| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Alan John Miller | ||
| Date of birth | 29 March 1970 | ||
| Place of birth | Epping, England | ||
| Height | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) | ||
| Playing position | Goalkeeper | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1984–1988 | Arsenal | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1988–1994 | Arsenal | 9 | (0) |
| 1988–1989 | → Plymouth Argyle (loan) | 13 | (0) |
| 1991 | → West Bromwich Albion (loan) | 3 | (0) |
| 1991–1992 | → Birmingham City (loan) | 15 | (0) |
| 1994–1997 | Middlesbrough | 57 | (0) |
| 1997 | → Huddersfield Town (loan) | 0 | (0) |
| 1997 | → Grimsby Town (loan) | 3 | (0) |
| 1997 | → West Bromwich Albion (loan) | 12 | (0) |
| 1997–2000 | West Bromwich Albion | 93 | (0) |
| 2000–2003 | Blackburn Rovers | 1 | (0) |
| 2000 | → Bristol City (loan) | 4 | (0) |
| 2000 | → Coventry City (loan) | 1 | (0) |
| 2001–2002 | → St. Johnstone (loan) | 18 | (0) |
| National team‡ | |||
| England U21 | 4 | (0) | |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 17:13, 28 March 2010 (UTC). † Appearances (Goals). |
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Alan John Miller (born Epping, 29 March 1970) is an English former professional football goalkeeper.
Miller began as an apprentice at Arsenal in 1984. With them he won the FA Youth Cup in 1988, and won four caps for the England under-21 team. However, with John Lukic and then David Seaman first-team opportunities were rare; he had loan spells with Plymouth Argyle, West Bromwich Albion and Birmingham City. Nonetheless, while with Arsenal, Miller became renowned as a practical joker. This became apparent by his response to the traditional 'hazing' carried out on him by the Gunners' squad when was promoted from the youth side. In response to Viv Anderson defecating in his shoe, Miller did the classic swap-shaving-foam-with-deodorant move, resulting in Anderson having a rash on his face for weeks. Things snowballed from there, the most infamous incident coming when Miller told Paul Merson to bet on Arsenal keeping a clean sheet in a reserve game against Crystal Palace only to throw the ball into his own net in the last minute with his side 4-0 up.
He finally made his Arsenal debut on 21 November 1992 as a substitute (the first ever Arsenal goalkeeper to come on as a sub) and made another seven appearances over the next two seasons. He won FA Cup and League Cup winners' medals in 1992-93[1][2] and a UEFA Cup Winners' Cup medal in 1993-94,[3] as an unused sub each time.
In the summer of 1994, Miller moved to Middlesbrough for £500,000, winning a First Division winners' medal in his first season. While the official reason given was that he wanted first-team football and could not achieve that behind David Seaman, Perry Groves revealed the real cause of the transfer in his autobiography, We All Live In A Perry Groves World (ISBN 1-84454-319-6). By now, the jokes had become an obsession for Miller, so much so that he feigned injury so as to miss training, formulating his plans instead.[4]
In 1997 he signed for West Bromwich Albion in a £400,000 deal, before moving on to Blackburn Rovers in 2000. He played only two games during his time at Ewood Park, and spent time on loan at Bristol City and Coventry City during 2000-01. In October 2001 he was loaned out again, this time to St Johnstone.[5] Miller retired in 2003 after failing to overcome a back injury.[6]
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