Bruce Grobbelaar

Bruce Grobbelaar
Personal information
Full name	Bruce David Grobbelaar
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Team information
Current team	retired

Bruce David Grobbelaar (born October 6, 1957 in Durban, South Africa) was a football goalkeeper for Zimbabwe and a number of clubs, most notably Liverpool F.C. during their dominant 1980's period. His nickname is "Jungleman."

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. 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. 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 & Blackpool goalkeeper, Tony Waiters, making his debut against the Seattle Sounders in 1980. Though second choice to former Q.P.R and West Ham 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. 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 1970's, paved the way for the move. Grobbelaar signed for Liverpool £250,000 on the 17th March 1981 as their reserve goalkeeper, but in the summer of '81, regular goalkeeper Ray Clemence's departure to Tottenham Hotspur gave Grobbelaar his opportunity.

Bruce made his debut on the 28th August '81 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 the 5th 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, Bruce took a lot of the blame. By the end of the calender year Liverpool were quite some distance behind the leagues 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 the 13th March, ironically, the Reds beat Spurs 3-1 who had the former legend Clemence between the posts.

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 to win a European Cup/Champions League winner's medal.

Whilst criticism is often aimed at him for his sometimes erratic performances, 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: he defended his eccentricity by claiming that, having fought in a civil war in Zimbabwe, he could appreciate that football is not as important as some people would suggest. 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, and he would certainly challenge his predecessor Ray Clemence for a place in an all-time Liverpool XI.

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 end of the 1980's, apart from occasional injuries and a bout of meningitis which caused him to miss half the 1988/89 season. It was the signing of David James from Watford in the summer of 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. He was ever-present until he was injured in the final minute of a 2-0 defeat at Leeds United on 28th February 1994. It turned out to be his final appearance for the club.

Heysel and Hillsborough

During his spell at Liverpool Bruce witnessed two tradegies, in 1985, an hour before the kick-off, rioting hooligans caused a retaining wall at the Heysel Stadium to collapse killing 39, mainly, Juventus fans, it happened at the European Cup final which was being held in Brussels, Belgium. The second was on the 15th April 1989 at Hillsborough, home of Sheffield Wednesday. Liverpool were to face Nottingham Forest, but with kick-off fast approaching their was still hundreds of Liverpool fans still trying to get into the Leppings Lane end of the ground, the decision was taken to open the large exit gate allowing the supporters to enter all at once without filtering. A large amount of the crowd headed to the middle of 3 fenced off pens pushing the fans at the front into the iron fence which prevented supporters running on to the pitch. By the time anyone realised there was a major problem unfolding it was far too late, in all 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives. Bruce, like the rest of the Liverpool squad and staff, was badly affected (by both disasters) but, again, like the rest of Liverpool F.C he acted with great dignity and attended as many of the funerals as he could, which was appreciated by the families and friends of the victims.

Southampton

Grobbelaar left Liverpool in the summer of 1994, transferring on a free to Southampton. He made his deut on the 20th August '94 in the 1-1 league draw with Blackburn Rovers at the The Dell. He spent 2 seasons with the Saints competing with another goakeeper 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 the distraction of the court cases was such that Grobbelaar only managed 2 games for the Saints, before moving on to Plymouth Argyle.

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 and Northwich Victoria over the next 2 years before returning to his native country.

Retirement and coaching

Grobbelaar moved back to South Africa where he has 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 twice previous was briefly player-manager of Zimbabwe's national team.

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.

Bruce returned to England however in 2006 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 oppositions goal area to scoreor, at least, get shot off.

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