Favourite Orient Keeper

[EliotNes]

I couldn’t put a cigarette paper between Jacko and Goddard. Both great.

An honourable mention to Eldin as well. Oh how different things could have been if he’d not been recalled by Hull

[ContrifibulatoryFred]

I’m another fan of Ray Goddard

[Thor]

I thought a few would say Goddard, but he was before my time, so I'm unable to make a comparison. The people that have put him forwards, what were his qualities that you say put him in from of Jackson?

[EH16]

Never saw John Jackson so for me it's Heald by a mile.

[Article_50]

Eldin Jakupovic - had he not been recalled we would've been a Championship side I have no doubt about that

Absolutely

[Redcard]

Jackson was not only the best but the bravest , he would race out of his goal and confront a one on one attack diving at the forwards feet and winning the ball cleanly. Some of his displays were unbelievable and he would singlehandedly preserve the points. Ray Goddard was a good keeper and unlucky that Jackson came along.
I can’t believe anyone would suggest mervyn day. He was totally shot when west ham dumped him on us and in my view ranks among the worse keepers ever seen at the orient , that honour only being eclipsed by a giant keeper Nicholson who we signed from notts forest years ago. Anyone who disagrees with my view of day, look at the volume of goals he conceded with us.
He wasn’t interested ,when facing a one on one he would just stand statue like while the player went round him, and I have never seen a keeper facing his own goal when defending crosses like he did.
Unbelievable that he later became a goalkeeper coach.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Peter Wells.

What a 'tache.

[Booba]

Paul Heald, but I did love Wellsy too

[Oforever]

John Jackson, total class

[o-no]

Jackson was not only the best but the bravest , he would race out of his goal and confront a one on one attack diving at the forwards feet and winning the ball cleanly. Some of his displays were unbelievable and he would singlehandedly preserve the points. Ray Goddard was a good keeper and unlucky that Jackson came along.
I can’t believe anyone would suggest mervyn day. He was totally shot when west ham dumped him on us and in my view ranks among the worse keepers ever seen at the orient , that honour only being eclipsed by a giant keeper Nicholson who we signed from notts forest years ago. Anyone who disagrees with my view of day, look at the volume of goals he conceded with us.
He wasn’t interested ,when facing a one on one he would just stand statue like while the player went round him, and I have never seen a keeper facing his own goal when defending crosses like he did.
Unbelievable that he later became a goalkeeper coach.

Calm down, it’s favourite keeper, not best.

[Osal]

This will divide opinion, it is Ray Goddard for me. What possessed George Petchey to bring Jackson in at the time to replace Goddard, still baffles me to this day, in my opinion it ultimately cost us promotion back to the First Division 1973/1974. I will never forget Jackson's performance away at Luton Town, to say it was dire, to be honest, is being complimentary. Not Jackson's fault, as when he was brought in, he clearly wasn't fit and to replace a fan's favourite, who incidently was performing extremely well, only Petchey will know the thinking behind that. All that said, nobody can dispute John Jackson, went on to have a stand out career at the O's.

[Lovejoy]

This will divide opinion, it is Ray Goddard for me. What possessed George Petchey to bring Jackson in at the time to replace Goddard, still baffles me to this day, in my opinion it ultimately cost us promotion back to the First Division 1973/1974. I will never forget Jackson's performance away at Luton Town, to say it was dire, to be honest, is being complimentary. Not Jackson's fault, as when he was brought in, he clearly wasn't fit and to replace a fan's favourite, who incidently was performing extremely well, only Petchey will know the thinking behind that. All that said, nobody can dispute John Jackson, went on to have a stand out career at the O's.

Ray Goddard was a decent keeper and I am sure he got his own back on us at Wimbledon in the late 1970s. I seem to remember us playing Wimbledon in a cup tie at Plough Lane and the tie went to penalties. I recall Ray saving a penalty and scoring the penalty winner and knocking us out of what ever cup it was. Perhaps someone with a better recollection of this can confirm it.

[Fanny]

Ok enough about politics, Kent, Nigel, Danny and Martin must be getting bored of all this talk about left, right and the loons in yellow. So how about we get back to football matters.

I'm going to go with John Jackson. He played without gloves, was in my eyes the best keeper we've had although some of our older members may disagree with me. A great signing from Palace who was a great servant.

Who do you think was out best keeper? Some of you may not have seen him play so a more recent player may be your pick.

Here’s a question for you, do you think that the standard of goalkeeping in the professional game has improved since the introduction of gloves?

As somebody who has only ever known goalies to wear them it seems totally mental to me to think of keepers diving about bare handed. Especially because I imagine old timey footballs were a lot harder than the padded ones we have today.

[marcho]

Mervyn Day when you could get him out of the snooker club.

[Thor]

Ok enough about politics, Kent, Nigel, Danny and Martin must be getting bored of all this talk about left, right and the loons in yellow. So how about we get back to football matters.

I'm going to go with John Jackson. He played without gloves, was in my eyes the best keeper we've had although some of our older members may disagree with me. A great signing from Palace who was a great servant.

Who do you think was out best keeper? Some of you may not have seen him play so a more recent player may be your pick.

Here’s a question for you, do you think that the standard of goalkeeping in the professional game has improved since the introduction of gloves?

As somebody who has only ever known goalies to wear them it seems totally mental to me to think of keepers diving about bare handed. Especially because I imagine old timey footballs were a lot harder than the padded ones we have today.

In some ways yes and in others no. If you look at a keepers gloves they are big, way bigger than there hands which gives them a much bigger surface area in which to get a hand to the ball. The old balls hit at full pelt would no doubt have stung, but saying that they probably had a tougher hand due to the expected impact of continuous balls hitting them. The keepers are way fitter now they they’ve probably ever been, and can virtually all play football as aposed in past years of just walloping it up field. Keepers today don’t catch the ball they are taught to punch it, I get the percentage idea behind it, but as they are so protected if they don’t catch it I’m sure they’ll get a foul awarded anyway. When I grew up England had several keepers to choose from, today that’s probably not the case so has the standard dropped here or has the continental keeper improved more so? The game is also a lot faster than it was, Liverpool in the 70/80’s hay day would pass the ball between the keeper and back four forever, now you just could not do that as the keeper is no longer able to pick it back up for the 10th time in a row. Also the tactics of a keeper has changed, if you think back to the Shilton, Clemence era, the box was the keepers domain, now they are taught it’s the six yard box they need to control with their hands, and the 18 yard to sweep up as the sweeper keeper role.

So I think personally the keepers were better 20/30/40 years ago than now. In defence of the keepers today they have improved from a footballers perspective in that they can play. There is a school of thought that outfield players have more coaches to help them, zonal coaches, transitional coaches, striker coaches, defensive coaches and so on yet the keepe coach is just that and the role has probably not really evolved in the way outfield coaching has. One only has to look at the technical ability of the young English sides to see we are now as good as anyone in world football, you could not say that 10 years ago.

[Fanny]

Ok enough about politics, Kent, Nigel, Danny and Martin must be getting bored of all this talk about left, right and the loons in yellow. So how about we get back to football matters.

I'm going to go with John Jackson. He played without gloves, was in my eyes the best keeper we've had although some of our older members may disagree with me. A great signing from Palace who was a great servant.

Who do you think was out best keeper? Some of you may not have seen him play so a more recent player may be your pick.

Here’s a question for you, do you think that the standard of goalkeeping in the professional game has improved since the introduction of gloves?

As somebody who has only ever known goalies to wear them it seems totally mental to me to think of keepers diving about bare handed. Especially because I imagine old timey footballs were a lot harder than the padded ones we have today.

In some ways yes and in others no. If you look at a keepers gloves they are big, way bigger than there hands which gives them a much bigger surface area in which to get a hand to the ball. The old balls hit at full pelt would no doubt have stung, but saying that they probably had a tougher hand due to the expected impact of continuous balls hitting them. The keepers are way fitter now they they’ve probably ever been, and can virtually all play football as aposed in past years of just walloping it up field. Keepers today don’t catch the ball they are taught to punch it, I get the percentage idea behind it, but as they are so protected if they don’t catch it I’m sure they’ll get a foul awarded anyway. When I grew up England had several keepers to choose from, today that’s probably not the case so has the standard dropped here or has the continental keeper improved more so? The game is also a lot faster than it was, Liverpool in the 70/80’s hay day would pass the ball between the keeper and back four forever, now you just could not do that as the keeper is no longer able to pick it back up for the 10th time in a row. Also the tactics of a keeper has changed, if you think back to the Shilton, Clemence era, the box was the keepers domain, now they are taught it’s the six yard box they need to control with their hands, and the 18 yard to sweep up as the sweeper keeper role.

So I think personally the keepers were better 20/30/40 years ago than now. In defence of the keepers today they have improved from a footballers perspective in that they can play. There is a school of thought that outfield players have more coaches to help them, zonal coaches, transitional coaches, striker coaches, defensive coaches and so on yet the keepe coach is just that and the role has probably not really evolved in the way outfield coaching has. One only has to look at the technical ability of the young English sides to see we are now as good as anyone in world football, you could not say that 10 years ago.

Very interesting reply. Thank you.

[Lovejoy]

Ok enough about politics, Kent, Nigel, Danny and Martin must be getting bored of all this talk about left, right and the loons in yellow. So how about we get back to football matters.

I'm going to go with John Jackson. He played without gloves, was in my eyes the best keeper we've had although some of our older members may disagree with me. A great signing from Palace who was a great servant.

Who do you think was out best keeper? Some of you may not have seen him play so a more recent player may be your pick.

Here’s a question for you, do you think that the standard of goalkeeping in the professional game has improved since the introduction of gloves?

As somebody who has only ever known goalies to wear them it seems totally mental to me to think of keepers diving about bare handed. Especially because I imagine old timey footballs were a lot harder than the padded ones we have today.

I used to play in goal a bit and there were some different makes of goalkeeper's gloves available most of which had rubber pimples on the fingers and palms. These were okay until the ball became wet and would slip straight through them. I used to use bare hands when it was dry and cotton gloves my mother used to get me when it was wet. Peter Bonetti bought out his own gloves in the early 1970s which were quite good and did the job. They were fine cotton and reversible so when the front got too muddy you just turned them round and put them on the other hands. The big change was around 1980 when a German company called Uhlsport bought out gloves where the fronts were made of foam and they were a real improvement in gripping a football with the same gloves whether it was wet or dry. The problem with them was that they did not last very long before the fronts fell apart. They were the first types of the gloves that you see goalkeepers wear today and I am sure they have improved many times over the years.

[banqo]

This will divide opinion, it is Ray Goddard for me. What possessed George Petchey to bring Jackson in at the time to replace Goddard, still baffles me to this day, in my opinion it ultimately cost us promotion back to the First Division 1973/1974. I will never forget Jackson's performance away at Luton Town, to say it was dire, to be honest, is being complimentary. Not Jackson's fault, as when he was brought in, he clearly wasn't fit and to replace a fan's favourite, who incidently was performing extremely well, only Petchey will know the thinking behind that. All that said, nobody can dispute John Jackson, went on to have a stand out career at the O's.

With you totally on this. Never understood why Petchey signed another keeper, when we needed strengthening elsewhere and as you say perhaps cost us promotion.