Andy Goram Has Passed Away

[buster. 5,208]

Very sad news.

 

It is bad enough as it is but had we not known this was coming, it would have been such a horrible shock.

[Uilleam 5,948]

 

 

Andy Goram ‘the goalie’ 1964-2022

Scotland’s finest keeper had distinguished career but was colourful character off field

Graeme Macpherson

Sunday July 03 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

 

 

Goram turned out for Scotland, Hibernian and Rangers during a long and successful career

 

Andy Goram, who has died at the age of 58 after being diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer in April, was generally considered to be one of Scotland’s finest ever goalkeepers. Most widely associated with Rangers with whom he lifted 10 major domestic honours during a seven-year spell, Bury-born Goram was also a Scotland international who won 43 caps and played at the 1992 and 1996 European Championships.

Although not the most physically imposing figure for a goalkeeper at just 5ft11, Goram crafted a reputation as an adroit and nimble shot-stopper capable of making the most remarkable saves from point-blank range, gaining the nickname The Goalie that stayed with him for the duration of his life.

One save to repel a volley from Pierre van Hooijdonk in an Old Firm game in 1995 was particularly impressive, the Celtic striker left stunned at being denied what had looked like a certain goal. Goram’s ongoing heroics against Rangers’ great rivals famously moved former Celtic boss Tommy Burns to quip that on his tombstone they would write “Goram broke my heart”. The pair are now indelibly linked, both dying from cancer while in their fifties (Burns was 56 when he died in 2008).

 

Goram salutes the fans in a game between Rangers and Manchester United legends in 2013

SNS

 

Goram was born and raised in England but to a Scottish father, Lewis, who had also been a goalkeeper. His son followed in his footsteps by turning professional with Oldham Athletic, his steady performances earning him a call-up to the England under-21 squad.

Luckily for Scotland he never took the field, thus allowing him to switch allegiances. Caretaker Scotland manager Alex Ferguson took the opportunity to field Goram in a friendly international against East Germany, the Tartan Army serenading the new arrival by reminding him “you’re not English any more.” Goram was part of the Scotland squad that went to the 1986 World Cup but didn’t play, as was also the case at the 1990 tournament.

 

Goram moved to Hibernian — one of his dad’s former clubs — in 1987, his four years there serving to enhance his reputation as a goalkeeper of vast talent and potential. He also scored twice while at Easter Road, once from a long kick-out and the other in a penalty shoot-out.

Walter Smith made Goram his first signing for Rangers in 1991 and the pair went on to forge a close, if at times fraught, relationship, with the goalkeeper becoming one of the key figures in the Rangers squad that would equal Celtic’s record of nine successive league championships.

After leaving Ibrox in 1998, Goram moved to Motherwell, had a short and somewhat unexpected loan spell at Manchester United, and also turned out for Hamilton Academical, Coventry City, Oldham again, Queen of the South and Elgin City before working as a coach for a number of clubs.

Goram was also an accomplished cricketer who had worked on the ground staff at Lancashire as a young man. A left-handed batter who also bowled right-arm medium pacers, he remains the only football international to have also played for Scotland in a first-class cricket match.

One of his five Scotland appearances came in July 1989 at Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow against the touring Australian side, with Goram making just four runs before being bowled by the off spinner, Tim May.

He fared no better with the ball, taking no wickets in his six overs albeit against a strong visiting team that included Allan Border, David Boon, Steve Waugh and Merv Hughes, the latter of whom reportedly told the then Hibernian player to “stick to football” after he had jumped out of the way of a bouncer.

Snooker was another favoured pastime with Goram said to be more than comfortable with a cue in his hand. “I remember he beat the future world champion John Parrott in a three-frame challenge at Frank Graham’s snooker club,” the former Hibs chairman David Duff told the Scotsman recently.

Goram was a spiky, headstrong character, that steely determination combined with a penchant for the good life often landing him in trouble. In his autobiography, My Life, he confessed to a “knack of hitting the self-destruct button”, something that would shape both his football career and his personal life.

 

Goram pictured whilst waiting to bat during a NatWest Trophy 1st round match between Scotland and Sussex in 1991

SHAUN BOTTERILL/ALLSPORT

 

Goram was rarely off the front and back pages of the newspapers. He fell out with Smith in 1994 after failing to return from a family holiday in time for the Scottish Cup final, instead remaining in Tenerife after bumping into his former Oldham team-mates and going out drinking. He was placed on the transfer list but worked his way back into Smith’s favour before the start of the season.

He subsequently missed a Scotland European Championship qualifier after stating he was “not mentally attuned” to play. When a few years later he revealed he had been diagnosed with a mild form of schizophrenia, cruel rival fans taunted him with a chant of “Two Andy Gorams”.

Goram also missed the 1998 World Cup after choosing to retire from international duty three weeks before the start of the tournament after learning he was not going to be the starting goalkeeper in France.

His personal life was just as chequered. Goram was married and divorced three times amid myriad tabloid tales about womanising, and courted controversy with his interest in The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

He wore a black armband during an Old Firm game a few days after the death of Loyalist terrorist leader Billy Wright but claimed it was in memory of an aunt who had passed away months earlier. A photo emerged a few years later of Goram posing with an Ulster Volunteer Force banner.

He is survived by two sons, Danny, from his first marriage, and Lewis, from his second. One of Goram’s final public appearances was watching Rangers win the Scottish Cup final in May at Hampden, the first time he had attended a cup final with Danny.

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/andy-goram-the-goalie-1964-2022-7w8cr8tm5

 

NB I am certain that J Scot Symon, also of Rangers, played both football and cricket for Scotland. 

[Uilleam 5,948]

 

Andy Goram — ‘the best goalkeeper Scotland have ever had’

Former Rangers No 1, who has died aged 58, was a flawed genius

John Greechan

Saturday July 02 2022, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/andy-goram-the-best-goalkeeper-scotland-have-ever-had-69lkq7ljh

 

Andy Goram during a home victory over Kilmarnock in December 1995 - when he kept one of many clean sheets for Rangers

SNS GROUP

 

Andy Goram was human. Only more so. And he crammed several lifetimes worth of achievement, incident and antics, covering every dot on the sublime-to-ridiculous spectrum, into his 58 years.

He was also, quite simply, “the best goalkeeper Scotland have ever had.” If you dare argue with that verdict, take it up with the man who put it down in black-and-white as a sign-off to Goram’s autobiography.

Sir Alex Ferguson does not throw around lofty compliments like cheap party favours. He meant every word of it.

Ferguson, who famously took Goram from Motherwell to Manchester United at the age of 36, loved what he got from the veteran in their short time together. The same qualities – resolve, mental strength and an almost pathological desire to defend his goal – that won so much respect from many a coach.

And, yes, the greatest manager of them all has one or two tales to tell about a player he capped for Scotland some 15 years before that surprise move to Old Trafford.

 

Then again, everyone who worked even briefly with the former Rangers, Hibs and Oldham goalie could fill several books with stories about a character who revelled in – and possibly even exaggerated, on occasion - his wild-man image.

Those who knew him best will obviously feel the passing of Goram, whose death following a cancer diagnosis was announced on Saturday, most keenly of all.

Yet the wider footballing family will share in their sense of loss. Not just because he has been taken so young. But because Goram always seemed like such an unstoppable force of nature.

Flawed? Absolutely. But a genius all the same. And those who focused on the imperfections were guilty of missing the bigger picture. Their loss.

Rightly hailed as a hero by Rangers fans for playing such a crucial role in the ‘Nine in a row’ years, Goram overcame plenty of doubts to reach the top level of football.

Too short, too instinctive, far too susceptible to off-field distractions. There were always reasons for coaches not to put their faith in a keeper who would go on to win just the ten major trophies at Ibrox.

 

Andy Goram was reunited with former national manager Sir Alex Ferguson when he joined Manchester United at the age of 36 in 2001

PETER POWELL

Aware that he had been signed by Walter Smith partly to get around Uefa’s three-foreigner rule, with Chris Woods firmly established as Ibrox No. 1, Goram was used to people underestimating him before he had even set foot on a training field.

He was not even six feet tall, for starters. Nor was he always the most lithe of figures.

So he revelled in both of the nicknames given to him by dumbfounded supporters, gleefully referring to himself both as ‘The Goalie’ and ‘The Flying Pig’.

 

Ultimately, he was a serious player who could laugh at himself. A fierce competitor who understood that he might look out of place, in a changing game where keepers were getting taller, leaner and more comfortable with the ball at their feet – but who knew, deep down, that he was better than all of those skinny “athletes.”

Legendary goalkeeping coach Alan Hodgkinson gave him work-arounds to overcome his lack of stature. The rest came from within.

Rangers was the club he loved most of all and — although he had to win over sceptical supporters after a couple of early wobbles — he quickly became one of the most popular figures in a team whose exploits inspired so much adulation and adoration.

Still, there were tales of dressing room bust-ups. Some more accurate than others. He also confessed to playing his part in the sort of old-school “banter” that would have a modern HR department in permanent meltdown.

Goram also admitted to being left in tears when transfer listed by Smith, a bold act of man-management following a missed flight that left the manager in a fury. It worked. It forced the goalie to refocus, lose weight and reclaim the faith of his favourite coach.

Not that Goram was ever going to completely swear off the lifestyle that was part of his character, of course.

 

One of the reasons he was such a close friend with Brian Laudrup, the unlikely chums instantly tagged ‘The Odd Couple’ by bemused team-mates, was that the Dane never once tried to reform his pal.

Andy Goram was a popular figure among team-mates, including Paul Gascoigne at Rangers

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As for others who attempted to sell him on the merits of laying off the booze, his response was always the same.

“If you changed the animal I am, all you are going to get is a different one,” he said. “Not necessarily a better one.”

Fans of Oldham, Hibs and Motherwell, among others, will have their own reasons for remembering Goram with fondness.

Scotland supporters of a certain vintage will recall many performances of distinction in a career that, while including appearances at back-to-back European Championships, might well have yielded more than 43 caps.

He would also find time to represent his country four times on the cricket field, part of a minor league career, which emphasised his all-round sporting ability.

As for those who spent their lives cursing Goram’s ability to pull off yet another miraculous stop, denying their team points, victories and trophies? The best of them recognised true greatness when they saw it.

 

Which brings us, inevitably, to the finest compliment ever afforded The Goalie.

Reflecting on the late Tommy Burns’ famous “Andy Goram broke my heart” comment in the wake of another spectacularly defiant performance in January 1996, including a particularly stunning save from Pierre van Hooijdonk, the keeper later confessed: “What Tommy said about me will stay with me for the rest of my life.

“I treasure those words and take them as a huge compliment. His death shattered me.”

Many in football will be feeling similarly broken up by the loss of someone who lived such an eventful and entertaining life.

[Scott7 6,021]

42 minutes ago, Uilleam said:

NB I am certain that J Scot Symon, also of Rangers, played both football and cricket for Scotland

Correct.

[Uilleam 5,948]

9 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

Correct.

Well, it seems that AG is the only one to have played "First Class" matches for Scotland:

 

https://www.scottishsporthistory.com/sports-history-news-and-blog/cricket-and-football-double-internationals

 

23/06/2012

It is something of an achievement to play for Scotland - but only rare talents are given the honour in two sports. I was checking recently for double internationals at football and cricket, and there are a few anomalies because of the sometimes dubious status of the Scotland cricket team.
   Scot Symon won one cap for the football team, against Hungary in 1938, and famously took 5 wickets for 33 runs while bowling against the Australians earlier that year. That match against Australia was at Dundee's Forthill ground on 4-5 August, and he also played in a one-day match at Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow on 6 August, taking 3 for 44.
   In an earlier era, John Macdonald (Edinburgh University and Queen's Park) won one cap at football against England in 1886, having already played cricket for Scotland against the Australians in September 1880; he also represented his country against the Gentlemen of Philadelphia in 1884.
   Moving to the modern era, Hearts striker Donald Ford played three times for Scotland in 1973-74, twice coming on as a sub for Denis Law and finally making a start against Wales. He was a member of our World Cup squad in West Germany but didn't get a game. A talented cricketer with West Lothian, his only appearance with a Scotland XI was a 40-overs trial match against Worcestershire in 1980, and although he was a member of our B&H Cup squad that year he didn't play.
   The trouble with all the above cricket matches is that none of them is formally considered a 'first class' match.
   Which brings us to the only football international to have played for Scotland in a first class cricket match. Andy Goram won 43 caps in goal for Scotland between 1985 and 1998, when he famously walked out just before the World Cup. He played five times for Scotland at cricket from 1989 to 1991, and two of those games are considered first class: they were both against Ireland, on 8-10 July 1989 and 22-24 July 1991. By then, he had signed for Rangers and Walter Smith made it clear that he had to hang up his bat and focus on the footie. He was rumoured to be contemplating a comeback with Uddingston CC this summer at the age of 48, so there is life left in the Goalie yet.

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Uilleam

[Uilleam 5,948]

OBITUARY

 

Andy Goram 

Goalkeeper who gave up cricket, his first love, to become a Rangers and Scotland legend

Monday July 04 2022, 12.00am

The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/andy-goram-obituary-08kdt7xtf

 

Goram made his football league debut aged only 16. He stopped playing cricket after Rangers told him to “knock it on the head”

SNS GROUP

 

Andy Goram’s colourful and chaotic life had a series of highs and lows. A brilliant footballer and cricketer and by his own admission a drinker and womaniser, he had a queue of admirers and invariably left a trail of destruction. No one who knew Goram ever testified to him having quiet, prayerful ways.

Goram could rightly claim to have been one of Britain’s greatest goalkeepers of the past 30 years. At 5’11” he was fairly small in stature for the position, but he made up for it with bravery, agility and “sticky hands”. He remained beloved of Rangers supporters after starring in seven trophy-laden seasons in the 1990s, which was also the period in which he won most of his 43 caps for Scotland.

His love of female company became legendary. “The ease with which you could get women staggered me,” Goram said of being a famous footballer in Scotland. “Glasgow was a minefield. Women were throwing themselves at us.” Nevertheless, he was at his most successful and focused on the sports field, being one of only two men to represent Scotland at both football and cricket (the other being Scot Symon in the 1930s).

Ironically, while football was where he forged his reputation, cricket was his first love and the focus of his earliest ambition. “There was a point in my life when football was my second priority. I wanted to make it as a cricketer,” he said.

He achieved that ambition to a degree, representing Scotland in the sport four times, including against Allan Border’s Australia at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, in 1989.

 

On that occasion he scored four runs. The first ball he faced was a bouncer bowled by Mervyn Hughes. “I ducked out of the way as it whistled past my throat. If it had hit me, it would have killed me.” Recovering from the shock, he saw Hughes in front of him, twirling his famous moustache, smiling and saying: “You should have stuck to football, cobber.”

He was later fined £3,000 for missing football training.

 

Andrew Lewis Goram was born in Bury, Lancashire, in 1964. His mother and father, Lewis and May Goram, ran pubs and clubs in the north of England. Lewis, originally from Glasgow and a Rangers supporter, had been a goalkeeper for Hibernian in the late 1940s before moving south.

 

At 5’11” he was fairly small in stature for a goalkeeper, but he made up for it with bravery, agility and “sticky hands”

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His son’s football career reflected that of his father, though Lewis died in 1989 and never saw his son play for Rangers.

Goram showed promise as a cricketer. Growing up in Lancashire, his hero was Clive Lloyd, the great West Indian, who like Goram was a left-handed batsman. Goram was quickly elevated to captain of Lancashire schoolboys, signing for Lancashire Cricket Club even while his football career was also making headway. Indeed, in the same week in 1979 that he signed for Lancashire he also had a trial as a goalkeeper at West Bromwich Albion.

At 16 he was signed by Oldham Athletic, where Joe Royle, the manager, handed him his debut while he was still two weeks short of his 17th birthday. Goram’s fate was sealed: as good a cricketer as he was, his professional career lay in football. He was shorter than average for a top-quality goalkeeper but it did not hinder his career.

Ronnie Allen, the manager at West Brom, had told him: “You’re too small, you’ll never make it as a keeper”, while Howard Wilkinson, another leading English manager, had also considered selecting him before telling him: “Andy, you’re too small.”

 

Goram recieving his trophy at the Scottish Football Association Hall of Fame in Glasgow in 2010

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Years later, when Rangers, with Goram in goal, knocked Wilkinson’s Leeds United out of the 1992-93 Champions League, Goram made a beeline for him on the final whistle and asked: “Am I still too small?”

 

After seven years with Oldham, Goram signed for Hibernian, just as his father had in 1987. It proved to be the start of a brilliant career at club and international level, but also of a chaotic lifestyle, in which Goram’s off-field antics would be manna from heaven for the tabloid press.

Jackie Taylor, his first wife, was unaware that his career was taking him to Scotland and was pregnant at the time. “I never told Jackie we’d be moving to Edinburgh, I just went ahead and signed on the dotted line for Hibs,” he later said balefully. “She phoned me and asked ‘Where are you, when are you home?’ and I said ‘I’m in Edinburgh, I’ve just joined Hibs.’ She replied: ‘Well, I’m not going’. So that ended that marriage.”

Goram’s second marriage was to Tracey Fitzpatrick, a croupier whom he met in an Edinburgh casino. That relationship survived five tempestuous years, with Goram regularly featuring in the tabloids for various indiscretions. He later described his 1991 move to Rangers as the main reason for this marriage breaking down, claiming that Fitzpatrick’s family were “staunch Catholic, though I’m not saying they were bigots”. The marriage finally hit the rocks when, in December 1993, Goram got into a fist-fight with his wife’s brother, Michael, and knocked him out cold.

 

He was beloved of Rangers supporters after starring in seven trophy-laden seasons in the 1990s

PA

 

While mayhem ensued off the pitch, on it Goram was flying. Rangers paid £1.5 million for him and he enjoyed seven memorable years at Ibrox, winning five league titles, three Scottish Cups and two League Cups, while also playing at Euro ’96 for Scotland. But Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, put paid to his player’s cricket career, which had continued since moving to Scotland, playing for Penicuik and then Kelso. “By the way, Andy, the cricket . . . knock it on the head,” Smith instructed him upon joining Rangers. Goram was distraught but dutifully put away his bat.

Days before the start of the 1998 World Cup, Goram fell out with Craig Brown, the Scotland manager, bringing an end to his international footballing career. He later played for Motherwell and, remarkably, Manchester United, who signed Goram when he was 37 during an injury emergency in 2001. He played two games.

Mishaps and headlines were never far away. In the same year as his move to Manchester United Goram received a death threat related to the IRA in the form of a note left on his car windscreen, which was somehow linked to his appearance at an Orange Order event. He was petrified and reported it to the police.

Peace and tranquillity threatened to descend, for a time at least, with the arrival of wife No 3, Miriam Wylie, with whom Goram shared a farmhouse near Lanark. The couple owned goats named Gin and Tonic and Highland cows named Ice and Lemon. They also ran a pub.

 

When that marriage also failed, Goram enjoyed a four-year romance with Elaine Mitchell, a widow. He had warned himself: “She’s sexy and intelligent and if I blow this one I’ll only have myself to blame.” By 2011 she too was fed up with his errant ways and ended the relationship.

Goram claimed to have spent the last ten years of his life as a single man. He is survived by two sons from his first marriage: Danny, a businessman in England, and Lewis, who lives a private life in Scotland.

In his autobiography, The Goalie (2011), Goram did not spare himself, writing: “I sometimes ask myself how I came to be seen as a three-times married, hard-drinking, womanising maniac.” A brilliant goalkeeper, and warm and clubbable in a blokey way, they were words that he came to ponder more as he entered his middle years.

 

Andy Goram, Rangers and Scotland goalkeeper, was born on April 13, 1964. He died from oesophageal cancer on July 2, 2022, aged 58

[the gunslinger 3,366]

My favourite memory of him was an old firm game. 

 

Di Canio ran through chasing the ball but was off side as ever. he turns to go back up the park and the ball rolls through to Andy. He boots it back up the park so we can take the freekick and it hits Di Canio on the back of the head almost certainly accidentally. Di Canio turns round and shouts and balls at Andy. 

 

Meanwhile the ball rolls back to Andy. Di Canio walks away and Andy promptly pings it off the back of his head again from 40 yards away. Que utter uproar. 

 

He would have been great in the modern age of ball playing Goalies. 

Edited July 4, 2022 by the gunslinger

[Rousseau 10,663]

That save against Van Honkedonk.

 

[craig 5,199]

On 02/07/2022 at 11:13, BlackSocksRedTops said:

Rest easy Goalie. For 4/5 years in his prime he was the best in the world IMO. A sad day indeed.

There is no doubt in my mind that for that period there wasnt a keeper in the world as good as him, including the oft vaunted Schmeichel.  Goram was untouchable at times.  That performance at Elland Road will live with me forever !

 

[Gonzo79 15,294]

10 minutes ago, craig said:

That performance at Elland Road will live with me forever !

My son wants to be a goalie and I show him the highlights from that match every now and again, telling him it's the best goalkeeping performance of all time.