On Saturday Crawley's striker Matt Harrold donned the goalkeeper's jersey for 50 minutes as first choice Brian Jensen dislocated his finger and they had no replacement on the bench. As it turns out he wasn’t a bad choice to go in between the sticks as he got man of the match and made a number of saves to deny 3rd place MK Dons a vital win. He was however left heartbroken when they conceded in the 6th minute of stoppage time in the 2-2 draw.
I thought I would take a look at some other how some other outfield players faired when they were in goal.
Phil Jagielka- Back in the days when he played for Sheffield United he kept a clean sheet for the 34 minutes as he was in net against the mighty Arsenal he went in net after Paddy Kenny was injured and made produced a heroic performance as they beat Arsenal 1-0 at Bramhall Lane.
Cosmin Moti- The centre back went in the sticks for Bulgarian Side Ludogrets and unbelievably made 2 saves in a penalty shootout to send them through to the Champions League group stage. He went in net after in the 119th minute of a Champions League playoff tie after normal keeper Vladislav Stoyanov was sent off and made two outstanding diving penalty saves to help them win the shootout 6-5.
Felipe Melo- The Brazilian midfielder went in net for Galatasaray when first choice keeper Fernando Muslera was sent off and they had run out of substitutions he went onto save a vital stoppage time penalty in a 1-0 win against Elazığspor in the Turkish League.
Peter Beardsley- The English midfielder sadly did not have a fairytale story in net as he was Newcastle’s third keeper as they lost 8-1 to West Ham in 1986. To be fair to Beardsley he did only concede 3 of the goals in his short spell in net but he did sadly make some poor errors and allowed West Ham defender Alvin Martin to complete his Hat Trick.
Alain Giresse- The Frenchman went in net for Bordeauxs last game of the 1981/82 season after the chairman had banned normal keeper for off the field antics. The reason he was chose to replace him was that he was the captain and that reason only. He was only 1.63m and he did not excel in the jersey as he conceded 5 in 60 minutes before being replaced.
Source: DSG
