but owing to difficulties over gaining a work permit, the deal fell through and he returned to Vancouver. He subsequently returned to the UK on loan to Crewe Alexandra. In an early appearance in English football for Crewe Alexandra, the unknown Grobbelaar was named on the Team Sheet in the York City Match Day Programme as "Bill Grobbelaar". During his time at Crewe, Grobbelaar played 24 League games and scored his only professional goal, a penalty, in his last game. By good fortune, on the evening when he gave his greatest performance for Crewe, he was spotted by Liverpool's head scout Tom Saunders.

Liverpool

By the time Liverpool FC had completed their research on Grobbelaar, he had returned to Vancouver with his loan spell now over. Liverpool approached Tony Waiters with the idea of taking Grobbelaar to Anfield, and Waiters, who had a working relationship with Liverpool in the 1970s, paved the way for the move. Grobbelaar signed for Liverpool for £250,000 on 17 March 1981 as their reserve goalkeeper, but in mid-1981, regular goalkeeper Ray Clemence's surprise departure to Tottenham Hotspur gave Grobbelaar his opportunity.

Grobbelaar made his debut on 28 August 1981 but failed to prevent Wolverhampton Wanderers winning the league fixture 1-0 at Molineux. Also making their debuts were defender Mark Lawrenson and midfielder Craig Johnston. His first clean sheet came a fortnight later at Anfield on 5 September, Arsenal were the visitors who were beaten by a 2-0 scoreline.

Grobbelaar's early days as No.1 were strewn with errors and the Reds struggled to obtain any sort of consistency, Grobbelaar taking a lot of the blame. By the end of the calendar year Liverpool were quite some distance behind the league's pacesetters and looked to be out of the running for title honours, especially as they had just lost to Manchester City 3-1 at Anfield in the Boxing Day fixture. The New Year brought a new momentum as Bob Paisley began to get the best out of his players, they began the year in South Wales visiting the Vetch Field to play Swansea City in the FA Cup, Liverpool were in fine form and thumped their hosts 4-0. This set them on their way in the league and dropped just 7 of the 50 available points overhauling the points gap that Ipswich Town had opened on them.

Grobbelaar added the championship medal to the Milk Cup winners medal he had gained at Wembley on 13 March; the Reds beat Spurs 3-1, who had Ray Clemence in goal.

During the period 1981–1994, Grobbelaar played 627 first team games for Liverpool, becoming known for his eccentric and flamboyant style. In 1984, the European Cup final between Liverpool and A.S. Roma finished 1-1 after extra time, and went to penalty shootout. As Roma's Bruno Conti prepared to take his kick, Grobbelaar walked towards the goal smiling confidently at the cameras lined-up behind, then proceeded to bite the back of the net, in imitation of eating spaghetti. Conti sent his spot kick over the bar. Grobbelaar then produced a similar performance before Francesco Graziani took his kick, famously wobbling his legs in mock terror. Graziani duly missed and Liverpool went on to win the shootout 4-2, making Grobbelaar the first African (Coluna, Eusébio, Santana, Costa Pereira and Águas were all born in Africa but Mozambique and Angola were under Portuguese rule and played for the Portuguese national team) to win a European Cup/Champions League winner's medal.

Grobbelaar was retained by three of Liverpool's greatest managers; Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish, over a period of 13 years. They all recognised that beneath the showbiz, there was one of the outstanding goalkeepers of his generation. His strengths were his gymnastic-like agility, and an unflappable confidence; even if he made a mistake, he would always want to be involved. He was never afraid to be seen to berate his defenders if he thought they had given easy opportunities to the opposition, most famously in his verbal assault on Jim Beglin in the first all Merseyside FA Cup final against Everton in 1986. Over the course of his Liverpool career he won more medals than any of his contemporaries.

Although there were occasional challenges to his position as Liverpool's number 1, Grobbelaar was a virtual ever-present from Clemence's departure to the start of the 1990s, when the club itself also started to slide, culminating in Kenny Dalglish's resignation in February 1991. It was the signing of David James from Watford in mid-1992 that spelt the beginning of the end for Grobbelaar. Although James struggled to impress at first, Grobbelaar's insistence on playing for Zimbabwe gave James chances; Grobbelaar only played 6 times for Liverpool during 1992-93,and even spent a period on loan at Stoke City. James' uncertainty allowed Grobbelaar to regain his place in the first team at the start of the 1993-94 season, in which his performance, like the team's, started well but fell away badly. In a notorious incident in a Merseyside derby that year, Grobelaar even physically assaulted young team mate Steve McManaman. He was ever-present until he was injured in the final minute of a 2-0 defeat at Leeds United on 19 February 1994. It turned out to be his final appearance for the club.

Southampton

Grobbelaar left Liverpool in mid-1994, transferring on a free to Southampton. He made his debut on 20 August 1994 in the 1-1 league draw with Blackburn Rovers at The Dell. He spent two seasons with the Saints competing with another goalkeeper with a reputation for eccentricity, Dave Beasant. Despite the fuss caused by the match-fixing allegations (see below), manager Alan Ball maintained faith in him, and he kept his place in the team for most of the 1994-95 season.

The match-fixing allegations first appeared in November 1994, and in his next game, at home to Arsenal he managed to keep a clean sheet despite the media frenzy that surrounded the game.

In the 1995-96 season Grobbelaar only managed two games for the Saints, before moving on to Plymouth Argyle.

International

Grobbelaar played for Rhodesia, as an 18-year old in a friendly against South Africa. He was granted dual Zimbabwean-British citizenship in 1992, having gained a British passport earlier by virtue of having an ancestor born in Cape Town Castle at the time of the Boer War, to play for the Zimbabwe national football team. He earned 32 caps between 1980 and 1998:

12/10/80 CMR (FIFA Wcq 1),

28/08/84 EGY (FIFA Wcq 2),

16/08/92 RSA (CAF 3), 09/10/92 TOG (FIFA Wcq 4), 20/12/92 EGY (FIFA Wcq 5),

10/01/93 ANG (FIFA Wcq 6), 17/01/93 TOG (FIFA Wcq 7), 31/01/93 ANG (FIFA Wcq 8), 28/02/93 EGY (FIFA Wcq 9), 15/04/93 EGY (FIFA Wcq 10), 24/04/93 RSA (CAF 11), 02/05/93 GUI (FIFA Wcq 12), 04/07/93 CMR (FIFA Wcq 13), 26/09/93 GUI (FIFA Wcq 14), 10/10/93 CMR (FIFA Wcq 15),

24/04/94 RSA (fr 16), 04/09/94 LES (CAF 17), 13/11/94 ZAI (CAF 18),

22/01/95 CMR (CAF 19), 09/04/95 LES (CAF 20), 23/04/95 MWI (CAF 21), 30/07/95 CMR (CAF 22), 26/11/95 RSA (fr tour 23),

29/09/96 TAN (fr tour 24), 05/10/96 SUD (CAF 25), 10/11/96 ANG (FIFA Wcq 26),

12/01/97 TOG (FIFA Wcq 27), 26/01/97 GHA (CAF 28), 06/04/97 CMR (FIFA Wcq 29),

27/09/98 ZAM (fr tour 30), 07/11/98 TUN (fr 31), 17/11/98 TUN (fr 32).

Match-fixing allegations

In November 1994, Grobbelaar was accused by the British tabloid newspaper The Sun of match fixing during his time at Liverpool to benefit a betting syndicate, after being caught on videotape discussing match-fixing. He was charged with conspiracy to corrupt, along with the Wimbledon goalkeeper Hans Segers and Aston Villa striker John Fashanu, and a Malaysian businessman, Heng Suan Lim.

Grobbelaar pleaded not guilty, claiming he was only gathering evidence with the intent of taking it to the police. After two successive trials, in both of which the jury could not agree on a verdict, he and his co-defendants were cleared in November 1997. Grobbelaar later sued The Sun for libel and was awarded £85,000. The Sun appealed, and the case was eventually taken to the House of Lords where it was found that, though the specific allegations had not been proved, there was adequate evidence of dishonesty. The Lords slashed his award to £1, the lowest libel damages possible under English law, and ordered him to pay The Sun's legal costs, estimated at £500,000. In his judgement, Lord Bingham of Cornhill observed:

"The tort of defamation protects those whose reputations have been unlawfully injured. It affords little or no protection to those who have, or deserve to have, no reputation deserving of legal protection. Until 9 November 1994 when the newspaper published its first articles about him, the appellant's public reputation was unblemished. But he had in fact acted in a way in which no decent or honest footballer would act and in a way which could, if not exposed and stamped on, undermine the integrity of a game which earns the loyalty and support of millions."^[1]

Grobbelaar was unable to pay the costs and was declared bankrupt.

After Southampton

Grobbelaar spent the 1996–1997 season with Plymouth, before becoming a bit of nomad, spending short spells at Oxford United, Sheffield Wednesday, Oldham Athletic, Chesham United, Bury, Lincoln City Northwich Victoria and Glasshoughton Welfare over the next 2 years before returning to his native country.

Retirement and coaching

Grobbelaar moved back to South Africa where he coached a number of teams with various degrees of success. He managed Seven Stars in 1999 and took the team from the relegation zone to finish fourth in the final league table. In 2001 he took over struggling Hellenic. He was twice briefly player-manager of Zimbabwe's national team.

Grobbelaar came to the United Kingdom briefly to help coaching in all sorts of clubs. Grobbelaar has recently stated that he "hopes to one day return to Anfield as the manager of Liverpool FC," but with outstanding debt orders in the United Kingdom, and the damage to his reputation from the match-fixing allegations, this seems nothing more than wishful thinking on Grobbelaar's part.

Grobbelaar returned to England however in 2000 to play in a replay of the 1986 FA cup final against Everton for the Marina Dalglish Appeal, a charity for Cancer research set up by former team-mate and manager Kenny Dalglish and his wife and cancer survivor Marina. Liverpool won the match 1-0.

Grobbelaar played in the Sky One's The Match in 2004 and The Match 3 in 2006, keeping a clean sheet in both games.

He can also be seen representing the Liverpool old boys. He will often play to the crowd ending up in the opposition's goal area to score, or, at least, get a shot in.

Brucie is still a firm favourite amongst the Anfield faithful, and was voted in at a more than respectable No.17 in the poll 100 Players Who Shook The Kop conducted in mid-2006 by the official Liverpool Football Club web site. Over 110,000 worldwide voted for their best 10 players in the Anfield club's history, with Grobbelaar finishing 2nd in the goalkeeping stakes.

In March 2007, Liverpool's official website announced that Grobbelaar would come out of retirement for a one off game and play for non-league Wakefield side Glasshoughton Welfare to help them in their fight for survival. He played against Maltby Main on 14 April 2007, helping Glasshoughton to a 2-1 win.