The Outsider

First ever cultural history of the goalkeeper, the 'loner' between the posts.

'Aloof, solitary, impassive, the crack goalie is followed in the streets by entranced small boys. He vies with the matador and the flying aces, an object of thrilled adulation. He is the lone eagle, the man of mystery, the last defender.' Nabokov (quoted here), Camus, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Joyce, even Julian Barnes . . .it's safe to say the goalkeeper hasn't always been a team player.

In THE OUTSIDER, Jonathan Wilson traces the sometimes dangerous intellectual and literary preoccupations of the keeper, and looks at how the position has secured a certain existential cool, as well as taking a deep tactical and technical look at the history of goalkeeping. Jonathan Wilson is the football correspondent for the FINANCIAL TIMES as well as writing for the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH and GUARDIAN. There has been the odd, minor work on goalkeeping in the past, but nothing like this in scope or depth.